Tending to our True Needs

“I Don’t Even Know What I Need”

Something I hear a lot from my students and clients is: I don’t even know how to think about what I need. I wouldn’t even know where to start.

Many of my clients are deep in the throes of chronic illness, so they actually do focus on themselves—but usually from the angle of How can I fix what’s wrong with me? That’s a very different question than What do I truly need?

It was a foreign concept

The idea of asking what I needed was a completely foreign concept to me for almost all of my life.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I expected a lot of myself. Early on I took on the labels of “good girl”, “performer”, “low-maintenance”, and “perfectionist”, all unconsciously of course.

School came easily, so I expected perfect grades. Sports came easily, so I expected myself to win and carry the team. Dance came easily, so I expected to see perfect lines in the mirror. I would work for hours and hours refining my performance till I felt suitably valuable.

I also took on the role of being emotionally supportive for everyone around me: encouraging, understanding, adapting, soothing, considerate, trying my best to please them in hopes of being lovable.

Underlying all of this was an assumption I wasn’t aware of at the time: that I had endless capacity to give, care, perform, and produce. And that somehow, magically, I was a human who didn’t need care, tending, attention, or even very much love.

I was trained to be independent, compliant, helpful, thoughtful, considerate—always willing to go the extra mile. “Be the one who gives the most and takes the least.” That’s what makes you valuable. That’s what makes you likable. That’s what makes people want you around.

These are all just coping strategies.

People-pleasing, caretaking, codependency—all of these behaviors are very basic coping strategies that develop when kids grow up in environments that feel unstable, especially when parents or other family members are chronically “not okay”.

Children learn that in order to protect themselves, in order to keep the system from falling apart, they must stay consistently vigilant about what others need and want.

This becomes such a default way of being that the idea of assessing their own needs—having needs, asking for needs, or just feeling authentically drawn to something—gets buried very, very deep.

Discovering Responsibility for My Own Needs

It wasn’t until I was about 37 that I learned something radical: that I was responsible for getting my own needs met. Even wilder, I was also responsible for tending to my own desire, pleasure, and fun. What??!! Up until that point, I had been unconsciously expecting other people to meet my needs with the desperate enthusiasm I was trying to meet theirs. Classic codependency, which we now know never works the way we hope it will.

After a few years of experimenting with the idea that I might deserve to enjoy my life and be nourished, I uncovered layers within my nervous system that had never, ever been tended to.

I realized it wasn’t enough to focus only on surface-level needs. If I truly wanted to heal the worn down and shattered parts of me (including all the chronic conditions I was suffering from), I would have to tend to the deepest layers, the deepest wounds buried beneath decades of coping strategies.

The first layer under the surface: a nervous system that desperately needed tending

The next big stop on my healing journey was tending to my autonomic nervous system, which was a frantic, exhausted mess. 

I was incredibly fortunate that my doctor recommended nervous system rehabilitation, which would help reverse the chronic stress and shutdown that was at the center of my laundry list of symptoms.

The first tools I learned were a form of brain retraining. This daily practice miraculously helped my anxious, depressed nervous system find moments of calm and the beginnings of safety. I diligently practiced these tools for a couple of years, and gradually my anxious reactions, chronic fatigue, and brain fog started to soften. I stopped needing so many naps, and I was slowly slowly able to do a bit more exercise. My depression felt less hopeless, and I started to believe that maybe (after 18 years of chronic conditions) I might someday feel “normal”.

Digging deeper

After a few years, though, it felt like I hit a plateau. I was grateful to not feel so deep in a ditch, but I still felt far from okay, and light years from vibrantly healthy.

That’s when I started asking myself: What do I actually need?

I would ask this out loud, repeatedly, in the middle of my nervous system practices.
What is the experience my nervous system has been yearning for? Longing for? Begging for?

Sometimes there was no answer. (but I know now that the practice of asking was a game-changer)

Sometimes the answers were very clear.
I need soothing.
I need to feel held.

Sometimes the answer would pop into my awareness, but I had no idea how to meet that need.
I need to know that I will be ok.
I need to remember what it feels like to loved.
I need to experience belonging.

After weeks and months of asking, I started receiving surprising, even creative answers.

Sometimes I’d get brief flashes of vision—myself receiving a specific kind of care. Sometimes it was a flash-feeling of being hugged or patten, or having my hair stroked. Sometimes it was a particular temperature or texture on my skin. Sometimes words would arise, as though I were hearing someone say them to me: “I’m so glad you’re here” or “I’m going to take such good care of you”.

My system was telling me. My unconscious, my deeper self, my inner child, my nervous system (which had recorded all the developmental milestones, or the lack of them) was reaching into its files and handing me the answers.

But first I had to ask: What do I truly need?

Actually receiving

A big part of brain retraining is carving out time to imagine having actual experiences. I had been doing brain retraining practices for years, but they had been focused on imagining myself DOING things, being strong and productive, being able to work and play and “produce” like a normal healthy person.

This practice of asking what I needed, though- it changed my brain retraining practice completely. I started using my practice time to focus on what would feel nourishing to me. I imagined what it would feel like to experience the kind of nourishment and care that my system was telling me it needed. And then I gave myself permission to be still, and receive, to let that nourishment sink into my being. 

Not just in my head

What absolutely astonished me is that after a few days of this practice, my health began to change. My mental health: I started having more moments of effortless peace, when my mind wasn’t racing and I just sort of automatically had a positive outlook. My physical health: I noticed fairly quickly that my digestive issues were just a little less extreme. My emotional health: I noticed less leaning and yearning outward in hopes of being loved. My inner experience of receiving what I needed (and had needed for decades) was filling me up. 

So here’s the basic practice I was doing:

• Asking “What do I reeeeeally need?” or “What would feel super nourishing to me right now?”

• Listening to whatever answers came, even if they were ridiculously simple or childish

• Using my imagination (and sometimes my voice or physical movements), giving myself the nourishing experiences my system was asking for. 

After a couple of months of this practice, I had symptoms starting to dissolve without any effort on my part. Inflammation (from MCAS), irritation, digestive issues (food allergies, bloating, constipation, etc.), circulatory issues (from POTS), etc. 

I was sleeping better, pain had disappeared, and for the first time in 20 years I was able to eat some grains! 

Continuing Practice 

Although for a couple of years I spent 15-60 minutes most days doing this practice, many of my deep unmet needs have been fulfilled. So now I just use this practice when I feel tender, depleted, or like my old coping mechanisms are trying to take over. 

Within the Primal Trust Academy, I now teach month-long classes on how to gently build this kind of practice for yourself. Even though all of this can be seen through a science lens (if we were to analyze the physiological effects of brain activity, etc.) it feels like a magical process of watching old, gaping wounds slowly and gently heal in real time.