Have you ever been told you are needy?
And if you have, what was your reaction to it?
This is the power of neediness.
In fact, take a moment now and focus on what your reaction or response is to me saying “you are needy” and “you are driven by neediness”.
Traditionally, my reaction used to be very similar to one that I’ve observed many people express “No, I’m not, I’m not needy, I’m independent, I don’t need anyone”.
And the response I get from a family member who often says to me, “Oh I hate that word”. And she squirms when she hears it.
For most of us, we view neediness as a weakness. We even view it as we are being pathetic and that we are clingy and dependent.
Yet, neediness is something, every single human being experiences and all of us have some level of neediness. Yet the focus of our neediness can be different on the surface. But it comes back to two to three common areas of neediness that we all are looking for and experience at a deeper level.
Surprise, surprise, for this blog I am going to explore neediness.
Neediness is the least talked about, human process.
Why? Because people are uncomfortable with it and get squirmy with it.
And boy, neediness has so much power over us. It is the most unrecognized process, yet felt so very strongly within us and the most underestimated process.
And I say “underestimated” because neediness is one of the most powerful influences on what we see, what we hear, how we interpret things, how we feel, what we’re drawn to, what we reach out for, what we cling to, what and whom we rely on for our decision-making and our reactions and actions.
You may be saying to yourself right now “I am not needy.”
ARE YOU NEEDY?
So some questions for you to explore:
- How often do you check your phone and social media?
- What are you looking for when you check your phone?
- Do you check to see if anybody has liked your posts?
- Do you check to see if someone’s rung you?
- Do you check your emails regularly?
And maybe if you are doing these things, is it because you need to know if the person you are waiting for, has contacted you? Or it may be because you need to know that you are important enough to someone that they will reach out to you. And if you are important to someone then you feel of value. And if you are of value, then you feel loved. And if you are loved you feel safe and secure in yourself.
And more questions:
- Do you fight or argue a point?
- Do you have to be heard?
- Do you have to get your opinion across?
If you do, then neediness will be driving your approach.
- Are you someone who says, “is that right” at the end of their sentences?
- Or do you say “know what I mean”?
- Or “do you understand what I’m saying”?
These are all subconscious comments that we make that are evidence that we are needy at some level. Needy to be reassured. And needy to be heard. As well as needy to be understood.
And neediness is one of the key five processes that surface and become prominent controllers that drive our life and existence until we build a relationship with it.
NEEDINESS THE PROMINENT CONTROLLER
As a result of the impacting experiences that we have during our lives. One of the key prominent processes and emotions we experience as a result of these experiences is vulnerability.
Vulnerability
We become conditioned to experience and feel vulnerable as a result of sharing who we truly are and others not accepting us.
We express our truth. We share our emotional responses, but how we express ourselves is not accepted by other people. And through that non-acceptance process, we learn that it’s not safe and secure to show our truth, show our true self, and show and express our soul self. If we do, then we will not be accepted again. And we will be judged and rejected. And that hurts.
This is what our experiences condition us to believe.
We go without what we naturally deserve. And that which is our right to experience- that which is natural to us. Acceptance, love, understanding, and caring.
In experiencing going without, we end up with a ‘lack of’, ‘a deficiency’ as we go without. And the ‘lack of’ creates emotional holes of neediness within us. Along with the neediness to fill those emotional holes and to have what we truly deserve.
And that’s the most bizarre thing.
Neediness is borne out of becoming emotionally attached to filling these holes. So we look to people, beings, consumables, objects, substances, and more to try and fill our emotional neediness and our emotional wounds and holes. And whilst all of that is happening, we also experience self-doubt. We doubt our ability to actually fill these emotional holes ourselves.
Self-Doubt
We doubt our ability to be who we truly are because our true self is made wrong. And the moment we experienced self-doubt, we became needy for reassurance. Reassure me that I can do this because if you reassure me, then I’ll feel safe and secure.
And during this process, we also experience the fourth area that has a big influence on us.
A Lack Of Self-Belief
We lose sight of our connection to our faith and our knowing – the voice of our soul. And we disconnect from the qualities and attributes, that is natural to us as human beings, and as souls.
So we search for being loveable, being accepted, and experiencing these qualities through others. And so neediness is yet again a part of our process.
The deficiency of being connected to who we truly are and our own self-acceptance drives us to find and need acceptance from others.
A Lack Of Self-Worth
The process which people talk about the most which are intertwined with neediness and are strongly attached to it – is our lack of self-worth. Where we are needy, to be important, to be of value. And we search for our worth through how other people view us, and how other people treat us, because if we are of value then we are of worth, and then we feel safe and secure.
Neediness is attached to every single one of these fundamental processes that surface within us as part of our human experience of being rejected, of not being accepted, and of having experiences where we protect ourselves, where we reject ourselves and where we disconnect from who we truly are.
And the crazy thing is that what we are needy of is actually within us.
What we become emotionally attached to is what we actually naturally deserve, which if we lived in the ideal world, we all actually would be sharing what we deserve.
We would be our natural selves. And there would be no neediness. There would be no vulnerability or any of the other three processes.
THE POWER OF NEEDINESS
The power of neediness is that you experience a feeling, like when you are hungry and you crave food. You feel that if you don’t get some food, you’re going to fall over or you’re going to die.
Instead of needing food, we crave what we are needy of.
It is our emotional attachment to filling these emotional holes that we become desperate about, feel and crave.
It takes various different levels of intensity of our neediness to trigger us, so that we actually take action, to find what we need, to try and fill the emotional holes within us. And we look for external things to do so.
As it was external things that didn’t give us what we rightfully deserved to receive. It was the people around us as we were growing up due to their vulnerability, their neediness, and their lack of self-worth, that contributed to us experiencing a ‘lack of’.
They were not able to give us what was rightfully ours to receive. And we unconsciously believe that if they couldn’t give it to us, then maybe someone else will. And in the process, we forget how to give what we are needy of to ourselves and to stay connected to those parts of ourselves.
THE IMPACTING POWER OF NEEDINESS
So the power of neediness is that it can almost consume and take you over.
It is so overwhelming at times, especially with the energy that comes with it.
I know because one of the things I went without, as I was growing up was physical hugs and connection. Especially from my father.
I kept a distance from him as the energy did not feel right. He never did anything physically to me from a sexual perspective, but I got beatings from him.
So I went without having that nurturing, safe, physical space, that every child should naturally expect to receive from a father. I experienced the opposite of that.
So in my relationships, the moment I received affection, and the moment I received some comfort and hugs, and I felt safe, my neediness would start pouring out of me and oozing from my pores.
And I just wanted more and more and more because the girl in me from the age of about 10 or 11, who started experiencing the opposite of what I deserved was craving for that. I was looking to the men in my life to give me what my father did not give me.
And that’s where we place our partners in the role of our parents. We look to them to give us that emotional safety and security, to give us that love, to make us feel of worth and value. To fill our ‘lack of’.
But they are not responsible for parenting us.
And this is how codependent relationships come about and where we end up with the suspicion, paranoia, fear of being left, and fear of losing what we have because we’re so scared of losing what we are needy of.
We begin to believe that if others leave our lives or if they don’t give us what we need, then we are going to go without, them for the rest of our lives.
I’ve met young men and actually young ladies whose partners are texting them constantly all day long. It’s their need to feel safe and secure.
Needing to know that their partner is there for them, that they love them, and that they care for them. And I was one of those individuals for a number of years.
What is really sad, is how much they and all of us have gone without. And what we can end up doing is suffocating the life out of our partner, friends, and family.
For some people, it actually fills their neediness, that they are wanted and needed. Their neediness to feel in control, helps them to feel safe, and secure.
And they can even use another person’s neediness so that the person is even more dependent on them. But that’s because they’re needier than the person they are trying to make dependent on them.
See how powerful neediness is.
THE TRUE PURE POWER OF NEEDINESS
When you truly surrender to your neediness and you realize that no one on the outside of you can actually fill the neediness holes within you. That only you can and only you can fill and heal these emotional holes in you.
You make the lack of that you experienced and the neediness you feel OK. And you grow your acceptance and love of your neediness.
And this is the other side of how powerful neediness is. When you own your neediness, you are willing to look at the rawness of yourself. You are willing to look at the hurt and the absolute truth of what is going on inside of you.
And for you to do that, you take your blinkers off, you take your rose-tinted neediness glasses and you see the truth you have not been facing. Then when you face your truth, and you surrender into your neediness, you surrender into feeling what you felt in your younger years, and it’s gentle.
You are willing to own your truth, own you, love and accept you, in owning your neediness.
Your neediness is a part of you. That’s crying out, saying “I am here and please can I have what I truly deserve – from you?”
You can help that boy or girl in you that went without so that they start to receive from you what they experienced a lack of. And you give to these parts of you the attention that they’ve been craving from you.
YOU BEGIN TO RECEIVE WHAT YOU ARE NEEDY OF FROM OTHERS BECAUSE YOU DESERVE TO
You don’t need to go without anymore like you used to. Because you can fill your neediness yourself. And when you give to yourself, you begin to receive what you have gone without from others.
For many years I was needy to be different. I would do outrageous outlandish things to get attention because I was needy for it. And I was needy to be different so that I was special and of value and worth. And then that made me feel safe and secure.
And when I started acknowledging my difference, when I started seeing it, loving it, and valuing it, in myself, without needing others to see it. This was when the emotional wounds, my lack of started to fill with an abundance of value, an abundance of worth. And the more I owned my neediness, the more comfortable and familiar I was with it, the more it stopped being an issue, and the more joy I got from it.
Joy in being able to go up to my partner and even my work colleagues and say, “Hey, I am needy and would love some reassurance right now because I’m not trusting my knowing and gut feeling. Are you happy to help me out here?”
And if they said, yes, fantastic. It wasn’t something that filled me, but it was something that I received that I deserved to experience, and that was support and help from others.
And if I didn’t receive what I was needy of, then I wasn’t emotionally impacted by it because I knew that I would process through was I was thinking and feeling and reassure myself, even if it took me a little bit longer to get there.
The power of neediness is while you are dependent on other things and other people for your wellbeing and your happiness, and for them to fill what you’re needy of, you give them your personal power.
You are easily impacted by what they do, say, and do not do and say. They have the power over you to make you feel terrible or to make you feel wonderful because you have become reliant on them because you gave them the responsibility to be your parent.
You gave them responsibility for your emotional well-being.
TAKE BACK YOUR PERSONAL POWER
So it’s time to take back your personal power and be independent and be open to receiving what you do deserve.
It is being able to voice that you are needy and not to feel shame, not to reject it but to make it okay and embrace your neediness.
Not to judge yourself as weak or pathetic or clingy or codependent but instead to own your neediness.
For you to stop putting your neediness energy on other people rather keep it to yourself and fill your own neediness.
For you to work with your neediness and support others who are needy of you to fill their own neediness. And encourage their own independence and healing process.
Then what we can ultimately have is relationships where we are all independent but have interdependence where we share responsibilities, where we still care and express love, but it’s done from a place of deservedness or worth rather than a ‘lack of’. Where it is shared from a place of abundance, fullness, and richness.
OWN YOUR NEEDINESS
I encourage you to take a moment with me and on three to voice out loud, “I am needy”.
And the purpose of doing this is for you to take steps, to become more comfortable, more familiar, and more accepting of your neediness and more comfortable with yours.
And as you become comfortable with neediness you will support those around you to grow their comfort with their own neediness.
So on 3 – 1, 2, 3, “I am needy”.
“I am needy and I own it and I love it”
There is power in owning your neediness. So take back your personal power, take back responsibility for your own emotional wellbeing.
Place that responsibility in your hands and look inwards as to how you can fill your own neediness and grow your love, of your emotional wounds and your ‘lack of’ and heal and fill your neediness.
You can make a beautiful difference with your neediness.