As you read the title I wonder if it is anything that you have ever considered before? What are your needs? It’s a farely straight forward question. However if you’re experiencing trauma the idea of your needs can be vomit inducing. My needs? I just want everybody else to be happy? I’ll do anything to help. When we haven’t had our needs met as children and even as adult the idea of having needs can be confusing, overwhelming and even disorientating. I know. Having needs can seem scary, panic inducing and fill you with guilt. It’s just awful that you should have any needs at all. What for? Why? Even the question can be unsettling. What do you mean needs? I don’t have any needs. We can get reactionary defensive, dismissive and even aggressive at the very mention of having needs. Having needs is dangerous. Asking for want you want is dangerous. So is it any wonder that maintaining not having needs is a good thing? That maintaining that you don’t have any needs is keeping you safe.
So this blog post is here to simply ask you and to get you to consider what are your needs? What keeps you safe? Even if that means maintaining that you don’t have needs. Depending on the environment that you are in, not having needs could be the best thing for you and your life plan. However is that healthy? Is that really serving you? Right now during a global pandemic our most basic need is threatening. The right to clean air, the right to breath. What would it take for you to be able to breath? What would it take for you to breath deeply? Air is the most basic need we have to remain safe. Is it any wonder the that in this time of global crisis that “I can’t breath” became the rallying cry of a whole generation screaming for the right for their most basic human need to be met. If the right to breath is under threat on a societal basis, what does that look like on the most personal level? Of course “I can’t breath” can be taken to metophorical to. We are being denied the right to expand into ourselves. We are governed by restrictive practices that deny us the right to express our needs. That asking for air is insulting. I just need some air. I just need to take a breath.
Beyond our access to air, water too is a basic right. Yet having access to water too seems a little far fetched at times. Have you got access to clean fresh water? Do you drink water? We have been trained in so many ways to neglect our basic needs. We’ve even been denied direct access to clean fresh flowing water as a result of the capitalist system. Water is now a commondity, it’s not a right. The governments and corporations that are running the world want to keep it that way. In a world where everything has to be paid for access to water can seem daunting especially for the most vulnerable.
Of course your needs may well surpass the right to air and water. You might need a safe place to simply be. A safe space to sleep. In this spaces that we currently occupy that is not necessarily a given. So here it it is. The question again. What are your needs? Can you name them? Is there a list? Can you gain access to the thing that you need? What if they are things that only somebody else can give you? Like love, succour, care? What if your need was just a little bit of tender loving care? We all have needs, no matter how meager or arbitary. What are your needs? They don’t have to be physical. They can be emotional or energetic. One simple act of acknowledgement. Stop hiding from your needs.
The blog post accompanies the Trauma Wise Circle.
*This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.
