B02 Basic Principle

Which do you think is more likely?

Since emotions are highly subjective, they must be controlled with reason.

OR

The sooner you resolve a need, the sooner its emotion naturally goes away.

Anankelogy

Your emotions convey to your body whatever your life requires to function in that moment. If your ability to maintain function requires you to do something, such emotions compel you to act.

The further your underlying needs remains unresolved, the more intense the emotion. The urgency to safeguard your capacity to function, to exist, could provoke you to react in some way. Such an alarming reaction often creates other painful needs.

Each emotion conveys a specific need. Each addresses a particular area of your ability to function. And each comes packed with your sense’s perceived intensity of that need.

• Anger conveys to you that you’re facing something you cannot accept. The more you perceive it as unacceptable, the more intense the anger. From mild irritation to violent outrage.

• Fear conveys that you’re facing something you sense you cannot adequately handle. The more you perceive it as beyond your ability to handle, the more intense the fear. From mild anxiety to overwhelming terror.

• Guilt conveys your self-serving actions unacceptably contrast with your social commitments. The more your behavior violated social norms, the more intense the guilt. From mild embarrassment to devastating shame.

• Disappointment conveys that your rightful expectations have not been met. The more dependent upon what fell through, the more intense your disappointment. From casually resigned to the outcome to full disruption to your life.

• Depression conveys, in large part, a drop in energy to continue pursuing commitments at odds with your other neglected needs. The greater the contrast between your habitual neglect of these other needs, the more serious the depression. From a mild case of gloominess to major depression.

In each case, your emotion conveys something lacking in your ability to fully function.

You may not even be aware of such emotions. The more aware of your emotion, the more you feel it. You could be experiencing one emotion while feeling another.

For example, you say you feel upset when your colleague failed to show up for a one-on-one meeting you drove across town just to attend. Before emoted that this is something you cannot accept, your body likely emoted disappointment.

You may feel too angry to be aware of your emotion of disappointment. Prior to emoting disappointment, your body likely emoted shock, at that moment when you were trying to be sure your colleague was there or not.

The greater the impact on your ability to function, the more intense the emotion.

Wisdom warns us not to react to our emotions. Need-response addresses irritants that needlessly provoke your more intense emotions.

Need-response

Need-response addresses the needs conveyed by your emotions, instead of trying to ease your painful feelings. That’s a basic fault of our failing institutions. If they do not respond to the needs your emotions report, you tend to get stuck in those painful feelings.

The more you can resolve the needs your emotions convey, the less pain you must endure. Simple enough, but not easy. Need-response offers tools to reconnect us all to the needs our emotions exist to convey.

Reactive Problem

Doctors and lawyers mean well by offering you options to relieve your pain. But if you ever become dependent on such pain-relieving options, you risk missing the point. The very point of your pain is to alert you to something you must do, or not do, to continue functioning.

The more you slide down the rabbit hole of pain-relief or suppression, the fewer of your needs can fully resolve. You end up in more pain. Then you seek more ways to relieve that pain. This creates a vicious downward spiral, debilitating your life.

Responsive Solution

Short-term pain relief may prove necessary to restore your focus. But let your tolerance for discomfort build up enough to never become dependent on pain-relieving options. Long-term relief from uncomfortable emotions risk trapping you in more pain.

Need-response offers tools to cultivate and improve your relationship with your own emotions. You learn to appreciate the pain you likely prefer to avoid. You also learn to reflect on desires before indulging them too soon. You grow the capacity to process your feelings to promptly resolve your needs, to remove cause for pain or for obsessive cravings, to restore you to holistic wellness.

All emotions compel attention to unresolved needs. To get you to do something so you can keep on functioning. Without a need to convey directly or vicariously, you experience no emotion.

Responding to your needs

How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these:

• I know I shouldn’t act on every emotion right away, but that’s not exactly suppression.

• Sometimes I must curb my emotion’s intensity before I do something stupid.

• Too often, it’s next to impossible to fully resolve a need and I feel stuck feeling bad.

• What kind of tool could help me improve how I relate to my own emotions?

Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below.