How to Get What You Need When Even YOU Don’t Know

[00:00:00] Rachel: I really, really hate September, September is the month where I always seem to get things really, really wrong.

[00:00:06] So I’m cycling home a couple of weeks ago. It’s the first Monday in September. We’ve been at a festival all weekend. That week we had my son’s 18th birthday. My daughter was going to university for the very first time. I had somebody new, starting at work, and all the kids are going back to school as well.

[00:00:25] Now, this is obviously off the back of a lovely summer when I’m also trying to work. As well as have all the kids around. And managed various bits and pieces. So it’s safe to say that I’m quite depleted as I cycle home. I’m hungry and I’m tired. And as I’m cycling home, I’m starting to think things like, I wonder if anybody’s cooked dinner. You know, it’s quarter to seven or the kids have been at home all day. I wonder if any of them have bothered to, you know, put some pasta on or something like that. And, um, the kitchen was a bit of a mess when I left it so I wonder if it’s going to be the same when I walk in. And, and what about the garden. You know, We did ask them to do a few things like mowing the lawn, taking out the bins, those sorts of things, have those been done?

[00:01:04] And then my thoughts started slipping to, well, I wonder if anyone really appreciates how hard I’ve been working and how difficult it is over the summer, particularly being the mum and feeling like you’re carrying all the emotional load for everything. And I was starting to feel incredibly sorry for myself.

[00:01:19] I got home, put my bike in the garage, and walked into the kitchen. My son’s is sat at the kitchen table doing his history coursework. And he grins at me because I haven’t seen him since the night before, since his party. And he says, hi mum. And I know he wants to talk to me about the party and how fun it was. And what do I do? I look at him and I say Why haven’t you mowed the lawn? And why is the kitchen such a mess? And why has nobody cooked tea? Do I have to do everything around here?

[00:01:50] And I look at him and his face drops. And I can see him. Immediately getting defensive and saying, whoa, oh, I mean, sorry, mumble have been working all day and you know, you don’t need to be so horrible. And he picks up his stuff and he goes upstairs.

[00:02:05] And at that point, I have missed a lovely bit of connection with my son who I really, really love and who I would do anything for. And so I feel twice as bad as I did when I’d come in. What do I do? Burst into tears and go and cook tea.

[00:02:24] Now, even thinking about what happened, I feel absolutely awful. I’m sharing this story with you because I’ve been reflecting on why it is. That we so often behave in exactly the opposite way of the way that we want to behave. And why we end up driving away the people that we love and we once connect with, and could actually help and support us. Because we are not expressing our needs properly.

[00:02:49] This is a You Are Not a Frog quick dip, a tiny taster of the kinds of things we talk about on our full podcast episodes. I’ve chosen today’s topic to give you a helpful boost in the time it takes to have a cup of tea, so you can return To whatever else you’re up to feeling energized and inspired. For more tools, tips, and insights to help you thrive at work, don’t forget to subscribe to You Are Not a Frog wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:03:17] Things could have been so different, couldn’t they? And I’ve been reflecting on what I could have done that would have made things different. And I think it started on that cycle home. Well, actually it probably started a few weeks ago. Actually, it probably started a year ago, recognizing that September is always shit. There’s always so much when we have three birthdays in September, the kids that was going back to school, some of the waste very busy. Maybe I could put a block in my diary, not over-scheduling myself, make sure I’ve looked after myself in that period, running up to the really busy bits. That would be a start. So preventing it happening in the first place.

[00:03:53] But as I’m cycling along, I could be noticing those things that, that, that Critic FM, that Whingeing FM playlist that’s going on in my head that saying nobody loves me, nobody appreciates me, I do everything for everybody else all the time, and I’m going to go down to the garden and eat worms. That’s what I was thinking as I was cycling home. And as I was cycling came, the more I thought that the more I believed it. The one that just reinforced my beliefs that this was actually true.

[00:04:23] Now, if you ask me did my family love me. I know they do. Do they appreciate me? Yes. Probably not enough, but yes, they do. Are they selfish human beings, just like everybody else in this planet? Yes, they are. Did they know how I was feeling? No, they didn’t. And by continuing along that track and believing every thought that I had, I ended up getting the opposite of what I needed, which was love, support and understanding.

[00:04:51] And so often this happens, doesn’t it? The way that they’re behaving triggers in other people the opposite response from what we need. And I think the mistake I made was looking at my thoughts and what I believe to be true, rather than thinking about what my underlying needs were.

[00:05:10] Looking back on it now I was exhausted. I needed rest. I was hungry. I needed some food. I was depleted. I needed some connection. I’d given out a lots of other people. I needed some kindness back to me. And what happened was that all these needs within me triggered an emotion. I had someone say recently that we all have selfish or survival instincts. And I think we do, I think we have selfish or survival needs.

[00:05:39] All of us, we have our survival needs. I need to be fed, watered, have shelter, and we need to have love. We also have these, these selfish needs that aren’t maybe survival needs, but they are needs that we go towards, our amygdala will go towards them. Like the need to be loved and the need to belong, the need to be appreciated, the need for kindness. the need to be interested. the need to grow.

[00:06:06] So I’m going to call these our selfish or survival needs, our SOS needs, Save Our Souls needs, the things that we really can’t function without. And our bodies know this. So when we are lacking in these needs, our amygdala flares up and our limbic system gets involved. And our limbic system is that ancient relational system that’s responsible for your fight, flight or freeze response. And when it detects that there’s an issue, it will give you an emotion.

[00:06:36] An emotion is a feeling in your body. And most of us are really, really bad at feeling where stuff is. That’s why all these embodiment coaches go Ooh, where do you feel that in your body? And I’ll go Hmm. ooh, I’m not quite sure, sort of feeling in your gut. But you know, when you’re really terrified, you can feel it in your gut, can’t you? There’s like, feels like a stabbing thing.

[00:06:57] I noticed the other day I overheard someone saying something about me and I felt this very acute physical sensation in the middle of my chest. And I realize, I think that’s where I keep shame. That’s where, when I don’t feel belonging, when I feel someone thinks badly or feels badly about me or upset somebody, that’s where I feel that.

[00:07:17] So these emotions are physical sensations that are triggered by our limbic system, the things that trigger our limbic system are our selfish or survival instincts. It can be physical needs, they can be emotional needs, psychological needs. But essentially they help us survive, they help us belong, they help us know that we matter in life. So we have these needs, which triggered the emotions. Now, how does an emotion turn into a feeling?

[00:07:44] Well, an emotion turns into a feeling when we interpret what it means. So I could have a funny feeling in my tummy. It may just be that I’ve eaten something dodgy, but it may be that I’m really worried about something. So my brain will start to go why am I getting that feeling? And it’ll go, oh you’re scared. It might go you’ve overwhelmed, you’re not quite sure how you’re going to cope with the next few days.

[00:08:07] Rachel: My wise brain might think that, but my chimp brain, my slightly unhelpful brain, my left brain interpreter might blame it on somebody else. Well, that’s because that person hasn’t helped you enough, or that’s because that person’s going to be really horrible to you if you do that.

[00:08:23] And so we start then to interpret what our emotions are. And these are thoughts. These are, well, I’m getting this feeling of, of sadness because they’ve not made tea today. And because they not made dinner, it means that they don’t love me. So I’m getting this feeling that nobody loves me and feeling really lonely because nobody wants to help me.

[00:08:39] And, you know, a lot of that is just based on our interpretation. And our, our left brain likes to put reasons onto things, the left brain interceptor. And it also likes to blame other people for stuff, because if we do that, we can keep feeling good about ourselves and we don’t need to take any responsibility. This is classic victim, being able to blame everybody else and thinking if only they would change, if only they wouldn’t do that. If they did this, then I wouldn’t be feeding like this. And that can be quite a comfortable place to be, because it means I don’t need to take any action and I can advocate or responsibility to other people.

[00:09:16] So our interpretation of our emotions can be for many different factors, often due to our underlying core beliefs are. Now, we all know our core beliefs are sometimes rational, sometimes completely irrational. They can be based on trauma we experienced as a child, or even recently they can be based on just life experiences. They can be based on what personality is, our intuitions, our fears, all those sorts of things, they contribute to our thoughts, how intepreting stuff.

[00:09:47] And the left brain likes to be really, really logical. It likes to say, well, this is what’s happening and this is the answer. You’re feeling tired. The reason is because none of your family helping you out. The answer is they need to help more. Then what happens? These thoughts and emotions which combine to be a feeling, a feeling of being unappreciated, for example. That’s a combination of being a thought and emotion.

[00:10:11] And then, because most of us believe that our feelings are facts and our thoughts are facts, I’m like, yeah, they are really under appreciating me. That is the truth. So I come in. And I tell my son the truth. And of course the facts are that nobody has cleared up the kitchen. But is the truth that it’s because they don’t appreciate me? Of course not. The truth is everyone else has got other stuff to do. It’s not as important to then, and frankly, they’re teenagers.

[00:10:37] So then we get our own version of the truth, and then we behave in certain manners. We blame people, we accuse people, we say to people, Well, this hasn’t happened. And what happens to them? Their SOS instincts come out. We’re not meeting their needs for safety and love, and they respond in a defensive manner. And then that completely reinforces our beliefs that they don’t love us. Because they’re getting defensive, they don’t want to be in the same room as us, walk off. Yeah, well, I knew they didn’t love me, look what’s just happened.

[00:11:08] So our feelings are not facts. Our feelings are this massive blender full of the emotions that we’re feeling in our body. Emotions often triggered by unmet needs. Our emotions are in there, our thoughts, our interpretations based on all our beliefs and our past experiences, they’re all in there as well and the blender gets turned on and we come out with a feeling which would be then believe to be 100% true.

[00:11:38] Now, does that mean you should ignore your feelings? Absolutely not, they are really, really important because they point to what is really going on. The fact that you are having a feeling is really, really important. So do not ignore your feelings. Your feelings are not facts and they’re not right or wrong. They are a warning light. They are an indicator that either a boundary has been crossed for you, so someone has not met your needs in the way you wanted them to, or they have been imposing something on you which has triggered your SOS instincts and you’re feeling really uncomfortable. or scared.

[00:12:18] Your feelings are just like an indicator light. Sometimes it might be a warning. Sometimes. It could just be, Oh, this is happening. But when we don’t stop to investigate the root cause, that’s when we get into trouble, and we get the opposite of what we need, we blame others for this feeling, we often make things worse, which then creates a vicious cycle where we go, oh, look, well, actually what I was worried about, it actually happened, therefore that was right in the first place.

[00:12:48] But if we can just take a little bit of time to think about what our feelings are telling us about what our needs are, then we will find that our needs are met much, much more readily, and much, much more frequently without alienating other people. We are able to deescalate conflict by looking at our needs and helping other people look at their needs. We’ll be able to get out of the drama triangle, where as a victim will be blaming other people, putting them into the persecutor, and then we’re looking for a rescuer, or if someone won’t rescue us, they become the persecutor. But guess what? When you’re blaming them, you’re the persecutor and they feel like the Vixen, which is exactly what happens to my son. And you’ll also be able to get out of victim by thinking actually, what can I do about this? What is in my saying of power right now? It’s all together, better for relationships. And it means that you will end up getting what you need.

[00:13:42] So how do we do this? Well, first of all, Just recognize what your particular SOS needs are.

[00:13:48] Now, we all have basic needs for, you know, food, love, kindness, shelter. That might show up in a bit of different way. You know, I really, really need to rest, but I probably don’t rest in the same way as other people. I have a needs to be appreciated and to feel that I matter to other people. That will show up in different ways for different people. I have a need to feel psychologically safe with people. Everybody does. That will also show up in different ways.

[00:14:14] And then depending on your personality type, what’s happened to you as a child, all these different things. We have other needs, like I’m an Enneagram seven. I have a particular need for freedom and for fun. And when those aren’t met I can often feel incredibly disgruntled and cross unrestricted, but I’ll blame that on all sorts of other things. So recognize what your needs are.

[00:14:40] And then recognize, well, how do these needs show up for you? How do they show up in your body? Well, I can get really distracted when I’m really tired, I can actually act rest less, and it causes me to rest less. And I’m going to do another quick dip episode on the problem of restlessness.

[00:14:57] These needs show up for me is just feeling unappreciated. When I’m not having enough fun, I feel bored and listening, and I feel really, really resentful of other people. Having fun. I feel really, really jealous. And it shows up for me perhaps then as criticizing other people for restricting me or nagging at people to help out more. And it really, really shows up as the shoulds.. Well, you should, they should, I ought. That starts going around my head. And I feel very self-pitying, so against that pity party, which was exactly what I was doing as I was cycling home.

[00:15:28] So recognize those playlists going round your head. Work out what the number one is and catch yourself when you’re doing it. Then what should you do? We teach this in the Shapes Toolkit all the time. When you find yourself like this, and often you can tell, not just by the playlist going round in your head, but by the fact you probably in your fight flight or freeze zone. You probably got adrenaline going, your cortisol will be up, you’ll be feeling very tearful or angry, you know, there’s these emotions that are going around. Recognize that and stop. Take a pause.

[00:16:03] If I had, instead of going straight into the kitchen and confronting my son, if I had just said hi, I’m just going to go and change, gone up to my bedroom, got changed, sat down for five minutes, maybe had a cup of tea, got myself out of the corner, I would have handled things much, much better.

[00:16:21] So rather than responding in the moment when you’re feeling those strong emotions, recognize that that’s the worst time to respond to somebody because you’ll just be reacting, not responding like a compassionate human being. You’ll be reacting out of fear, out of self-defense. And believe me, that never goes well.

[00:16:38] So take that pause, get out of the room, tell somebody you’ll phone them back, buy yourself some time to see whatever it’s going to take for you to. Get your state down somewhere calmer. And when you feel you’re able to properly think, ask yourself a couple of questions.

[00:16:55] One question that can be really helpful is it, is this true? Now, was it true that no one a kid up the kitchen? Yes, but it wasn’t true that it was because they didn’t love me.

[00:17:04] The next question is what is it I really need now? What is my reaction telling me about what I really need? And I’d have thought about it, it’s like my reaction that no one’s helping out means that I need help, I need love, I need appreciation, I need kindness, and I need some food and I need some rest. That is what I need.

[00:17:23] And then finally I need to think about, well then, how can I communicate those needs with other people? Because there’s a side that there’s nothing that annoys me more. When someone’s grouchy with me and then says, well it’s because I just really needed blah, blah, blah, and they hadn’t told me. I think that’s really unfair. If you haven’t told me what you need and I have no clue, and I’m just supposed to be inferring it from the way you’re acting, that is just unreasonable and it’s not fair on the other person.

[00:17:53] Most of us think we can mind read other people. We can’t. And we interpret their behavior as all sorts of other things. We very rarely interpreted properly. We can interpret that maybe something’s wrong. So if you’re recognizing that you could ask someone saying, oh, I’m noticing that, don’t be accusational yet, I’m noticing you’re really angry right now. That’s not going to help. But just some nature thing, you just seem a bit, a bit anxious and worried and stuff. You know, what is it that you need? Ask. But if no, one’s asking you, then, then you’re going to need to tell people yourself. Because if you don’t tell people with your words, you are going to communicate it with your behavior.

[00:18:28] There’s that old phrase isn’t there? That all behavior is communication. That’s what they say about kids. That’s exactly the same with adults. All behavior is communication. It’s communicating people’s needs. And so rather than reacting to bad behavior or someone being a bit grouchy, the wise response is to just think to yourself, what did this person need? What is this behavior telling me? And if people aren’t asking you about your own behavior, you’re going to need to tell them yourself.

[00:18:58] So it would have been so much better if I just sat down with my son, and said, oh, can you make me a cup of tea? I’ve had a really long day. I’m feeling really tired and because we were up so late at your amazing party, I’m feeling extra tired. He’d have probably said, oh, okay, Mum, alright, I’ll make you a cup of tea. Then I could have sat down and connected with him and said did you enjoy the party? Had a chat with him.

[00:19:21] And then I could have said to him, oh, you know, when I initially came in. I felt a bit sad that the kitchen was in a mess and the garden was in a mess because when I’m feeling really tired and people don’t do what I’ve asked them to do, it makes me feel that people don’t love me or don’t appreciate what I do do. So I’m saying how I’m feeling and the impact on me.

[00:19:40] And then he might still be defensive. Of course he might. Because no one likes feeding they’ve upset somebody, but I’m probably going to get a better reaction than just accusatory language, like you never do this or that, at which point he probably would have said, oh, I’m really sorry, Mum, I’ve had such a long day and I’ve got all this coursework to do. And I said, Nevermind. Do you reckon you might be able to do it tomorrow? And I reckon he probably would have been much more likely to have done it the next day.

[00:20:05] And that’s an example of a request. Because it’s perfectly fine to make requests of people. Now they might not be your request, but sort of saying would you be willing to do that in a couple of minutes while I cook tea? You know, would you be willing? I’m not demanding that of you, I’m making a request.

[00:20:23] And this is the basis of, of nonviolent communication, you know, expressing our needs and our feelings and the impact of stuff on us and making a request, and letting the other person speak, and communicating empathy with them. It would have been even better if I said, oh gosh, I can imagine that’s a long day. You must be really tired from your party. You’ve got all this coursework to do that you should have done. Side note should have done it all summer, but too busy partying. You know, how much better would that have been in terms of connection, in terms of getting his needs met and in terms of getting my needs met?

[00:20:55] And since then, I’ve really started to question myself when I get an emotion, a difficult feeling in my body, and then I start thinking and interpreting it and overthinking it, I’ve started to try and stop myself and think, what does this point to in terms of my needs? What is this telling me that I’m lacking, or wishing for, or wanting?

[00:21:20] And I’m starting to really try and watch the thought patterns I get into. ‘Cause just as much as the emotions, what you’re feeling in your body can affect your thought patterns, so what you think can affect your emotions. Of course, of course it can. It either strengthened them or diminishes them or creates them or leases them, whatever. So sometimes we just need to distract ourselves out of those playlist that going round. And round and often the playlists of guilt and shame and fear.

[00:21:49] So next time you catch yourself ruminating on stuff, feeling unloved, unappreciated, worried, anything like that, and you are tempted just to go and have an interaction with that person who you feel it’s their fault maybe, or you think you really need to express what you’re thinking, can I just encourage you to stop to pause and write down what undenying need you have, or what underlying boundary seems to being crossed. Because then you’ll be able to approach things in order to get what you really need, rather than to get the opposite.

[00:22:26] And if you become a total ninja at this, you’ll find yourself having to do it less and less because you’ve already put in that stuff to prevent you getting depleted, getting overwhelmed in the first place, and you’ve done that by being your own best friend, predicting what you need, and being able to express that to other people and getting stuff in there before it’s too late. Because of course prevention is always better than cure.

[00:22:51] So next September, I am going to do whatever it takes to avoid a repeat of this September. And I’m going to put that in my diary now. So, if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed like I have been, we have a free toolkit called the Overwhelm SOS Toolkit, so do download that. That will help you just sort of get on top of your workload and your list, and help you think about actually, what is the number one thing that I really need right now? So go well, and I’ll see you in the next quick dip.