Why Have People Gone Insane?
Understanding Emotional Needs = Understanding Yourself, Society, and The Madness of This Moment
Everyone over the age of 0 days old has hurts.
While you might have scars on your physical body, which might number into the dozens or even hundreds, there are deeper, more traumatic scars that you can’t readily see. And they’re affecting everything about you in ways you can’t even begin to understand.
To some, the notion of emotional scarring is as foreign as holding a rock from planet Mars. Others know they’ve got some hurts. Yet very few understand that there are very real ways to understand, diagnose, and heal from those hurts.
To understand what’s happening today in society, in the “new normal”, we need to look at individuals through the lenses of emotional needs. We first need to understand what this means for ourselves, then look outwards towards the individuals we encounter, and then at society as a whole.
First, what do I mean when I say “emotional needs”?
There are 10 primary emotional needs that affect a person. When these needs are met, we feel good. We feel whole, healthy, and are able to be effective in a complex world.
When they’re not met - or worse, stolen from us - we feel bad. We get hurt and develop scars, unless those hurts are treated properly. And out of those hurts, we hurt others.
Hurt people hurt people.
Here are the 10 emotional needs, in no particular order. The need for:
Respect
Security
Affection
Acceptance
Support
Encouragement
Attention
Comfort
Appreciation
Approval
You are high and low in each one of these.
To get a full understanding of what your emotional needs are, please take 5 minutes and take the Relational Needs Questionnaire at Lunchtimeinrome.com.
Shameless plug - Lunchtime In Rome is a podcast I do with a few friends where we get incredibly in depth on this entire school of thought and discipline. We’re at episode 140 and counting.
For instance, if you’re a person who has a high need for respect, like me, it’s very important that others allow you to make your own decisions. One of my pet peeves is when others speak over me, finish my sentences, or tell me what to say. That smacks at my need for respect.
On the other hand, my lowest needs are for security and support. I’m pretty ok winging it on my own.
For others, the need for security might be the top priority. Anything that comes along and challenges that need for security is a threat that needs to be dealt with, and if it’s not, that threat robs that person of their security, which leads to more hurt, which further fortifies the need for security.
It’s the need for security I want to focus on in this article, because I believe much of the reason we’re where we are is that the masses of individuals who have continued to stay afraid, stay mass formed, have an incredibly high need for security - and those in power know it and are exploiting it.
In fact, those same powers-that-be worked very hard to create that very need in the first place. They’ve intentionally sown seeds of fear, anxiety, lack, mistrust and anger for decades. Centuries. And they’ve been doing it 24/7 through the news cycle, through scripted wars, through movies, and much more.
It’s just been one more thing they’ve stolen from us.
As I said, these needs are either UNMET - you don’t get them from someone else when you need them - or they’re STOLEN.
It’s into this barren landscape, primed for fear, desperate for security, that they’ve dumped their toxic waste. Those of use with eyes to see understand that the security that these people so desperately crave will always just be out of reach. Promised, never attained. It becomes like a drug, intoxicating, in need of the next hit, and regardless of what that hit looks like, they’re willing to do it. Triple mask? Got it. Endless jabs? Sign me up now.
Here’s what you can do. Take that relational needs test. Figure out what needs you’re high and low on. Start to understand yourself better. Dive into the podcasts over at Lunchtimeinrome.com to see the bigger picture of how this all works together. Join us at the table over there.
Master yourself, heal, discover new relief, because if you’re walking around, bleeding out emotionally, you’re not going to be much use to your neighbor. And we all need you in this fight as healthy as you can be. :-)