Needs Have Their Own Cycle To Fulfill

Needs feed on little alarms that pop up in me so I can satisfy them. Once I satisfy them, I feel complete, full, calm, and can move on to solving other needs as they arise. For our mental, physical and emotional health it is essential to listen to them, identify them and channel them. If not, associated physical or psychological disorders often appear.

They can be of many types: physiological, existential, emotional… and they all speak of something that is important to us. They are our authenticity alarm, so to speak. They are intimately connected with our true essence and, therefore, we have to be able to identify them in order to resolve them.

But as human beings we are sometimes a little complicated, and we take care of amputating some parts of this needs-satisfaction cycle ourselves. We have already tried to make “deaf ears” to an alarm, or to complete it in half because we do not know how to separate ourselves from the object that helps us to satisfy it.

Resistances prevent us from meeting many of the needs we have

There are many ways to not complete this cycle, and they all have to do with resistances and fears that keep us from doing what we really need to do. We cannot deny our nature, nor forget that sometimes there are needs we want to satisfy, but social or ethical conventions will delay our attempt.

Human beings are very complex. There is an intense and primary “animal instinct” that survives in us that we cannot deny, and there is an ethics and a moral that underlies much of our culture that we cannot ignore either. We need to find a balance in ourselves, and know when we’re being held back for one reason or another.

Complicated? It’s an interesting way to listen to yourself as honestly as possible, and see how our decisions are influenced by many reasons. Reasons that, as I said, can range from a purely animal instinct to a cultural one.

The needs satisfaction cycle consists of 7 successive steps :

1. Feeling

It is the perception of imbalance. Therefore, our body needs it to restore balance and be able to satisfy our organism. An example could be when we feel discomfort in our bowels because we are hungry, or when we simply notice a strange sensation that already puts us on alert to watch over it.

2. Consciousness

When we become aware of this feeling, we identify our need. Following the above example, I become aware that my insides are trying to communicate, so I am hungry. Oh ok! My insides were making noise because I feel hungry. Or we can, for another example, realize that we feel lonely and need to get in touch with someone dear…

3. Energization

Once I identify and become aware of my need, I move on to the next step. I start to move. My body absorbs this energy that moves me to do something important to me. “Oh I’m hungry! Then I can go to the kitchen.” Or, if in the previous example we were aware of our need for contact with another person, we can now know which person we want to contact and this mobilizing energy will help us take the next step.

4. Action

In this step, since we are already able to perform the action, we have to perform it. We are aware of what we need and we will fix it. We decided to call our friend because he is the person we like to be in touch with.

5. Contact

In contact, we can finally satisfy our need. If we were hungry and went to the kitchen to get that food that satiates us, now is when we can finally feed ourselves. Now is when we also contact our friend and have the conversation we needed. We are aware that this contact is relieving our loneliness for a moment.

6. Achievement

At this stage we enjoy the contact we got. We give ourselves a taste of savoring the experience we’ve just had. I was able to do what my body asked of me and I feel satisfied with it. It is a moment of pleasure for having fulfilled what you wanted.

7. Withdrawal

After this wonderful experience that fed me so much, I withdraw. I need to rest from this contact. I say goodbye to my friend, I say goodbye to what so much joy and serenity brought me. But, oh heavens! … How complicated it is sometimes to separate from what filled us so much. Separate yourself from those who filled this void…

As you can see, in each of these 7 steps I can run into problems and, in turn, I can amputate the entire cycle without actually finishing it. Why? For fears, for anticipating disasters, for having strongly rooted beliefs about how to “do things” for cultural and ethical reasons, etc.

The important thing is to be aware of these needs that we all have and that often have to do with love (this vital need to establish a relationship with another being, in which we give and receive affection), with security (the lack of security in us it provokes feelings of fear, anguish, anxiety, which we have to listen to) and with freedom (the lack of freedom makes us feel angry, feel trapped).

So, as you can see, satisfying our needs is not a whim but protecting us, especially when we are talking about a lack of love, security and freedom. So… let’s not turn a deaf ear to these feelings! That way we can start and complete the full cycle.