My system now embraces that we have needs, and that some of them are better or only met with others. This no longer discomforts me or strikes fear into my heart, thankfully it has become something beautiful to be experienced, shared, received and celebrated in relating with beloveds and strangers alike. 

What still goes against the grain of some of my parts is neediness – the grasping, stickiness of its energetics and the undercurrent of self degradation that I sense in it. My avoidant protectors feel an instant ickiness at the proximity of such an energy, even more so when the grasping is directed towards my energy or being.

Thankfully I have clarity on what sets these parts off about neediness and how it is distinct from having needs:

First of all having needs does not make a person needy! 

There are many who, conditioned towards hyper-independence, cannot differentiate between having needs and being needy. And unfortunately suppress or deny their needs and don’t allow themselves to ask for support. Though I do not share that perspective and experience anymore I sure know it intimately and viscerally.

There is no weakness or lack in having a need or perceiving another as having needs, it is merely one facet of human expression in the moment. 

Needs are temporary, consistent or recurrent phenomena we all have to dance with in being embodied. They may shift and change, we may go through periods of being in need of more or less support – none of which defines our value or worthiness. The latter are innate and untouched by life experiences to my mystic’s consciousness. 

Neediness, in my current understanding, is a descriptor for an unskillful way someone expresses and attempts to get their needs met. While having a need is about a sensed, felt, experienced reality – it simply is and therefore is neither good nor bad.

We can express and bid for getting our needs met without ever coming close to being/vibrating neediness, in fact verbalizing of needs and requests for support can be incredibly empowered, admirable and magnetic no matter how vulnerable and tender it might feel to us. 

I welcome open communication of needs, wants and desires as it invites me onto an equal playing field of relating, where I get to inquire into my state of being resourced, my openness and willingness and my capacities to meet said needs, wants and desires or make a counter offer of what I can provide or alternatively express what I am not available for. 

That aligns with my vision of sovereign relating amongst equals, which is my explicit preference.

Neediness happens on a playing field of implicit inequality, assigning to the requesting the one-down position and the requested the one-up position. And it does not approach another with a straight-forward expression of a need and/or bid for support but comes at the other indirectly, often with unconscious and manipulative veneers of wanting to share or “give” to the approached. While there is a strong pulling on the energy of the approached, in some cases even an unconscious vampiristic attempt to utilize the other’s energy in balancing out a perceived lack. There are aspects of learned helplessness, victimhood, etc. which are all predicated on the person giving away their power and asking another to give it back to them, which of course is an impossibility.

I feel compassion for the predicament of living with this conditioning and trauma response, there is love in me for the being that meets me from that energy. And yet I will set very clear and unmovable boundaries with my protective parts, make my energy mercurially in-graspable, while being present with them from the detachment of the indifferent self. 

Essentially throwing them back to their own devices where they play hide and seek with themselves. Yet, wherever I am called to support them in facing their true, underlying need and meeting it in more skillful and honest ways, I will gladly be of service. 

I am just not available for the ‘song and dance of delusion’ their pattern creates for them and all who will step into the miasma of this distortion. My awareness, presence and energy are way too precious to me to invest, or waste, them in such a senseless way.

On the other side I love to meet straightforwardness and courageous expressions of needs with as much of a *yes* and support as I can muster. Reminding us that having needs is a natural and beautiful aspect of being human we share. And making a point of expressing and embodying that it is a privilege to be of service to them in this now, in order to see them soar and shine in the next. 

I happily embrace being a channel the universe uses to support another being, joyfully participating in waves of kindness, compassion and love that ripple and flow through our field of consciousness to the benefit and growth of All That Is.

Neediness is something I am no longer willing to engage with, even less so on its distorting playing field.

Photography: ‘Bad Breakup’ via Everett Collection

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I prefer to get as much of these out of the way before deciding to explore the possibilities of deeper connection with someone than to deal with the drama of fallouts and annoyances further down the road. Every time I have not used these tools I have come to regret it later on. 

So here is a list of questions I compiled for my new relationship questionnaire today. My personal list is longer than this as there are individual questions relating to my preferences which I am not sharing here but this is an overview to give you an idea of it.

If you can approach creating and sharing your relationship questionnaire with a playful and honest spirit it can make not only for great conversations and insights into each others perceptions and inner worlds but also be very enriching. And if done well this will be an important part of building a solid foundation of honesty, transparency, intimacy, trust and love for your relationship.

The process of composing your questions and answers to them allows you to see your needs, wants and wishes black on white and gives you a deeper sense of clarity. It helps to go back to it whenever you experience or remember situations from past relationships that have been wonderful or challenging to keep expanding it. Once you have been at it for a couple of years and have grown and changed in the meantime, you will see where your needs and boundaries have shifted and what has gained in weight as other things have lost their meaning. Giving you a more tangible way of knowing your fluidity and growth.

These questionnaires are a pleasurable way I track my changes and shifts and a fun way of inviting others to meet on deeper levels of self reflection and co-creation. I hope this inspires you to venture into reflecting and maybe doing something like this for your benefit and other’s as well. It can be a great way of sparking reflections on the current state of your relationship with your partner and get you to playfully envision how you can grow and expand within the container of your relationship.

Whatever you choose to do with this, I wish you blessed and blissful relationships with self and others!

Relationship Questions

• What is your idea/vision/definition of a great relationship?
• How does a great relationship make you feel?
• What helps you to feel loved, appreciated, validated, respected, safe, free and any of the feelings you answered the previous question with?
• Are you willing to work on relationship issues with the help of others (coach, therapist, healer)?
• What is your vision for your life?
• What is your soul’s purpose in this incarnation?
• Do you practice any form of self work and if so how?
• How do you work with ego, shadow and darkness?
• What practices do you have to nourish your soul, heart, body and mind?
• How often do you practice these?
• What are your faults and woundings that have shown up in your relationships?
• What helps you find back to balance or equanimity in those moments?
• What do you want a partner to bring to the table?
• Which unmet needs would constitute a dealbreaker and reason to end a relationship?
• What are your non-negotiables about your life and where are you open to changes?
• Are there “best practices” or rituals you would like to bring to a new relationship?
• How enmeshed or independent do you want your relationships to be?
• How do you envision a shared life?
• How much alone time do you need?
• What are your primary love languages?
• What is your erotic blueprint?
• How do you feel about public displays of affection?
• What are your erotic and sexual preferences?
• Which functionalities does sex have for you?
• What turns you on and what turns you off?
• What do you want a partner to bring to your shared sex life?
• How open are you to experimenting and expanding your sexuality?

Photography: Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon by Annie Leibovitz, 1995

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“Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner’s love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother’s love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.” 

~ Bell Hooks 

You could change the gender and see the same and related coping mechanisms in way too many humans who are partly of wholly emotionally unavailable.

The wounds of rejection and abandonment by our primary caretakers profoundly shift our relationship with love in deeply subconscious and sometimes even conscious ways. Our definitions and ideas of love and relating are skewed and distorted by the experiences we had in our early childhood. The healing and transcendence of our unhelpful coping strategies and misperceptions can only happen in relationships just as the wounds happened in relationships, which of course is a challenge as we usually attract mostly people who will repeat our past experiences and not be wise companions for our healing journey as long as we live from subconscious patterns we blind ourselves to.

Even in making our woundings and patterns conscious we will be attracting those who will repeat our past dynamics and hurts with us, offering us a chance to find new and healthier responses to such occurrences. The degree to which we have developed self acceptance and self love and inner strength defines how much emotional resilience we will have in coping with situations and challenges taking us back to our core wounds.

I have encountered many men who play out complex or twisted unconscious coping games who are adamant that their relationships with their primary caretakers were nothing but loving and perfect. Often emotionally unavailable as they live in a disconnect from their emotions, though they might believe themselves to be connected to them. Those whose ego keeps them in the belief of all being fair and “normal” are the hardest people to be in relationships with, as you clearly see their drama play out while they remain decidedly blind and in denial. Many a conversation, tearful moments and sleepless nights of my life has been wasted on making sense of it of trying to find a way to help them see, make them understand. And yet almost all attempts were to no avail. It took me many years of self work to not allow such painful relationships to last and keep shredding my heart.

These days I leave these men the moment I realize that they are incapable of stepping into a meta level of reflecting on their own behaviors and words. And really who am I to change their survival strategies when they are not ready to let them go? Who am I to dictate their soul’s timing for healing?

I chose to honor our shared sovereignty, the rightness of our individual journeys and to love and honor myself, my needs and wants in relating by loving such beautiful but troubled souls from a distance. There is no denigration in accepting that we are incompatible and do not relate in ways that assure loving and joyful growth and expansion with each other.  I trust that both of us will find others better suited for our unique needs and trajectories.

Unfortunately some men choose to react in immature and unworthy ways as they frame my retreat in their ongoing narrative of unlovability, (ab)using me in their mental self harm rituals. Which truly saddens me but I no longer waste my precious lifetime on trying to change what is. I can see these patterns clearly because my ego has been doing the same often enough to teach me. See, there is no judgement just clear observations and definitely no mincing of words to protect fragile egos which limit and torture. 

I have my own patterns and failings in relating therefore I appreciate those who bring them to my awareness, and I point to the dysfunctional patterns I see if I care for someone and believe they are capable and willing to deal with those things. In my world it is seen as a gift of love to shine a light on these things. 

If you prefer to live in Lalaland and not be made aware of subconscious patters I will accept it but it will exclude you from being in my inner circle and world if you are new. In my world everything is about awareness, consciousness, respect, truth, honesty and growth – if you do not bring these to the table you have to keep it moving, simple.

Photography: Unknown

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