Neediness

We’ve been led to believe we need things to feel good. With things I mean both physical things like money, cars, clothes, boats, iPads, a nice house etc. We’ve also been led to believe we need non-physical things like validation, acceptance, status or compliments to feel good.

We look at people that have great relationships, confidence, and lots of material things, and they seem happy, right? So that must mean I’ll be happy once I get that to? right? false..

Actually it’s kind of the other way around.

We see the top of the iceberg, and we automatically draw conclusions and create a cause and effect between having things out there and feeling something inside ourselves.

This is a misunderstanding. A very persistent and convincing illusion. We all buy into it. At least from time to time. We genuinely believe that something outside of ourselves can make us happy. This has always and will always be fundamentally false. If that was the case, then the wealthiest people in the world would be the happiest. And we know that for a fact is not true.

Let’s do an experiment…

Think of a thing, circumstance or experience that you think makes you happy. Got it? Ok, let’s call that thing, circumstance or experience “X”.

It might seem very real to you that you’re getting happiness from X, but in fact you are feeling your thinking moment to moment, so what makes you happy is your THINKING about X, and not X itself. We are constantly feeling our moments experience, and our experience is made out of our conscious and subconscious thinking – all the time.

Have you ever cut yourself without noticing? Moments later you just realize you’re bleeding, and once you find the cut it starts hurting. This is because you cannot feel anything that is outside your thought-up experience.

So this means that you X literally cannot make you feel anything. However your experience/thinking of X will definitely make you feel, but the actual event or thing itself is just absolutely neutral.

How do I know this?

Here’s an example. Let’s say I had a baby.. haha, I mean, let’s say I had a girlfriend and she had a baby… To most people they might experience that as something good. Some people however would think of the event in another way and feel devastated. And we even know that people have killed their newborn – and not even felt remorse. I know, it’s a tiny portion but it makes all the difference. It proves that circumstances, events, things or anything other out there really has no real effect on how you feel. It’s all from your thinking. You’re feeling your experience, not the actual event.

“So what?!” You might say… “I’m still experiencing it as bad/good, so how does this help me?”

Well, once you realise that you have an innate well-being within you and that this well-being is your true default setting in life. You were born that way. Then you don’t NEED anything out there to make you feel good. You can relax knowing that nothing out there can touch or threaten your innate well-being.

THAT realization  automatically removes all neediness. When you realize that with your full being, you have nothing to prove to yourself or others anymore. You simply know you are in good hands no matter what.

There’s a trap though…

You might read this and go “ok, so I shall not be needy. I’m going to act non-needy, and then I’ll get the results I want” – see this is a common trap. Acting non-needy is even more needy than just straight up being needy, because then you’re at least true to yourself. See there is nothing wrong with feeling needy. We’re all needy from time to time. We’re human and it’s just a feeling like anything else. A feeling that is showing you what you are thinking in that specific moment.

What I’m trying to get through here is that the more you buy into the misunderstanding that you need something out there in order to feel a certain way, the more needy you are going to show up in the world. And trying to get things outside yourself in order to feel good is a full-time, stressful and frustrated job. It will burn you out and worse – not help you feel happy at all.

Have you ever had that time when you met someone and everything just clicked. Both of you were acting on inspiration and just enjoying life and having fun. Neither one of you thought much about getting anything from the other. You just rode the wave of life and had a blast. Then you connected fast and strong – like humans do automatically when we’re not over-thinking and overanalyzing. In these moments when there’s no misunderstanding standing in the way, your mind automatically corrects itself back to your innate state of clarity – and your thoughts about needing anything is long gone.

See it’s kind of like a paradox. Learning “how not to be needy” and trying not to be needy will only make you more needy. It’s only when you have a deep realization that you DON’T NEED ANYTHING you are finally free to do whatever you want.

It’s only when we’ve lost everything we’re free to do anything. -Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

<3

Morten

PS. In June 2014 the end of July 2015 we are arranging a workshop with Jamie Smart, please make sure you’ve secured your seat for that weekend. You do not want to miss out on this! Here’s all the info about it.