Needs Have Their Own Cycle To Be Satisfied

Needs are helped by small alarms that appear in me so that I can satisfy them. Once I satisfy them, I feel complete, full, calm, and I can move on to solving other needs that appear. For our mental, physical and emotional health it is essential to listen to them, identify them and give them a channel. If not, associated physical or psychological disorders often appear.

They can be of many types: physiological, existential, emotional … and all of them tell us about something that is important to us. They are our alarm of authenticity, so to speak. They are intimately linked with our true essence and that is why we must be able to identify them in order to solve them.

But since humans are sometimes a bit complicated, we already take care of ourselves to amputate some parts of this cycle of satisfaction of needs. We will take care of turning a deaf ear to an alarm, or completing it halfway because we do not know how to separate ourselves from that object that helps us satisfy it …

Resistances prevent us from satisfying many needs that we have

There are many ways not to complete this cycle, and all of them have to do with resistance and fears that prevent us from doing what we authentically need to do. We cannot deny our nature or ignore that, sometimes, there are needs that we want to satisfy but social or ethical conventions will stop us in the attempt.

This is how we humans are complex. There is an intense and primal “animal instinct” that lives on in us that we cannot deny, and there is an ethic and moral that underlies much of our culture that we cannot ignore either. And it is in that balance where we have to know how to handle ourselves, without deceiving ourselves. Knowing when we are slowing down for one reason or another.

Complicated? It’s an interesting way to listen to yourself as honestly as possible, and see how your decisions are influenced by many reasons. Reasons that, as I said, can range from a purely animal instinct to a cultural one.

The needs satisfaction cycle is made up of 7 successive stages:

1. Sensation

It is the perception of imbalance. Therefore,  our body needs to restore that balance in order to satisfy our body. An example could be when our guts blow because we are hungry, or when we simply notice a strange sensation that already puts us on alert so that we can keep an eye on it.

2. Consciousness

When we become aware of that feeling we identify our need. Following the previous example, I am aware that my guts are ringing, therefore I am hungry. Ah okay! My guts were blowing because I’m hungry. Or we can, taking another example, realize that we feel alone and need contact with someone we love …

3. Energizing

Once I identify and become aware of my need, I can move on to the next step. I get moving. My body is soaked in this energy that motivates me to do something important to me. Ah, I’m hungry! Then I can go to the kitchen. Or, if in the previous example we had become aware of our need to contact another person, now we can know who we want to contact and that mobilizing energy will help us take the next step.

4. Action

In this step, once we are activated to carry out the action, we are ready to carry it out. We are aware of what we need and we are going to remedy it. We decided to call our friend, since he is the person with whom we want to be in contact.

5. Contact

In contact we can finally satisfy our need. If we were hungry and went to the kitchen to get that food that satiates us, now is when we can finally eat. Now is when we also contact our friend and have that conversation that we needed. We are aware that this contact is alleviating our loneliness for a moment.

6. Realization

In this phase we enjoy the contact we have obtained. Here we indulge ourselves in savoring the experience we have just had. I have finally managed to do what my body asked of me and I feel satisfied by it. It is a moment of joy, of pleasure for having been able to fulfill what I longed for. How nice to be able to talk to you, friend!

7. Withdrawal

After this wonderful experience that has nurtured me so much, I retire. I need to rest from that contact. I say goodbye to my friend, I say goodbye to what so much joy and peace has given me. But, oh mother! … How complicated it is sometimes to separate from what has filled us so much. Separate from who has filled this void …

As you can see, in each of these 7 steps I can run into problems and, in turn, I can amputate the entire cycle without actually finishing it. Why? For fear, for anticipating catastrophes, for having deeply ingrained beliefs about how to “do things”, for cultural and ethical issues, and so on.

The important thing is to be aware of those needs that we all have and that have to do many times with love (that vital need to establish a relationship with another being, in which we give and receive tenderness …), with security (the lack of security produces feelings of fear, anguish, anxiety … that must be listened to) and with freedom (the lack of freedom makes us feel angry, feel tied …).

Therefore, as you can see, satisfying our needs is not about a whim, but about protecting ourselves, especially when we are talking about a lack of love, security and freedom. So… let’s not turn a deaf ear to those feelings! In this way we can start and end the complete cycle.