Blog

“Just living is not enough… One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” – H. Ch. Andersen

This entry is about our basic needs. Having them listed out and summarised may be a good way to analyse our conscience and confess to ourselves – did we do our homework?

1. Survival: food & shelter + sexual

This one is very easy to understand. These are the basics, without them no other activity in our lives can be undertaken with due attention. When you feel threatened or hungry or exhausted, it’s likely you may struggle to relax, to express yourself or look into subtle intricacies of your being. It’s the easiest to throw someone into the survival mode by putting their survival at risk. How many people respond automatically and absolutely can’t control themselves? Building on that, if Incels don’t have their basic needs of sex met, it is much easier to understand their hateful ways, and really – pity them.

2. Love + Belonging

Theoretically, this one should be given for anyone who has a mother and a father. Or even just one of them. Or a substitute family. This need is so fundamental, if disruptions occur, we often lie to ourselves and pretend this need is met, even if that’s not the case. We want them satisfied so badly, that our minds make up stuff. You’re still not convinced? Have a read through this (link). Infant monkeys would choose a furry surrogate even if it had no milk. Social isolation is the worst you can do. And then there is the need to touch (see this and this, and optionally this, if you’re a subscriber to medium).

Family therapist Virginia Satir once said, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” Now go and count, how many hughs today did you have? Leave a comment how you did.

3. Power: skills

This one manifests itself in everything we undertake. We need to feel competent, and for this, we need to learn. What’s interesting, if the loving stimuli doesn’t come, to a certain extent we may compensate for it by seeking new skills, which can help us survive. This is strongly connected to our feeling of self-worth – how competent you are in being able to deal with life. How much, or how little, helplessness do you have to deal with?

After all, even wild animals that feel trapped and unable to escape, at some point just give up and wait to die. It is learned helplessness, but isn’t this exactly the repeated experience of lack of power or skills to ensure their survival?

4. Freedom: voice + emotional

When you finally address all your survival needs, you are taken care of, you belong, you feel competent and in charge – did it cross your mind that your emotional point of view needs to be expressed? Just as important one as the need to eat or sleep. There is more: when you have children, are you ready to admit it is one of their fundamental needs to express themselves, and in particular: their emotions? Can you think of how much harm are we doing to children when we say they “should be seen and not heard”? What harm are we doing to our defenseless, vulnerable and young selves when we repress our voice, our expression of emotions? Perhaps this explains the origin of all art, announcing the artist’s emotions directly and indirectly to the whole world or anyone willing to listen. Of course when we are angry, we don’t have to rant or yell at everyone around. What we could do is calmly bring the emotion to life, and simply say “I am angry”. That’s it.

We may realise Americans got it right: freedom of speech is pretty fundamental in their legal system. It is however limited by the boundaries and respect for others. Which we naturally know – a healthy and fulfilled individual has no need to express anything in a way potentially harmful for others. If our own boundaries are respected and needs are met, we mind our own business. Sometimes I think that if everyone was living in prosperity, as well as used a minimum of four years of therapy to address their childhood issues and natural or otherwise random disasters, racism or homophobia would not exist. Why would it? All that standing out from the crowd or being different does is, it makes you just a target for an eruption of anger boiling underneath the skin of unhappy people.

Have a look (here and here) and see if you agree.

5. Fun: laughter

I bet you never thought about this one. Of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy… But a need? Well, it is one. While my therapist couldn’t teach me how to have fun, he pointed out it is important, he validated that need for me. As a friendly gesture, he did provide an opportunity to satisfy it too – I had plenty of fun in the therapy room. Laughter is a way to decompress. It activates your parasympathetic system. It is necessary for your brain to develop and absorb new information. Oh look, the scientists agree! Here and here.