Unhealthy Needs (aka Dysfunctional1 Needs) … we all have them.
If, based on my presumption that everything we say, everything we do, every choice we make is based on some need we have… and then we can choose to reflect back see that some of these choices weren’t the best for us. Yet we made those choices… somehow… and for some reason. Something inside of us… some need we had drove us to get it met. And how many of us had made choices that weren’t in our best interest?
I call these “Unhealthy Needs” or “Dysfunctional Needs”.
We ALL have unhealthy needs! And as we grow and learn about life in this world, we continue to have them. And we continue try to get them met. But hopefully we learn from them (a subject for another day). If we’re aware, are concerned about them, and work hard, we can even grow past them.
However the point is that each of us is composed of hundreds or thousands of little needs demanding to be met. And of course some of these needs are not healthy to some degree (small or large). Unhealthy needs are valid but are not good for us in the short term. Unhealthy needs can be a source of personal insight and growth.
Maslow attempted to describe humans in terms of needs, but neglected to address these very VALID needs we all struggle with. Unhealthy needs are part of us, and in many cases, are glaring.
Let’s look at some examples:
- My boss got on my case today because of some reason and yelled at me. This upset me and as I fumed during my drive home, I flipped another driver off (justified or not). Was this action the best for me? Doubtful.
- My last boyfriend has a habit of getting angry and taking it out on me… sometimes in an abusive way. Did I make a good choice in partners? Probably not. And as I look back… my last few boyfriends did the exact same thing. “Yes, I know I’m responsible for my choices in life, so why do I continue to choose partners who treat me disrespectfully?”
- “I love my deserts!” I love them so much that I crave sweets after every meal! Are these choices in my best interest? The fact that I weigh 75 pounds more than my doctor thinks I should be is a hint toward that answer.
Did I learn?
My parents belittled me as a child. They spoke over me and dismissed my opinions, were angry and yelled all the time, and taught me that in order to have my opinion heard, I needed to interrupt, speak loudly, not listen to others and to believe that my opinion was RIGHT.
I learned… and worked my way through life bullying, being rude, and not being a very good friend. I became a manager and acted this way toward my subordinates. At my last job review my boss told me what I didn’t want to hear. He told me my team members did not want to work for me, were constantly under stress, and not bringing their best work forward for fear of being ignored, intimidated, or dismissed.
What’s my point?
This discussion is not aimed at answering why we make choices and decisions not in our best interest. We can talk about those later. But for now, I want the reader to be aware that as we choose, and as we accept responsibility for our choices, it’s in our best interest to become aware… or mindful, of our choices. It’s a good thing to reflect back on our choices… preferably without judgment (ok, who can do that?), and START to think about them in retrospect. If we really want to understand why we do what we do… and we really want to improve the quality of our lives, this is the place to start.
There are several theories for how we learn. One of my favorites is the “Peter Honey and Alan Mumford” theory (4 stages)2 :
- Doing something, having an experience
- Reflecting on the experience
- Concluding from the experience, developing a theory
- Planning the next steps, to apply or test the theory
REMEMBER: we aren’t here to judge ourselves or others… we’re here to improve our lives by improving our choices and our actions. We have the responsibility of seeing our unhealthy or dysfunctional needs for what they are, and then deciding if we want to grow and change or to accept them.
[I’ll talk about more about Unhealthy Needs vs Healthy Needs in another post]
1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dysfunctional
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_cycle
