Com101 – Choosing To Get Our Needs Met

In my previous article, I talked about how we hide from happiness by finding ways to make it okay to not get our needs met.  Next, let’s get back to communication and core needs.  A lot of emotional conversations happen when someone has one or more needs from Burbol’s hierarchy of happiness that are not being met.  It’s likely this person is already unhappy and emotional because of these unmet needs.  Unfortunately, emotions often ensure we will fail to get our core needs met because we fail to communicate the correct core needs.  This is because of everything we discussed in the previous article, Stories Become Our Reality, about how our brains automatically make up a story built on assumptions and blame. 

How unmet needs turn into arguments:

1. I have a core need that’s not being met, like food, financial security, or trust.
2. My body sends a core signal to my brain, also known as an emotion, like hunger, fear, or anger.
3. My brain tries to interpret why I’m receiving this signal and makes up a story full of assumptions about why I’m not getting what I want and who is to blame.
4. An alternate need is assumed based on my brain’s made-up story. Then alternate emotions emerge as a reaction to that story.
5. I communicate what? A story full of assumptions and blame that is all wrapped up in elevated reactive  The story pushes for an alternate need of someone else needing to change. 

What comes out is an attack that doesn’t even focus on the core need we are struggling with.  We do things like criticize and argue over our partner dining out too often rather than confess that we are scared of how low our bank account is and that we are in need of financial safety.  We don’t have a two-way discussion about “spending less than we earn” or “how large of a cushion should be in the emergency bank account?”  We end up picking apart each other’s character or falling into manipulation tactics to get the other person to change their behavior.  Even if we are successful at getting the other person to change, in this case, by not dining out as much, it doesn’t fix the core need that we are struggling with which is the internal dashboard light labeled “financial safety.”

Well, no wonder our core needs don’t seem to get met, we’re not even talking about them.  On top of that, it’s no surprise that some people are afraid to speak up.  Speaking up often creates conflict about the wrong needs.  It’s a humongous trap.

Human brains seem to come with default wiring that ensures we ruin our chances of getting our real needs met when we are emotional.  From the moment we open our mouths, we are not talking about our struggle to get our core needs met.  Instead, we are already in an argument about how you are to blame, and you need to change.  Even if we only have this argument in our imagination, we are still focusing on the wrong things.

This is one of the main themes of the Gottman Institute’s relationship books and workshops.  It’s also a core theme in the Non-Violence Communication materials.  (See Recommended Resources for more details.)  We truly believe we are asking for what we need, but instead we are actually starting an argument about how other person needs to change their behavior.  It’s an instant argument based on a made-up story full of assumptions and blame.

Healthy communication drops the story.  In doing so, the falsely assumed need for the other person to change is also left out.  This removes the unconscious attacks from the interaction.  Instead, we focus on just our experience, then we attempt to share that experience.  We communicate our core needs from our internal dashboard, how much we need them, and that we are simply asking for help.  It becomes a conversation about the indicators that are lit up on our internal dashboard and not an attack or criticism of the other person’s character or behaviors.

What can this type of communication sounds like?  As an experiment, what if we tried communicating only the need and not the story or signal?  We could try saying, “I need financial safety.”  As it turns out, it sounds like we are making a simple declaration which may or may not be shared by the other person.  Stating a need for financial safety may be flatly met with, “yup, don’t we all,” from one person and empathetically met by another with, “that’s true.  Do you need help or something?”  Declaring the need alone doesn’t clearly communicate that our need is not currently being satisfied or that we are asking for help.  We are expecting the other person to guess that our need is not being met.  Expecting anyone to guess our needs is a toxic behavior.  Humans are not mind readers.

Let’s trying something else.  As we’ve already discussed in the previous article, Emotionally, Where Am I At?, if we communicate the signal, and only the signal, we let the other person know where we are at and what our struggle feels like without projecting blame.  We get their attention and get them on our level without asking them to do anything, and without creating any blame or obligation.  From there, we can communicate the core need behind the signal.

It sounds easy, but things immediately start to get tricky.  The same way we stripped out the story around our core emotions, we need to do that for whatever “need” we landed on since is may be a red herring.  Saying, “I need you to leave,” is different than  “I need emotional safety.”  Thankfully, we can simply modify our round 2 question of, “does this emotion describe just me or does it include other people or events?” to “does this need describe just me or does it include other people or events?”

Just like our emotions, when our brain makes up stories about the wrong needs, we tend to find evidence of those wrong needs.  What we focus on multiplies.  This is another thing our monkey brain likes to do automatically.  It tends to tune out everything we’re not currently focused on.  So, when we land on the wrong assumptions, the wrong needs, and the wrong emotions, we tend to find supporting evidence everywhere we look. 

Here’s a simple and fun experiment.  Look around the room; name 10 things that are blue.  Pause and do that now.

Got 10 blue things?  Close your eyes and answer this question: How many green things did you see?  It’s like the things that were blue were highlighted when we were looking for blue, while all the other colors faded into the background.  Now that we are talking about green, a scan of the room will show us all the green objects standing out.  That’s how our brains work.  What we focus on multiples.  This is the very definition of confirmation bias.  Whether it is the color blue, blame, grateful things, or reasons to be okay with not being happy, we find what we are looking for.  It’s almost like our brain did an internet search for “blue.”  We are going to get pages and pages of blue, not green, because we didn’t ask for green and we don’t want green right now.

If we go looking for specific emotions, needs, or things to blame, we will find them.   Then, as we focus on them, they will multiple.  If we go looking for the wrong things, we will also find them, and they will multiply too.  They will become our reality.  This time, it’s like our brain did that internet search on, “reasons to blame” plus, “reasons they are wrong and I’m right.”

Say we are in a waiting room, waiting for our car to get fixed.  The work is taking longer than we thought.  How long is it before we’re making up stories about the mechanics not giving our car any attention.  Maybe we’re already concluding that the mechanics are all idiots.  How long before we are mad at the person at the counter for being lazy and disorganized for not coming through with the time frame they originally gave us?

We start to make up a story that we need the mechanics and the clerk to hurry up and do their frigging job already!  They are ruining our day.  We decided the workers aren’t doing their jobs and that becomes our reality.  We need them to be better at their jobs and stop being so slow and lazy.  Those needs become our reality.  The emotions from a story that we literally made-up, start to actually surface.  We are irritated and upset because our story is that we are irritated and upset.  It’s all because we need those people to do their damn job already.  All of that becomes our reality because it’s what we are focusing on and what we focus on multiplies.

If we label our core needs and our core emotional signals incorrectly, they will take over our reality.  Thanks monkey brain, real helpful.  As we pursue these incorrect needs and fuel the wrong emotions, we basically guarantee we are going to say and do the wrong things.  We are going to chase the wrong needs for the wrong reasons.  In our minds, we are already practicing and rehearsing the argument we are about to create.

This is why the check-in & timeout step (from the Emotions Are Real article) is so valuable for any emotion over a 2.  We are literally not thinking clearly when we are emotional and the more we entertain the, often ridiculous, story in our head, the more we fuel the “they’re wrong and I’m right” emotions.  Thinking that all the workers in the car shop are useless means we start acting like all the workers in the car shop are useless.  The wrong words slip out of our mouth when we talk to the clerk and we imply they are not doing their jobs.  Of course, they will get defensive, they’re humans too.  We find ourselves arguing with the workers and standing right in the middle of the story we created in our heads.  What starts out as our perspective of the world quickly becomes real as we interact with the world from this, often made-up, perspective.

If we found ourselves making a “T” with our hands and doing a check-in & timeout, we might discover that completely different needs were at play.  What if we rated where we were at emotionally and found, “I’m frustrated at a 5.  I’m anxious at a 6.  Wait, I’m scared at a 5.  And I’m hungry too.  I’m a 5.”  We could take a few deep breaths and regain our thinking abilities.  We could drop all the stories involving other people and recognize our needs.  “I’m hungry, I need some lunch.  I’m anxious, my lunch hour is almost over, I need food and I need to get back to work.  I’m scared about getting in trouble for not getting back to work on time.  I need food and I need to address my fears about being late for work.  What if I called work, let them know I’ll be an hour later than expected, because of the car, and then I go get some lunch instead of waiting here?”

We discover that it was never about the workers.  When we stop and focus on the core signals and the core needs, we can break free of the stories full of assumptions.  When we focus on just ourselves and purposely remove the outside forces, we can recognize our choices.  We begin to stand in our power and what we focus on becomes our reality.  We start to take powerful actions to get our core needs met in simple ways that don’t depend on everyone else changing their behavior.  When I talk about “taking personal responsibility for our emotions and needs,” this is what I mean.

I know a lot of us have a block around “taking responsibility.”  The idea has been hijacked to often mean, “who’s to blame?”  That’s not what I mean when I talk about taking responsibility.  Taking responsibility means dropping the stories, uncovering the core signals and core needs for ourselves, and then making choices to get those core needs met.  We are taking responsibility for getting our needs met instead of blaming others for our deficit.  It’s a focus on our emotional dashboard.

When we communicate after taking responsibility for our core emotions and core needs, other people can help support us, or not.  We are not obligating them to do anything.  We are no longer attached to the other person needing to change their behavior.  At the same time, when people are freed up from our projections of blame, they are more likely to be open to understanding our situation and lending a hand.

In the last example about being at the mechanic, by the end, we could have walked up to the clerk with a clear head and asked, “Can you help me out?   I was going to go get some lunch.  Can you call me when the car is done?  Here’s my number.”  Do you think the clerk will give us what we want, which is a phone call?  Even if the clerk didn’t call us, it wouldn’t matter.  We will be back after lunch regardless.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in communication is to call a timeout on myself before I even open my mouth or click “send” on a message.  A timeout will help me regain my thinking abilities, allow me to strip away the made-up story, and find my core signals and needs.  It’s like a reset button for my brain and my emotions.  I do this before I start communicating the wrong needs while in an emotional state.  In the previous example, we were never really mad at the employees for not doing their job, we were struggling with being scared about not getting back to work on time and, on top of that, we were hungry.  We were not thinking clearly, and we almost communicated our warped perspective of the situation.  We almost turned our story into a reality.

Imagine what our communication could look like if we didn’t dump made-up stories on people about how they need to change because we made up a bunch of reasons to blame them.  Imagine we didn’t dump all this on them while we were in an emotional state.  Imagine if we got in the habit of getting our head straight with a check-in & timeout, identifying our core needs, from Burbol’s hierarchy of happiness, and then simply asked for support.

Asking for help to get our needs met is where our communication with the outside world begins.  However, I hope you can see why “getting our head straight” before we open our mouth is such a powerful, and necessary, first step.  We are setting our communication up for success by looking at our emotional dashboard first and then saying, “oh hey.  Check this out, it looks like I got some warning lights here.”

Now that we’ve taken this time to self-reflect and identify our core needs, we can reach out.  This marks the end of Part 1: Getting clear with ourselves.  Part 2: Create a safe space to talk, will focus on how we set the stage for open communication and then keep those lines of communication open.