We humans are a needy bunch! We are born needy and we die needy. As a species, our life is conditional and the conditions of life, both to just survive and get by and to thrive and reach the peak of what’s possible- puts within us drives and impulses urging us to move and to act to fulfil our needs. And what are these needs? What are these inherent drives motivating you and me?
They are the basic and higher needs and it was Abraham Maslow who mapped out these levels of needs during the 1930s and 1940s and documented them in his classic Motivation and Personality (1954) which contains the hierarchy of needs that he first presented in 1943.
So, how do we as Meta-Coaches use the Hierarchy of Needs for facilitating the self-actualisation of clients? How can we use it to determine where a person is in terms of their need gratification? Well, we now have a tool by which we can start to assess where you live your life.
Using this tool, we can work with a client to evaluate the level that they are living, where they are, the extent to which they might not be handling their base or higher needs effectively, where they might be stuck, and then help them develop action plans so that they can get leverage on themselves to more adequately meet their needs. And because clients can assess the level and the quality of their need gratification, they can also zoom in on the very places in their lives where their needs may be keeping them stuck.
This ‘stuckness’ may have nothing to do with any trauma or need for therapy. You and I can get stuck by simply using an old coping style that no longer works. We can get stuck by accidentally giving a need some meaning that does not fully and adequately represent the full truth. We can get stuck by semantically over-loading a need or a coping mechanism. And yes, we can also get stuck by giving distorted understandings about the need and ways to gratify it. That’s what usually involves the discipline that we call therapy.
You and I are needy in our very nature. We are not self-sufficient, we are not invulnerable, we are not omniscient, omnipotent, and we are not infallible. Reading that line, do you feel like throwing a party or checking in at your local psychiatric clinic?
If it’s the latter, what expectations have you set about yourself and human life? What non-sense have you inherited about human nature? How long are you going to keep the insanity of thinking you are God?
Being needy is our heritage, our nature, and our life. It is also the basis for growth, learning, development and self-actualisation. After all, if you were omniscient, omnipotent, and infallible you wouldn’t need anything, couldn’t develop, and would not have more potential to unleash. Being needy at your essence – needing to become fully alive, fully human, fully open, fully developing, fully curious, fully fascinated, fully enjoying life -drives your vitality and energy for the next-level!
If a party sounds a better idea then congratulations for having fully joined the human race!
Either way there’s hope, there’s solutions, and there’s a self-actualising future for you. For the latter, there’s a Meta-Coach waiting ready to help you melt the non-sense of perfectionism so you can be human. For the former, your Meta-Coach is there to support you on the adventure of moving to the next level.
Co-authored with Dr. L. Michael Hall
