Just as we have physical needs (for example for food and water) we also have emotional needs.
11 to be precise.
These 11 universal, that is unavoidable, biological, written into our DNA, emotional needs must be met through one way or another in order for us to experience true mental wellbeing and live a life that feels authentically successful and fulfilling to us.
Yet these 11 emotional needs are less well known than our physical needs because they are less obvious.
In fact it’s likely no one has ever laid them out for you.
However, their being less well known does not make them any less real or the repercussions of not meeting them or meeting them any less impactful.
When any one of or a combination of these emotional needs go chronically unmet in our lives, we develop emotional disorders.
Emotional disorders including (but not limited to) depression, anxiety, OCD, eating disorders and addiction.
It is true that these mental disorders can sometimes be due to imbalances in brain chemistry and other biological causes. However, this is not always the case and sometimes these mental disorders can be no more than an unconscious attempt to satisfy one or more of these 11 emotional needs that has gone unmet for a long while.
In any case there is the question of which came first the chemical imbalance or the emotional need not being met?…
If we are unaware of our unconscious attempts to fulfil these needs we can go our whole lives at war within ourselves.
And indeed some people do spend their whole existence wondering why they wash their hands 100 times a day or binge eat in their car on the way home from work and why we can’t just stop washing our hands 100 times a day or eat healthy when we have all the education on what to do that would be better for us and wisdom into why we should.
Understanding and accepting these 11 emotional needs is a game changer.
Understanding these 11 emotional needs gives us a real means of understanding why we do what we do, including even the most seemingly bizarre of behaviours.
Understanding these 11 emotional needs also allows us to gain a deep level of understanding and compassion towards the seemingly strange things other people do.
And there is immense freedom to be found in that – many schools of thought around changing “problems” including hypnosis and meditation recognise that the first step to change is acceptance.
“You cannot fix a problem you are not first willing to have”.
The next step beyond understanding and accepting that you have these needs is where the magic is and where I work with my clients.
It’s now time to use the knowledge.
It’s now time to go about ways of getting those needs met in healthy ways that serve the person you want to be and the life you want to live.
This is what it means to not just strive for but actually experience the living of a genuinely successful and fulfilling life.
What Are The 11 Primal Emotional Needs? (Based on the “Human Givens”)
1. Security and safety.
The need to feel safe and certain that there is a solid level of reliability in your environment.
It is only from a place of safety that we can allow ourselves to step out, explore and develop fully.
2. Attention
The need to both give and receive attention and interest to and from other people.
3. Sense of autonomy and control
The need to believe you have choice and some say over your life.
4. Emotional intimacy
The need to feel accepted for who you are, exactly as you are.
To feel there is at least one person who accepts you just as you are.
5. Community
The need to belong to something larger than yourself and feel you are making a useful contribution to that.
6. Privacy
The need for time alone to reflect and learn from your experiences.
7. Sense of status
The need to feel a sense of significance or importance.
That who we are and what we do is valued.
8. Sense of self-ableness, achievement and growth
The need to feel as though you are able to overcome challenges and are continuously bettering yourself.
9. Fun and joy
The need to have fun sometimes and feel life is pleasurable.
10. Mind-Body Connection
The need to listen to and respond to the feedback from our body and our mind’s influence on our body.
11. Meaning
The need to feel there is meaning and purpose to the life you are living.
This often comes with overcoming challenges.
How Do I Know If I’m Meeting These Needs?
How do I know if I’m meeting these emotional needs in my life?
You’ll know.
You’ll know because you’ll have the feeling that something is missing.
If you truly don’t know if you are or are not then I’d highly encourage you to sit down and have the conversation with someone in your life who’s close to you, knows you well and whose opinion you trust because they can help you identify areas where you may be lacking.
Or better yet go and see a therapist!
Preferably a hypnotherapist or someone who works predominantly with the unconscious mind as it is here where these needs exist and therefore here where these needs must be met.
Outside of these three options here’s a few questions you could begin to ask yourself to see if you are lacking in any of the areas:
- How often do I catch up with friends? How close do I feel to them when I do? [Need: Attention and community]
- Is there someone (or many people) in my life who I feel loved and accepted for who I am when I am around them? [Attention and Intimacy].
- What choice do you have over what you do in your life and your future? [Control and security]
- Do you feel excited and inspired by some things in your life? [Purpose and meaning]
- Are you happy with what you eat? [Mind-body connection]
These are just a few quick examples and you can come up with plenty more to really get your mind thinking.
The Next Step: Addressing the Needs You May Be Lacking
Addressing the need or needs, you feel you may be lacking is important because otherwise you’ll be doing little more than patching up symptom after symptom for the rest of your life as you replace one way of meeting a need with another.
What do I mean by this?
You may have seen someone (or yourself) rather than give up an addiction and move on, just swap the addiction for another (for example giving up drinking and taking up smoking, giving up smoking and taking up overeating or giving up smoking and becoming a “gym junkie”).
When you address the underlying emotional need the addiction is meeting, you’re able to give up the addiction (for example) without simply substituting it for another equally or more harmful one.
As children getting our emotional needs met is pretty straightforward. We are happy to simply ask to get our needs for attention, connection, love and affection met. Think about how many times a two-year-old insists you watch them do something and you’ll know what I mean.
However, when we are adults we have had too many experiences where our need for attention wasn’t met or where we were made to feel silly for asking.
We come to learn unconsciously that asking for attention is somehow wrong and we avoid it or may not even recognise it’s what we’re lacking.
Instead of recognising that we need attention and asking for it we go about all sorts of odd unconscious ways of getting attention. After all there is no escaping the fact that attention is an emotional need not a choice which means your body will therefore do anything within its means to get it.
Examples of Practical Ways of Meeting Your Emotional Needs
The intricacies and details by which you truly fulfil your 11 emotional needs will be unique to you.
They must be for an authentic life!
However, as some prompts to help you think about ways you might go about meeting some of your needs here are a few examples from my life:
- Spending quality time with my family and friends (need: community and intimacy)
Playing board games, sharing a meal, going for a walk, climbing a mountain or telling stories, talking about memories or plans and future goals.
- Sharing massage and intimate touch with someone important to me (attention and intimacy)
Attention and affection are some of my top values so this one is always high on my list of priorities and I know having lived with anorexia nervosa for 15 years it was certainly something I denied myself which may be why I appreciate it so much more now.
- Eating well (mind-body connection)
Making sure I have a good supply of food at home by doing a weekly shop at a local market is one of the ways I honour my mind-body connection because I know the nutrition we have on board allows our brains to function optimally or sub-optimally and I want to be at the top of my game when working with my clients and living my life.
- Surfing (fun and enjoyment)
Surfing, swimming and being at and in the ocean fills my need for life to be enjoyable and to do something simply for the fun and pleasure I experience doing it.
When I was sick with anorexia nervosa fun was something, I never allowed myself, everything was about perfection and robotic productivity so this, as with intimacy is an area I now take great delight revelling in.
- Fulfilling Work (purpose and meaning)
My work is one of my highest drivers in life.
What I do for a living is connected to and directly fuels my passion and meaning.
It is at the same time highly challenging and requires me to better myself on a daily basis.
Final Thoughts
I hope you find these 11 emotional needs not only curious or interesting in helping you to understand why we do the things we do, release some of the pressure from yourself and others but also that you go the next step and intentionally make use of them in your life.
As you can see from the examples I’ve given above on everyday ways I go about meeting some of these 11 universal emotional needs in my life none of them are necessarily massive or overwhelmingly unachievable.
The actions are simple.
And yet, as with all things in life their value and magic are realised not in our understanding of them but in our doing of them.
So, get out there and experiment with different ways you can go about meeting your 11 emotional needs in fulfilling and healthful ways and rather than watch how your life changes, feel how your life changes.
With my whole heart I hope you find this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
