What Do You Need Today?

The past ten days, with a trip to New York City to address the Imago therapists there, has been a whirlwind of activity. I had lovely visits with a friend from childhood and new friends I met through Janene Sneider, a medical intuitive and therapist I've enjoyed knowing and working with over the past five years. On Monday, she and I had a very exciting work and collaborative session on the new book she is creating. Best of all, I saw my daughter and her husband and their four children in Connecticut. There were soccer games for the three older children, swim practice for one, and fun with my youngest grandson who is three. The weather was beautiful and warm. It was a magical time.

When I returned to Oklahoma City on Wednesday, I was immediately back to work at my office seeing clients. On Thursday night we had the first in a series of free evening seminars I'm presenting this year. The topic was Stopping Self Sabotage. I enjoyed being with the group that attended and received good reports from them about the experience. If you're in this area, I hope you'll come next month on November 3 when the topic will be Making Friends with your Needs and Feelings. Let me share with you some of my thoughts about what our needs actually are.

I invite you to take a moment to ask yourself how long it has been since you really considered your needs and whether or not you are taking them into account and providing for them? Though this seems an obvious responsibility all of us face, I often find that when I ask this question people are puzzled and tell me they haven't really thought about what they need and don't have a clear idea what their needs actually are. It's all too easy for us to be caught up in activities and pursuits that we imagine will bring us satisfaction and personal reward only to discover that they fall far short of the mark.

Our culture holds up lots of false gods for us to lust after - money, eternal youth, sex, the "in" styles, having the perfect body, being the "right" size, living a glamorous lifestyle, having the "in" material goods, the ideal house, the perfect relationship, and big reserves of "financial security." Sooner or later we discover that attaining these goals doesn't satisfy what ails us. We can be just as miserable when we "arrive" as we were when we started the chase.

We pay a huge price for being so out of touch with ourselves and what our needs really are. Eventually our bodies alert us to how we neglect ourselves and our genuine spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical needs. Even then, we may not heed the call to examine what we're up to and why we do what we do. Instead we keep right on the path we've worn for ourselves, somehow imagining that this time things will be different. The next hurdle we jump, the next thing we buy, produce, consume, or seek will be the answer to our angst.

I say it's time to stop ignoring our real needs by stopping to ask ourselves what they actually are. Here are some questions to ponder:

Do you get enough sleep?
Do you listen to your body about what you really want and need to eat?
Are you allowing yourself adequate quiet, alone time?
Is there time for contact with friends?
Are you allowing consistent time for genuine connection with your partner, your family, your children?
Do you give yourself time for play?
Are you exercising your body regularly?
How much time do you allow yourself for relaxing?
Are you honoring your sexual needs?
Do you spend time in nature? Near or in water? Enoying sunshine? Going for a walk?
Are you tuned into your feelings and do you allow yourself to express them in appropriate ways?
Are you providing for your mental enrichment needs?
How often do you honor your needs to be creative?
How are you serving others?
Do you feel that you are being true to your life purposes?
Are you attuned to your spiritual needs and committed to honoring them?

As you consider these questions, let yourself imagine how you might feel and be if you could honestly say that these genuine needs that all of us share were richly fulfilled in your life. Instead of hiding your exhausted, needy, hurting self behind the chase for all those seductive substitutes our culture pushes us to pursue, take time to picture yourself free to be all you are created and deserve to be.

Then ask yourself, where will I be five years from now if I remain on the track I'm on now? Where will I be five years from now if I stop the chase, take my genuine needs into account, and nurture myself as I would hope my children, when they become adults, will also choose to do?

Then make your choice, remembering to renew your commitment to yourself moment by moment as you create your days, weeks, and years to come. It's all about living in love and letting go of the fears that drive us to ignore and neglect our needs for the real stuff of life.