Blog Post #118: Defining and Expressing Needs
On our podcast, we talked with Mara Glatzel - coach, podcaster, and author of Needy: How to Advocate for Yourself and Claim Your Sovereignty. Mara has wonderful messages for Type Cs who struggle to define and express their needs. Here are some highlights of the conversation:
Mara started her coaching work after a period of burnout - she was focusing on everyone else’s needs and didn’t really know herself; she spent her whole life striving for success as defined by society.
Her burnout was both physical and spiritual. She was tired of living up to this persona she had created for herself. Her life was about constant betterment - becoming a better worker, friend, partner.
She became passionate about giving people a working vocabulary about having needs. Most of us don’t have good role models who know how to express their needs.
We must re-build relationships with ourselves and figure out what we need. This involves repositioning our lives so that we are now in the center with a mindset of “I am my primary responsibility”.
Many of us keep going as we always have, and this works for a while until it just doesn’t anymore. When you’re feeling physically horrible, this is the best time to make change. You’re ready to do things differently.
To get in better touch with yourself, start with a quick daily check in. How are you feeling - dehydrated? Anxious? Tired? Work on small moments of knowing how you are doing. Take yourself off autopilot. Gather information about yourself, and then incorporate this feedback.
You can begin to understand that “I am a person who likes X, Y, Z.”
Sometimes you notice how you feel in the moment, sometimes you feel it afterwards. The presence of resentment, the “must be nice” feeling - this is a neon sign pointing toward a boundary that’s been crossed or a need that has not been honored.
You must be willing to tell yourself the truth - in a journal or in your mind. This helps build out your voice about what is true for you.
Often we are not able to meet our needs - but we can still express them, even if they can’t be met. We are still allowed to need it. If someone else doesn’t have the capacity to meet it, it doesn’t make it invalid.
There’s a reason you feel the way to do, and it makes perfect sense. You are your own personal historian. Explaining your narrative to yourself can help you write a new narrative. That was then, and this is now. You get to choose whether you continue to relate to yourself in a certain way.