334. How to Meet Your Own Needs

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 334: How to Meet Your Own Needs.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me, I can show you how. Let’s go.

Hello everybody. Welcome to the podcast. How we doing? I just wanted to share an experience I had this morning because I’m just so proud of myself because I signed up to go to an Orangetheory fitness class this morning. I signed up a few days ago I should say. I actually signed up at the end of our Disneyland trip when I was like, “I have got to stop eating so much junk food and I’ve got to get some legit exercise.”

So anyway, I signed up and then this morning I had the hardest time waking up. I think I’m still recovering from four days walking around Disneyland and I’ve been staying up a little bit later than normal. And gosh, it was just rough waking up. And to think that not only did I have to get up but I had to go do this really intense workout class, my brain was like, no, that’s not going to happen. And then it started giving me all these reasons why it started telling me. There’s so many things you need to get done.

If you go to that class, the gym itself is a good 20 minutes away. So by the time I drive there and back, takes up a good chunk of time just that. And then you’re going to have to shower and get ready because I have a coaching call coming up in a little bit here in Be Bold. There’s all those returns. You could use that time this morning to go return that stuff that’s been sitting in your closet that you need to return, not to mention there’s a few groceries you need to pick up from the store. And it just started selling me on all the reasons why I should not go to that class.

And I just told myself, we’re just going to get in the car and drive there, that’s all. And we’re just going to go into the class and we’re just going to walk on the treadmill because the class, half the time you’re on treadmills,  half the time you’re doing strength training and maybe some rowers. So I was like, “We’re not going to do anything too intense, don’t worry. We don’t even have to jog or run today, we could just walk.”

So this is what I do when I really don’t want to do something but I do want to do the thing, but in the moment I don’t want to do it. I want to have done it, I just don’t want to do it. I just sell myself on the little baby steps that I can get my head around. Because walking on a treadmill, I can do that okay. That’s not too bad, not too tough. So I just tell myself that, that’s it, we’re just going to walk if necessary and it’ll be fine, we’ll just take it easy. We can even leave early if it’s really hard.

So I was like alright, and so I went in and I got on the treadmill and I started walking. And as my body woke up, and my brain woke up, and my muscles woke up and everything, I was like, walking’s kind of boring, I want to jog. And so I started jogging and then I started running. And so of course once you get into it, it feels good even though it’s kind of painful. And after it was over, I just paused for a moment.

And this is the piece that I want to really encourage you to try out. When you do something you didn’t really want to do, I want you to think back to that past version of you and I want you to think her, that’s what I did. I said, “Thank you two hours ago Jody for doing this for me.” Because of course after a workout you feel so good, so energized, the blood is flowing, you’re so proud of yourself. I’ve got to keep doing that now, one time isn’t really going to improve my health the way I want to. But it did improve my mood, and my attitude, and my energy level for even just today.

So I always pause and I say, “Thank you for doing that two hours ago, me, that was so nice of you. I so appreciate you because it really was beneficial.” So anyway, just trying to give you some brain hacks, give you a little insight into my brain and how I manage it. That’s not what we’re talking about today though. We’re talking about how to meet your own needs. How does that sound?

So this is a topic that it’s one of my most favorite tools, when I found it and I started living this way, my life got so much better and I became so much happier. But it’s also a topic that is really controversial for people. It’s something that I have sometimes put out there in a way that people misunderstand and I take the blame for that. I feel like if I can’t thoroughly explain it, I probably shouldn’t talk about it because it can be easily misinterpreted and misunderstood. And so I wanted to do a whole podcast on it today because first I want to introduce you to the idea if you haven’t heard it.

But second of all, I want to teach you how to do it because a lot of people, when I explain it, like the concept but they don’t know how to do it. So I’m going to teach it to you in four steps today. How do you like that, how to do it?

So first let me introduce the idea. Many of us grew up believing for various reasons that we would one day get married and have a spouse that would meet our needs. It probably started when we were kids and we expected our parents to meet our needs or relied on our parents, or some kind of caregiver or adult to meet our needs. And hopefully you had some people in your life that helped meet your needs as a child. You did for sure or you wouldn’t be listening to this, you wouldn’t be alive. None of us could have actually even survived at some point without somebody meeting our needs.

But as we get older, as we mature, as we become capable adults, I am of the opinion that it is then our job to meet our own needs. And this romanticized idea that we’re taught that you’re going to meet a prince charming, or a princess, or a partner, romantic partner that’s going to complete you and meet your needs for you, I think can be really toxic. I see it create so many problems in marriages and families, and all kinds of relationships, but especially shows up in the marriage or in romantic relationships.

So what I believe is that our needs are first of all a gift that we’re given by our heavenly parents. And I’ll talk about different types of needs in a minute. But we have some basic needs when it comes to survival. But we also have some sort of higher needs, you might say. We have need for connection. We have a need for contribution. We have a need to feel we’re creating value in the world. We have just a creative need in general.

We have all kinds of needs that the reason I say they’re a gift is because those needs drive us towards our best life. They drive us to become more of who we are, more of who we’re capable of becoming. And they help us to contribute more in the world. So it’s a pretty amazing system that our Heavenly Father set up for us. He’s like, “Hey, you’re going to feel this desire or this need to contribute, for example, and there are going to be other people who will benefit from your contribution.” And so it’s a way that we help each other but we also fulfill our own needs.

And that’s just one need I’m using as an example. But I think all of our needs, and we have some similar needs, our basic needs, our survival needs. But when it comes to those higher level needs we all vary, we all have different needs. Some people have a really higher social need, a higher need to connect with other people than others. Some people have a higher material need, that they desire a certain amount of stuff, others not so much. So all different types of needs that we have as we mature and grow.

And I think again that if you follow the steps I’m going to give you today then first of all you can always have your needs met, you don’t have to rely on anyone outside of you. And second of all, you can live your most extraordinary life and contribute the most good in the world. It’s a pretty fun way to live. So let me just kind of round out this idea that your partner or your spouse should meet your needs. That mostly doesn’t work in my experience and in the thousands of individuals that I’ve coached.

If I go to my husband and say, “Hey, husband”, I’ll just call him Jake since that’s his name. “Hey, Jake, I need to feel appreciated.” We all have this need to feel appreciated, I think most people anyway. So if I go to him and say, “Could you just remember to notice when I make dinner”, for example, “Or to leave me a note, some kind of a kind note or to just text me every now and then.” I might be able to tell him, and this is what a lot of traditional marriage counseling recommends, tell each other what your needs are so the other person can meet them.

And Jake might even be willing to try to meet my need. He might say, “Okay, you know what? I can do that. I’m going to try to remember to text you every day to thank you for what you did for our family that day so you can feel appreciated.” Here’s what happens, well, obviously a lot of things can happen. But here’s what I see commonly happen in this situation. Maybe he does it for a while but probably not long term because it wasn’t his idea. It’s not coming from his need to express appreciation and connect with me in that way, it’s coming from him trying to meet my need.

So it’s sort of a version of him pretending, even if he does appreciate what I do. If he’s not the type that would send a text message every day to tell me that then he’s only doing it because I asked him to. And then I’m maybe allowing myself to believe that now he appreciates me but it’s just an interesting dynamic because he’s pretending now. He’s like, “I’m going to pretend to want to send you a text message because you asked me to.” So I’m allowing myself to feel validated and believe that he loves me or appreciates me because he pretended in the way that I asked him to pretend.

It’s just odd. Now, ultimately over time he’s not going to want to keep pretending or he’s not going to be good at pretending. So sometimes I see this dynamic where the partner or spouse tries to fulfill the need but then the other person is still unhappy because they don’t do it right. They didn’t say the right thing. They didn’t do it at the right time. They didn’t do it in the right way or they’re not consistent enough about it. Have you ever had this happen? I have. I’m like, “No, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t mean right that.”

We can feel the insincerity behind it. And the truth is that our needs are always something that have to be met internally. If I want to feel appreciated that only can come from my thoughts. So if my husband sends me a text and then I allow myself to think I’m important, I’m doing a good job, that’s one way. But a much easier way is to just decide to tell myself, you’re important, Jody, you’re doing a good job, keep going. So that is the reason I don’t like spouses to rely on one another to meet their needs.

I’m going to talk in a minute about how I do recommend that spouses serve, and support, and love one another. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be considerate of each other. But I don’t want you relying on anyone outside of you to meet your needs because it’s unreliable. Other people may or may not follow through on the requests we make of them. So I believe that when we understand this, and we try this out and we practice meeting our own needs, like I said, first of all, it’s super empowering, it’s super peaceful, it’s super fun.

But I believe it’s also one of the kindest most loving things I can do for all the people in my life because I have needs. We all have needs. So I can either wait around and hope that they’ll meet them or I can take ownership of meeting them myself and then I don’t have to resent them, be frustrated with them, expect them to read my mind, expect them to pretend to be different than they are so that I can feel good about myself. And I’ll talk more when we get to step four about why that is, obviously that’s a relief for people in your life.

But I want to talk a little bit more about how that helps serve the world so well. So let’s go through the four steps then for how to meet your own needs.

Step one. Pay attention to your dirty pain. Dirty pain is an indicator that you have a need. So I’m going to give a quick summary of clean pain and dirty pain. I talk a lot more about clean pain and dirty pain in Better Than Happy, the book. But here’s a quick summary. Clean pain is the pain that is appropriate, that we want to have. It moves through us as we allow it and relax into it. And we are able to process it and it helps us sort of live into our humanity.

So clean pain is maybe sadness, disappointment at times. We want to be sad when certain things happen in the world. We want to be disappointed when people we love make certain choices. So it’s that kind of pain. It makes sense I would feel that way. I kind of want to feel this way. It feels mature. I think Christ would feel this way in this situation.

Dirty pain on the other hand is pain that keeps us stuck. It’s a more immature kind of pain. It’s often, the way I recognize it in myself is I’m often being sort of childlike or adolescent like in the way that I’m feeling. It keeps me stuck and spinning, instead of moving through me and progressing. It’s not coming from love. It’s coming from justification or righteousness. So for example, dirty pain might be things like overwhelm, stress. It’s not necessary to be overwhelmed. It’s okay if you are, nothing wrong with, I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel dirty pain.

This is step one, pay attention to your dirty pain or pay attention to, hey, I’m feeling overwhelmed. What is it that I’m needing? I’m feeling stressed. What is it that I’m needing? I even talk to myself. I say, “Hey Jody, what are you needing right now?” It might be frustration. Resentment is a huge one. Resentment is an indicator that you have needs that you are not meeting. And we get mad because we think the other people were going to meet them and they’re not. But it’s really just because we are the ones. We’re the only ones who can meet our needs.

Sometimes my clients describe this dirty pain as being like this feeling of being unseen or unheard. They say, “I just don’t feel seen or heard. I just don’t feel acknowledged. I just don’t feel like anyone appreciates me.” Lack of appreciation. It sort of can be this feeling of that’s not fair, it’s not fair. It’s righteousness, justification. Sometimes it’s even boredom or this feeling of being stagnant or unfulfilled. Or even curiosity. Curiosity isn’t really painful so much. But it’s an indicator that you have a need.

The reason we become curious about something is because we have a need to continue to learn, and grow, and develop skills, and try new things, and become next versions of ourselves. So you’ve got to pay attention to that.

Now, this leads me to step two which is to welcome the knowing. Here’s what I mean. When you start noticing, I’m feeling frustrated, I’m feeling resentful, I’m feeling angry, I’m feeling afraid, and these feel like dirty pain emotions. They don’t feel necessary. They’re not serving me. Don’t be mad at it. Don’t tell yourself I shouldn’t feel this way. Welcome it. Go, “Okay, what are you here to tell me, resentment? What are you trying to show me, frustration? What are you trying to help me understand? I want to understand it.” You have to be loving with yourself.

You have to listen to yourself. So many of you are rejecting that part of yourselves. I like to think of that part of myself again as an adolescent or a little girl, depending on what I’m feeling. And I talk to that adolescent or little girl version of me. And I say, “What’s going on? What’s the matter? What are you needing? Tell me.” And she’ll tell me if I pay attention and listen. She’ll tell me, “I just don’t feel seen. I just don’t feel acknowledged. I just feel like this isn’t fair.”

Now, a lot of her thoughts don’t make sense, they’re not logical and rational. I have a lot of other thoughts and a lot of other things I know that counteract what she’s saying. But that’s okay, I’m not going to shut her down and go, “You shouldn’t think that.” I just let it come up, take a look at it. We want to hear her. We want to see her. We want to attempt to understand so we can’t be in a rush with this step two. We have to continue to observe ourselves.

There may be things that we can’t figure out right away as we try to listen and we have to give ourselves time and space, and just keep in the observing phase of what’s going on. We want to comfort ourselves. Instead of going, “You shouldn’t feel that way. What’s the matter with you.” It’s got to be, “It’s okay, it’s okay to feel that way. I understand. You have good reason for it, tell me more.” And the best way I can describe this phase is like a gratitude for the knowing. If you could be grateful for the awareness then you’re not going to push it away and be ashamed and feel guilty about it.

So be grateful that you have these emotions, these human emotions, even the dirty pain ones, they’re human emotions that our heavenly parents gave us to navigate us towards our best life and towards what will serve us. So that’s step two, welcome the knowing.

Step three then is to hold space for the solution to come. Hold space for the way to meet those needs. Now, again, most of our needs are just thoughts we’re trying to believe but it’s okay to have different experiences, different relationships, different circumstances in your life that make it easier to think the thoughts you want to think. So hold space for the way that that will happen. What I mean by hold space is stay open to it. Don’t shut down and go, “Well.”

Let me give you an example, I have coached people sometimes who say something like, “I love to travel and I want to travel. And I have this huge curiosity, and desire, and interest in travel because I want to explore the world. And I want to see new places and meet new people and understand different cultures.” And that can be a need. “And my spouse, doesn’t want to travel, he or she hates to travel. And they don’t think we should spend the money on it. And they won’t go with me.” So how am I supposed to meet that need?”

And I say to them, “Okay, let’s understand it, let’s go through the steps. Let’s recognize the dirty pain. Let’s be curious, and compassionate, and open, and hold space for it. And then let’s just decide that of course there is a way for you to meet that need. And it doesn’t have to mean that you are disrespecting of your spouse or anything. There is a way for you to meet that need. It’s just not the way that you thought it was going to be in your head. And I don’t mean, “Okay, let’s just settle for second best. I mean the way is going to be even better than what you thought.”

So you have to stay open to it. You have to not know the answer at first because if you knew the answer you would have already figured it out. You would have already met that need. So stay open to, I don’t know the way but there is a way. There is a way that I can be loving, and supportive, and kind, and that I don’t have to, again, disrespect anything that I choose to do in my marriage. And I can still meet this need to travel. I wonder what that way is going to be. Allow it to come. Yes, you want to seek it but don’t seek it with this rushed impatience.

You have to seek it with patience, and faith, and trust, and allowing and it might take a little time. That’s okay. The other thing that I want to add here with step three of holding space for the solution to come is it is okay to ask other people for things. It is okay to keep asking your husband, “Hey, I would love to travel”, or your wife, or whoever, “I would love to travel. If you ever change your mind let me know. Because I’m going to plan a trip. I want to go with somebody so I don’t know who yet. Maybe it will be my sister, or a friend, or somebody like that. But if you decide to come let me know.”

It’s okay to make requests of people. What I don’t want you to do though is to just hand over your emotions to whether or not they meet your request. That’s the mistake we make when we’re expecting other people to meet our needs. Make requests all day long but choose how you’re going to feel regardless of whether or not they honor your request. Once you go through step three and you allow space and you get curious, and open then you will receive guidance. You will find solutions to your needs that you could have never guessed before.

You staying open and keeping your heart open, and just being curious and open to it instead of I’ve got to meet this need in order to get out of this pain will guide you to things that will blow your mind. I’m telling you, I’ve experienced this over, and over, and over again. So then that takes us to step four, once you have figured out how to meet your needs then first of all you’re going to have to keep doing it over and over again. It’s not a checkbox. You’re going to have new needs that come up so you’ll have to have to keep doing this process.

But what I want you to do in step four is to offer your complete self to the world. I really do think this is the finishing step on meeting our needs. I personally think that we are so wired to help others, we are so wired to give, and contribute, and connect, and love. That if we don’t do that it feels like we got three-quarters of the way there on meeting our needs. So what do I mean by that? Well, it might be that you go help people with the same needs that you had, that’s common.

For example, once I became a coach, becoming a coach fulfilled so many needs for me, the need I have to keep learning, to challenge myself, to grow. I have a need to teach and speak. I love connecting with people in that way. But then, and I guess this leads into that last part, then I wanted to go help other people. That’s why I taught at The Life Coach School. I still do teach at The Life Coach School. And I teach an advanced coach training because the culmination of that for me is helping other people who have those same needs, and those same interests, and those same desires.

But it doesn’t have to be that you are working with people who have the same needs. It could just be that I now as a mother I’m feeling fulfilled and complete. And so I can offer a completed me to my family. I bring a complete me into my marriage when I’m doing this correctly. I bring a full me to my family. So I’m not constantly trying to get my needs met by them. I’m there to serve and love them. And I have 10 times more to give when I’m showing up from already completed needs. I have more energy. I have better ideas.

I’m so much more fun to be around because I’m in a better mood. And I can serve in whatever way I choose to serve so much better when I meet my needs.

Alright, so let’s just summarize it just to wrap up. Step one, pay attention to your dirty pain. It’s trying to tell you something. This is how you’re going to discover what your needs are. You need to know what they are. Step two, welcome the knowing. Don’t be mad about it. Don’t tell yourself you shouldn’t feel that way, or you shouldn’t think what you’re thinking, or you shouldn’t have these needs. Step three, hold space for the solution to come. And then step four, offer your fulfilled complete self to the world.

Alright everybody, I hope you have an amazing holiday celebration all month long. I hope that you do this work of meeting your own needs. If you have questions about how to do it come to Instagram, I would love to interact with you there. You can find me at Jody Moore Coaching. You can post on comments. I’m very active on there. You can DM me, whatever you want, I’d love to help you out with this. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.