Approval seeking and self seeking : some reflections

I borrowed an interesting book by Byron Katie from the library last week, called, I Need Your Love – Is That True? : How to Stop Seeking, Love, Approval, and Attention and Start Finding Them Instead. And after reading a further chapter in Michael Brown’s book The Presence Process this morning it got me to thinking of how much of our life from an early age can be geared around seeking attention, care, support and approval of others, for after all as babies we cannot just take care of our own needs but rely on our caregivers to do it for us. From our earliest days our health and survival depends upon how well we are ‘mirrored’ or attuned to by caregivers and lots can happen that damages us when we don’t get the receptivity in return or the ability to be ‘seen into’ and reflected back to in order to come into a state of authentic self awareness and self acceptance of what lives inside of us and tries to express its self outwards into the world and through relationship.

It is interesting to me that lately when I have been being hammered by my inner critic it seems to be the voice of my Mum’s inner child who comes through expressing so much distress about having been whipped out of classes to clean the chapel from a young age and forced to polish the lead floor until it shone. I think of how alone she was and how hard Nana was on her as a child and of how little true affection she was ever shown. I was sharing about all of this with my nephew last night and he says he experiences the exact same as his mother continued to carry on the OCD behaviour and it escalated in time into full blown bi polar disorder following her aneurysm.

I have also been thinking about how I learned to put many of my own needs aside due to a mother and a father who did not seem that interested in meeting them or even noticing them when I was younger. I think its easier now for me to focus on what others need from me than to think about what it is I need and to be so called selfish or self focused.

If you don’t know about Michael Brown’s work on the Presence Process he recommends a process of 15 minutes of focused breathwork every day to connect to our inner life, the aim of which is to open our awareness to the many ways we react to things outside of us in life and how often old feelings get triggered. Many of us with PTSD already do this kind of work and it bears some interesting fruit.

The feelings most often triggered are anger, sadness or fear and as many of us know a fear of being abandoned can lead us to engage at times in acts of self betrayal as well as in forms of seeking love and approval from outside that damage us. Some of us also attract partners who wish to control us or put us down or try to get us to meet their needs instead of meeting them themselves. Some of us become victims not realising the power we do have to validate ourselves and meet our own needs.

Of course not all of our needs can be met from within ourselves and as social animals we really do need love, support and connection with others. Much recent research shows that those who live alone or have difficulties with attachment are far more prone to develop illness of the cardiovascular system. Over caring can be just as damaging if it leads us to neglect our own needs. I have borrowed another book on Non Violent communication in which the author Oren Jay Softer addresses these issues and lists in a very comprehensive way some of our many human needs under the headings : Physical sustenance, Security, Connection (Appreciation, Harmony, Tenderness, Warmth), Community (Belonging, Equality, Inclusion, Sharing), Understanding, Meaning, To Matter (Acceptance, Care, Respect, Being seen, heard and understood), Freedom, Leisure and Transcendance.

Just reading through this list actually made me realise how much so many of us often have to deny what it is we really needed if we lived with chronic emotional (and need) neglect in from childhood onwards.

So the debate is on, what is it that we need from others? How are we best to care for ourselves and others while working to retain true intimacy and connection in relationship? How effectively can we advocate to identify and then work towards getting our needs met? For it seems to me that until we can recognise or identify a lack or need we will not go far in getting those needs met and for some of us who had to cope alone or were conditioned to do so or put aside our own needs in order to care for others we will continue to suffer until we can begin to identify and advocate for our own needs.

I have been thinking too today of my Catholic education which often tended to equate self sacrifice with goodness. So the ideal may have been to become needless or wantless instead of realising that having needs and desires for fulfilment is not selfish, wrong or bad, but is actually very healthy. Those of us who suffer from dark narcissism are often forced to not draw attention to ourselves or seek for connection or desire or want things that are just natural for a human being to need or want.

Identifying our needs and developing a balanced relationship with them form the groundwork for being able to express ourselves and engage effectively in dialogue. When we understand what matters most, – we can de-escalate tension, nurture empathy, and support collaboration. The more we know oru own needs and trust our ability to meet them, the more space we have to hear others. At the same time, identifying other’s needs allow us to make heartfelt connections across differences. We gain the ability to sense the deeper values behind positions quiet different from our own . Views that may seem incomprehensive on the surface become expressions of our shared humanity. When we understand one another’s inner life, our priorities often re-organise. Contacting the universal quality of our needs, the sense of identification with “my needs” or “your needs” can soften, and we experience the situation from a different perspective. All of the needs present matter, regardless of which person they happen to be located in. Out of this deeper connection, our need for compassion may rise to the surface and create the space from a different outcome.

Another important thing to consider is that sometime we may say we ‘need’ something from someone else or for ourselves and it may just be a ‘want’. If we can sometimes let go and know there is nothing wrong with others not providing that said want for us or struggling to attain it ourselves we can get into a more grateful, peaceful and gracefully aligned state of mind. We can search for other ways to get it met or drop it and focus on something else that is nourishing instead of getting stressed or bent out of shape when it fails to be attained.