How to Get What You Need

Today's tut.com message finally helped me settle in on today's topic. "For all things and non-things that you may ever want, Jenny Lea, understand that sometimes the fastest way to get them is to forget them, and to focus instead on just being the most amazing human being you can be. At which point all of your heart's desires, spoken or unspoken, will be drawn to you more powerfully than a magnet is drawn to steel."

Some more Good Housekeeping articles contributed to this theme. One was about one woman's year long happiness project to put more happiness in her life. Each month she concentrated on a different area of her life. The one she talks most about is her relationships with her husband, kids, & friends. The way she increased her happiness was by concentrating on increasing theirs. She did this by giving more hugs, attention, kindness, & doing lots of little things for them. She paid attention to her behaviors toward them & figured out things she did or didn't do that she could improve on. She concentrated on making them feel more loved, & like they truly matter. In turn, she received more love & attention.

Another article was from a woman who loves praise. She wrote an article specific on how to give praise, which is what she did with her need. She gave to get. She also let go of some of her need for praise by realizing that being taken for granted is a form of praise in itself. And she evaluated how often she gave praise to others, how often others praise others, & put her needs & the amount she receives into perspective.

The common theme is that you need to give whatever it is you need & want in life. If you need more love or attention, give it. What you give out does truly come back to you. If you want honesty you have to be honest. And if you want others to care about or to care for you, you actually first need to look at how you care about & for yourself. That one's a little different. There are actually 2 keys to getting what you want & need in life. One is to give it to others. The other is to give it to yourself.

Some people just want other people to take care of them & won't do it for themselves. This tends to include physical, spiritual, mental, & emotional. Some don't want to even think for themselves. Many don't want to do any of the work to take charge of their own happiness, wellbeing or needs. They want others to make them happy, make them feel good. They often want someone else to make them feel good about themselves. People can make us feel bad about ourselves fairly easily. We all know of abusive situations people get locked into as adults or are stuck in as children. In these we're torn down verbally (or worse, non-verbal, which is much more difficult to recognize, fight, & work through). However, we still have a choice in this, whether to accept what is being said to us as who we are & what we deserve. But that's another topic. So yes, in a way someone else can make you feel bad about yourself but that doesn't have to be your permanent state of being. And no one but you can truly make yourself feel good about yourself, or feel happy, or even feel loved. All they can do for you is temporary & surface. It all has to come from within. Many have been in situations where they've been torn down & they've been left not loving themselves, not happy. The only way to change this is to do your work to reprogram your beliefs & feelings about yourself. There are so many different ways to do this & depending on how deep the conditioning, it takes a whole variety of things to make these changes. That too is for another time, but I've covered this in many other blogs. Some techniques are reciting positive "I Am" statements daily, specifically written to counterbalance any residual negative beliefs & feelings within you. That's one of my favorites. As I was discussing with a friend the other night, it's re-brain washing yourself with a purpose. This is our way of taking control of the messages sinking in.

Taking control is the ultimate key to getting what you need in life, & we can only ever control ourselves. We need to first be giving ourselves all we can that we need. I try to love me more than anyone on earth ever has. I try to know my rhythms & needs & be true to myself. A friend once said that it's very difficult to hug yourself when she felt that what she really needed was to be held. She had someone specific in mind who wasn't meeting her needs. I don't have anyone who regularly meets any of my needs so it was interesting to hear her say that to me! I feel like I'm one of those fish who swims along filtering what it needs to eat. I draw it in from my environment as I'm in the flow. I take it all in & use it to feed my needs. I give hugs so I get them, among my friends. I pet & cuddle my cats, talk with them & give them all my love. I reach out to friends daily via phone or Facebook & in person opportunities. I don't reach out to get usually, but as a giver. I touch base regularly to care for the needs of significant others like my daughter & closest friends, & those who have been brought to me for help. I make the most of all the love & care that comes my way as a result of these things, & there's such an abundance of love & praise that comes from them. As a giver, I'm also finally learning to really be kind & gentle with myself. I'm setting a few boundaries so I'm able to meet my own needs for rest, sleep, relaxation, etc. I'm starting to take self care more seriously thanks to last week, where I was disturbingly physically unwell most of the week (dizzy spells).

Long ago I took control of my own emotional recovery from years of abuse, & that continues. That's why I'm so able to love myself. However, I've continued to put the needs of others before my own & that's out of balance. So I am finally learning, after feeling in crisis last week, to change that. For me, this is still one of the hardest things but I'm finally learning. Change takes time, & first you have to realize what needs changing. If you truly pay attention to it & want to change, then you usually have to get to the point that you're really mentally equipped & ready to change. Then you use everything at your disposal to make the changes happen, & you have to stick with it. This process is how you take control of yourself, your life & your own happiness & needs. And the only way to get what you need is to identify why you aren't & make the needed changes within yourself.