I’m working to clarify my emotional needs so that I can better understand myself. I unintentionally completed the following exercise (because I love putting process to things to find clarity) and discovered some old stories and how they have evolved into my current stories about my emotional identity.
Side Note: Even when I was doing this exercise, I used “I want…” as my starter phrase, so… taking a moment to acknowledge yet again how strong desire seems to be at my core.
Core Emotional Needs
I started by brainstorming what seem to be my core emotional needs:
- Safety
- Stability
- Trust
- Clarity
- Acceptance
- Understanding
- Value
- Support
- Success
- Growth
- Appreciation
- Impact
- Freedom
- Agency
- Opportunity
- Encouragement
- Fulfillment
- Alignment
- Equality
- Respect
- Inclusion
- Power
- Challenge
I am hoping that these are shared core emotions that other people need, too, because the one that appeared the loudest was that I want understanding. I so badly want to be understood because I have felt misunderstood most of my life.
I Want…
I then started looking for other words that spoke to me at volume. The list evolved to I want (likely in subconscious order of priority):
- Understanding: I want others to understand me.
- Agency: I want the power to choose.
- Support: I want others to help me.
- Impact: I want to help others.
- Growth: I want to evolve.
- Trust: I want others to trust me.
Side Note: I am acknowledging my embarrassment that so many of these emotions rely on others.
The remainder of the list had less of an emotional response:
- Acceptance
- Value
- Encouragement
- Fulfillment
- Safety
- Stability
- Clarity
- Success
- Appreciation
- Freedom
- Opportunity
- Alignment
- Equality
- Respect
- Inclusion
- Power
- Challenge
From Within
Since desire is seemingly important, this delineation between emotions that got me to react and those that did not get me to react, I questioned if the emotions that did not yield a strong response were potentially emotions that I rarely seek. The words began to speak loudly again.
I can confidently say that these are the emotions I rarely seek from others and tend to fulfill from within myself because their meaning doesn’t include “others” when I define them:
- Acceptance: I accept myself.
- Encouragement: I encourage myself.
- Value: I value myself.
- Fulfillment: I feel fulfillment with who I am.
Pretty sure that for those who know me and know that I have a lot of confidence would recognize that ego is the reason I don’t look for these emotions in others. I conjure them regularly in myself. I recognize that these emotions, which I contain strongly in my sense of self, empower me daily. It is the reason why I don’t weigh the opinions of strangers highly or why I am easily proud of myself without praise or (possibly) why I don’t routinely live in an emotional place of fear, etc. That is not to say I don’t seek these emotions elsewhere, it’s just a low frequency.
My reaction after this part of the exercise was astonishment. Then I just felt really really satisfied that my belief system also has a lot of self-guided love.
What to do with the remainder of the list? How can I categorize for further clarity?
Side Note: I recognize that clarity does not solely come from analyzing, but that’s my only real skillset at the moment, so I’m using what I have access to. I hope that in the future I can find clarity in other ways.
Privilege
Thanks to my friend, J, I have become more comfortable at admitting my privilege and learning to put that lens into play, so I asked myself if some of these emotions that didn’t resonate were in fact things I never needed as a child. What were the emotions that I had gifted to me:
- Inclusion
- Opportunity
- Safety
Taking a moment of gratitude to acknowledge that these very important emotions were things I had the great honor of feeling regularly since I was brought into this world. I may have had moments of these, but overall, they never became necessary to consider day to day. What a privilege. I am so lucky. I am so. very. lucky.
Old Stories
So what are these other words that initially came from my brain, but no longer have a category? With a little thought, I saw that these are my old stories:
- Clarity
- Alignment
- Equality
- Freedom
- Stability
- Appreciation
- Success
- Challenge
- Power
- Respect
These became clear as old stories because I could visualize their importance in my past and they looked like the evolution of my current “I Want…” list above.
| OLD “I WANT…” STORY | CURRENT “I WANT…” STORY |
| Clarity & Alignment | Understanding |
| Equality & Freedom | Agency |
| Stability | Support |
| Appreciation & Success | Impact |
| Challenge | Growth |
| Power & Respect | Trust |
I want to keep going, but I recognize that I am exhausted and because I am heeding the words of my therapist, I am going to take a break so that I can continue being helpful to myself (and others) and not harmful to myself (or others).
I endeavor to come back later with deeper thoughts on how my old stories evolved into my current stories.
End Note: I was given a new tool today and I challenge myself to use it. I previously said that I recognize that clarity does not solely come from analyzing, but that’s my only real skillset at the moment, so I’m using what I have access to. I hope that in the future I can find clarity in other ways. My new tool to use is “gifting myself a break.” Thanks, D.
