Meeting Your Needs

Lately, I have been thinking about what it means to have needs, and what we do or don’t do to try and get our needs met. Beyond the basic requirements for survival, such as food and shelter, we have an inborn need for satisfying relationships and connection with others. What strikes me, however, is that we are often afraid to let these needs be known – as if we must be utterly self-sufficient or risk exposing some deficiency.

Women in particular tend to act as caretakers, but we often don’t know how to reach out when we feel alone or depleted. Perhaps we struggle with perfectionism – perhaps our families depended on us to “keep it together” – and asking for help now feels like weakness. Perhaps we have partners with whom we are locked in rigid communication patterns, where we desperately want to understand but somehow keep missing one another. Perhaps we’d like to tell someone that we really care about him/her but can’t for fear of rejection. The longing for authentic communication – to receive and be received as we are – is so strong that we hurt terribly when it somehow fails. So the needs are swallowed up, suppressed, tamed – at least momentarily.

It’s important to “check in” with ourselves from time to time. To get in touch with what we are feeling, to honor the truthfulness of what we’d like to say, rather than holding back or running away in fear. It seems to me that the disavowal of needs is at the heart of many an eating disorder. We’re hungry for something, though we may not be able to always identify it, or to even feel we deserve satisfaction and contentment.

As we transition from fall to winter – and to another holiday season with its joys and challenges – I hope that we can continue to be mindful of these needs and experiment with new ways of expressing them. Is the solution to simply ignore our desires and painful feelings and grimly “plow through”? Might it be worth the risk to approach an argument differently, to tell a loved one that we’ve been hurt, or to simply say “no” and create some quiet time for ourselves? Even subtle changes may affect our relationships and self-concepts in positive and surprising ways.

Luna Sung

Luna leads the GO! Generating Opportunities for Successful Employment group on Tuesday afternoons at The Awakening Center. This group is for those who are job hunting and who want a supportive group setting to stay motivated. Call Luna at (773) 929-6262 x12 for more info.

Inviting Your Emotions With Tenderness

As you may have heard the therapists at The Awakening Center say, we all have many Parts -it's normal and natural to have different personalities within us. There's a Part of you who wants to sit on the couch and watch a movie, while another Part knows that you need to study for a test tomorrow. There's a Part which is supposed to be in charge of all the Parts - this is your Self - the person you were meant to be. Sometimes when we lose our Selves, another Part takes over and tries to 'run the show' - the Pseudo-Self is usually critical, judgmental, perfectionistic and very vocal! I call this Part "The Bully". The Bully tries to berate us into change - but it doesn't work. We usually end up feeling hopeless and then another Part rebels against the Bully and does the opposite of what the Bully is yelling about.

So how do we change this negative pattern? By trying something completely different - by "Inviting Your Emotions With Tenderness". Jennifer Schurman, one of the therapists at The Awakening Center has written an article about using tenderness rather than criticism and judgment. Finding our Selves leads us to inner peace and contentment - the opposite of hopelessness and rebellion!

Oh, BTW, Maureen McNichols is running a workshop "Women and their Inner Bully" on November 13! If you would like more information, call Maureen at (773) 929-6262 x 12.

Namaste,
Amy Grabowski

Inviting Your Emotions with Tenderness

“All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell it’s story.” From “Women, Food and God” by Geneen Roth

Often when working with clients I find myself saying over and over it’s not about the weight, it’s not about the food, what’s going on that brings your attention back to these things? It seems at times that it is far easier to obsess over what to have for lunch, how many calories are in that latte, or when the skinny jeans will fit. But this focus is keeping one distracted from what is connected to these things. It’s simpler to think that if we do all the “right” things related to our eating it will calm our minds, give us peace, and bring us happiness. This is yet another empty lie. We begin focusing on solving what’s not quite right by focusing on our body rather than ourselves, our emotions or our needs. We look to our bodies to solve what is beyond them to solve and in the meantime beat them up and demand they give us what we are looking for. It is like getting stuck on a path that promises to bring us what we need yet just keeps us going in loops of pain and disappointment. So if our bodies can’t give us these things where do we look? Inside at ourselves.

Some of the most crucial and amazing work begins when clients begin trusting themselves, listening to their voice and hearing what they need. Choosing to slow things down, invite and spend some time with our emotions is what brings us closer to a true sense of recovery. Beginning to make the transition from the focus on our bodies to the focus on our true selves is a scary step as it brings us to the feelings that perhaps we have been avoiding. However, reminding ourselves that this work of feeling what is there, using it as a signal for what we are needing and responding in a caring way is the beginning of finding what we have been looking for. It’s getting onto a new path that has the potential to lead us to true peace, contentment and happiness. It’s not a simple or speedy journey but one that leads to a place of reconnecting to ourselves. Beginning to rely on ourselves and trust that our emotions have a positive intention for us are the first steps on this new path. My hope is that when you feel the focus shifting to your body bringing you answers you challenge yourself to look inside, spend some time with those feelings and ask them some questions as they may have something important to say. Something that just may take you a step closer to finding all that you long for.

Jennifer Schurman, MA, LPC
Jennifer leads a therapy group on Monday evenings for those trying to recover from eating disorders and disordered eating. Please call her for more information: (773) 929-6262 x 20.