I’m working to clarify my emotional needs so that I can better understand myself. I completed the first part of this exercise and after exhausting myself, took a break, and endeavored to come back later with deeper thoughts on how my old stories evolved into my current stories.
These are those deeper thoughts.
| OLD “I WANT…” STORY | CURRENT “I WANT…” STORY |
| Clarity & Alignment | Understanding: I want others to understand me. |
| Equality & Freedom | Agency: I want the power to choose. |
| Stability | Support: I want others to help me. |
| Appreciation & Success | Impact: I want to help others. |
| Challenge | Growth: I want to evolve. |
| Power & Respect | Trust: I want others to trust me. |
“I Want Others to Understand Me“
Old “I Want…” Story
- Clarity: I want to understand how the world works.
- Alignment: I want others to agree with me on how the world works.
Current “I Want” Story
- Understand: I want others to understand me.
I have spent a lot of time observing and bending to the outside world while (as I mentioned) feeling misunderstood by others. I also made many attempts to force the outside world to agree with my observations. Now I think I’m desperate to be understood and learning that accepting differences makes that more possible.
And now that I type this, I realize that I also want to understand myself.
“I Want The Power to Choose”
Old “I Want…” Story
- Equality: I want, as a woman, the same rights as a man.
- Freedom: I want the ability to choose.
Current “I Want” Story
- Agency: I want the power to choose.
As a child, I felt less than being a woman. I tried to prove myself so that I could be seen as equal to men. When I gained that feeling, I also gained the ability to make choices. Now, I am hungry to feel empowered by my ability to choose and to lead myself in choice before I follow others’ choices.
“I Want Others to Help Me”
Old “I Want…” Story
- Stability: I want less chaos.
Current “I Want…” Story
- Support: I want others to help me.
My young world felt emotionally unstable so I craved stability to avoid collapse. I was able to build myself financial stability as a bandaid, but needed help with emotional stability, which I found through my husband’s loyalty and consistency. Now that I have a stable environment, I recognize that I need to create my own sense of emotional stability without him, but I still need his support through understanding (there it is again) and empathy to make that evolution. This holds true for the few people close to me.
“I Want to Help Others”
Old “I Want…” Story
- Appreciation: I want to be appreciated.
- Success: I want to be successful.
Current “I Want…” Story
- Impact: I want to help others.
I have always helped strangers. It was a safe way to share love, but I think it was too hard to love others because I didn’t feel loved myself. The more I receive that baseline, the more I want to share it.
“I Want to Evolve”
Old “I Want…” Story
- Challenge: I want things to be hard so I can prove myself.
Current “I Want…” Story
- Growth: I want to evolve.
I don’t want to keep making my life hard on myself. I want the sweetness of evolving into a better version of myself. THAT type of hard is welcomed over the repetition pain I put myself (and others) through.
“I Want Others to Trust Me”
Old “I Want…” Story
- Power: I want to be in charge.
- Respect: I want to be respected.
Current “I Want…” Story
- Trust: I want to others to trust me.
And as soon as I typed that, I realized that I want to trust others, too. Power and respect earned me control, but not a true sense of value.
