Human well-being is made up of human needs.

The more I’m able to care for my needs the more I increase my well-being.

Examples of needs are - the need for security and certainty, the need to be seen, heard and understood, the need for play and fun, the need for freedom and independence, the need for meaning and contribution and the need for connection, belonging and community.

A comprehensive list can be found here

In fact this is what we are all “doing” here on earth. We are all longing and moving towards the fulfilment of these needs.

For example we all long for security and certainty and we take actions which can meet these needs.

Think of any action that you’ve taken today and you will be able to find the 1 or more human needs that you were trying to meet through that action.

Brushed my teeth - health
Listened to a podcast - learning, growth, fun
Argued with my partner - to be heard, understood, acknowledged
Cursed the driver in front of me - reliability (that I can get to where I need to get on time), safety (on the roads)

So well-being is about being conscious of what needs of mine are calling out for my attention and then imagining different ways to meet them.

I might be feeling exhausted lately and notice that my needs for fun and play are not really being met much in my life (I am a dad of 2 little ones so yes I am really longing to have more fun and play - with people my age, I play plenty with them).

Once I’m aware of what needs might be going unmet I am empowered to think of ways to meet them.

For me I love playing tennis but haven’t played in months. So this week I’m going back to play. Tennis for me is fun and playful amongst other things. It gives me energy. So this is a step that increases my well-being.

Again the process is:
Consider which needs of yours are going unmet lately
Imagine ways to meet them and take those actions

Another example might be that I’m feeling a lot of anxiousness and loneliness lately. Perhaps I’m needing connection and friendship.

I notice that I haven’t been in contact with friends too much lately (also true for me) as I’ve been so engrossed in my everyday life and haven’t reached out.

Once I’m clearer on the fact that I’m needing more connection and friendship then I can take actions to meet those needs and thus enhance my well-being.

Maybe I’ll call a friend and share with them some challenges I’ve been facing lately. Maybe I go and drink coffee with a small group of friends and have a good laugh and connecting chat.

The beauty about needs as being the building blocks of our well-being is that needs can be met in infinite ways.

There is no limit on the ways that I can meet my needs for play and fun for example.

Build a DIY something, make popcorn and go on a netflix binge, cook a soup from a recipe you have never tried before, juggle, do a dance class on youtube, go for a walk, run or swim.

And needs can be met with a range of people. With your partner, kids, friends, one friend, colleagues, parents, siblings or with yourself.

Plus needs can be met in infinite times. You can do these things now, later today, tomorrow, once a week or in a few weeks. They don’t have to be done right now.

So for me well-being is about this awareness of my needs and a creativity and skill in going about meeting them.

Anything resonate with you here?

What is well-being to you?

@Susan Tutt

Our society is built around gaining approval or avoiding disapproval. 

Two of the most used motivators of human behaviour are…

Reward - do this (the thing that I want you to do) and you’ll get approved of in some way. 

Punishment - do this (the thing that I don’t want you to do) and you’ll get disapproved of in some way. 

So as a society we are trained/conditioned to seek approval and avoid disapproval. 

So it’s no wonder that many people in the world suffer from approval seeking behaviours. 

I say “suffer” because I know from personal experience how unenjoyable and stressful it is to do things in order to find approval or to avoid disapproval. 

I find this to be an extremely anxiety producing way to live because I’m constantly in a state of danger (not really but this is how our body interprets it). 

It’s a state of danger because if I get approval then I’m safe but if I’m disapproved then what happens? Ultimately I won’t belong any more to the tribe and will be expelled, which means death (back in the days of the tribe) and today it means emotional death. 

So approval seeking is a real pattern that causes great anxiety, depression and life alienating behaviours. 

For me the question is not “how to be less of an approval seeker?” it’s “how can I remember that love is not something I gain by my actions but something I give through them.”

I want to write that again…

Love (inc approval) is not something I gain from my actions, it’s something I give through them. 

Approval seekers deeply believe that their need for love is dependant on whether they are approved by others or not. 

If I do something that others’ don’t approve of then I won’t be loved. That is the unconscious or conscious belief underneath this behaviour. 

And love is a deep deep deep human need, we all need love and without we won’t survive. 

So to begin to transform approval seeking we need to transform our understanding of what love is. 

Love for me is not the receiving of approval from other people. I know that people still love me even if they disapprove of an action of mine. 

Love is not something I gain through my actions. 

Love is something alive in me that motivates my actions. 

I want to live in a way whereby the choices I make in everyday life are motivated by my desire to contribute to life (aka to meet needs). 

In other words, with any action I take I want to be conscious of the needs that I’m nourishing by choosing to take this action. 

Simple example from my intimate relationship…

My partner asks me to tidy up the house before I go to bed. 

As an approval seeker my tendency is to tidy the house because I want her approval or to avoid her disapproval. 

But I want to get out bit by bit from this cycle. 

I want love to guide my actions. This means to make a choice based on love. 

One example would be that I choose to clean the dishes because I choose to meet needs of tidiness and order and support (of my partner). 

By the same token I might be completely exhausted myself and choose not to tidy the house because I want to meet needs of rest and self care. 

It doesn’t matter what I choose. It matters HOW I choose it. The process of decision making for someone who wants to lessen approval seeking behaviour needs to be one whereby I take a moment to make a choice about my actions and that choice is guided by the needs that I’d like to see met through my actions. 

This to me is a fundamentally different way to live. 

Ultimately living with love as my motivator of my actions and not my desired result of my actions means that I cultivate within me a real self-love. 

I want to sense the love in me for myself. I want to connect with myself tenderl and lovingly. I want love to live inside me and not be something I’m reliant on receiving outside. 

Don’t get me wrong - we can still enjoy and desire love to come from other people. I can still say to my partner “Oh I’d love you to hug and touch me” or to our children “oh I’d love you to tell me one thing you’re glad that I did for you”. YES YES YES! This is wonderful. We of course can ask others to also nourish our need for love but the key is that we aren’t dependent on their words or actions for our sense of love. 

We are connecting to the love within us. That energy that moves us to take actions that serve life (meet needs). 

How is this article for you to read? I’d love to hear any thoughts or questions that are alive in you…

@Susan Tutt

This article is an add on to a post I wrote on relationship break down.
I think that what a healthy dependence is is one whereby we look at our partner or the other person as someone who we really aspire to filling our needs.

But I have difficulty with the word “dependence”. For me dependence means that my well-being is somewhat dependant on another person. This is not how I want to be in my relationships. 

I want my relationships to be a place whereby I look to nourish my well-being. 

This to me is very different from depending on them for my well-being. 

Maybe I’d call it a healthy aspiration. I aspire to really nourishing some of my most intimate needs with this other person. 

I so love when we can spend time together and really enjoy contributing to one another. Maybe we give each other a massage, we share challenges and are heard and understood, we make love or share moments of intimacy and passion etc. 

This to me is clear - I have one other person in my life that I want to meet many of my needs with - my partner. 

But I aspire to not be dependent on her. Meaning, if she is unavailable for whatever reason then I want to be able to free myself to look elsewhere in that moment. 

For example I want to be able to call a good friend and receive the support I need from them. Or I want to be able to go and play tennis with another person which for me is fun and passion and meeting those needs of mine. 

It’s kind of like saying to her “I LOVE LOVE LOVE when you are available for me. You’re my number one choice for meeting many of my needs. Yet I recognise that you aren’t always available for me. And in those moments I want to give you full independence (free of my judgement as much as possible) to be true to yourself. And I want to give myself the independence to find other ways to meet my needs.”

When I’m like this in my relationship that it creates a real flow of energy which is really love. 

For me love is free of expectation and full of expression of my desire for the other person. 

I want you and don’t expect that I can have you every time I desire. 

I don’t expect you to meet my needs every time at every moment and in every way that I like…but I LOVE WHEN YOU DO because it brings me such joy!

For me there is something restraining when I place my expectation on another. It chokes the connection, limits it. And the same is true when someone places an expectation on me (even if they just think it but don’t express it). I feel pressured to meet their needs and it pushes me away. 

Would love to hear any thoughts or what resonated to those that read…

@Susan Tutt @David Rubeli

Here’s a situation I notice happen a lot for me:

a) Someone does something I don’t like
b) I think “what a ____ (something negative)”
c) I feel anger
d) I get less of what I’m wanting

An example from this morning from the best place of examples for getting pissed off at others - the roads. 

I’m driving and someone who was parked by the side of the road reverses into my lane causing me to stop (a). 

In a fraction of a second I think “dickhead” (b). 

And then I notice I’m feeling tension and irritation (c). 

And then I notice that I speed up and drive close to them which is the opposite of what I’m really wanting, which is safety on the roads and relaxation in my body (d). 

I was reflecting on all this as it was happening and I thought “what a ridiculous response”. What I mean is that this way of thinking and being in the world is completely normal. Anyone reading this will be able to identify with that experience in one way or the other. 
What a tragedy that this is the way we go about trying to get what we want. 

I want safety on the roads, I want consideration on the roads and I want to feel as much calm (or as little stress) in my body as possible in my life. 

And the way I go about getting these things which are dear to me is to label others (dickhead, asshole, idiot, stupid, blind etc). 

Essentially we’ve been taught that the way of getting what you really want out of others is to condemn them if they’re not giving that to you. 

And this is a tragedy. 

I want a new response to happen in my thoughts and body and I’m trying to instil it into my body and being and mind and it’s REALLY REALLY difficult. But the benefits are worth it. 

I want to turn my labels of others into my wants:
‘Dickhead’ — into -– “Come on man, I want you to look when you reverse”
‘Idiot’ —- into —- “I want you to slow down and take more care on the roads”

Or some examples from my relationships with friends and partner:

“Demanding” —- into —- “I just wish you’d acknowledge sometimes the things I am doing that meet your needs”
“Untrustworthy” —- into —- “I so want trust in our relationship and open communication”
“Cold hearted” —- into —- “I love your hugs and smile and wish I’d see more of them”

I know that for me this type of internal work is immediately beneficial to my body. I immediately feel tension dissipate. I feel a little calmer in my body. I breathe a bit more deeper. 

My sense is that this type of work calms the sympathetic nervous system (that responsible for fight/flight) and arouses the parasympathetic nervous system (that responsible for rest and digestion). I think this because when I have thoughts of labelling others (“cold-hearted, asshole”) it is communicating to my body that I’m in a threatening situation where I might need to fight or flee. 

Conversely when I can say to myself my wants “I just love your hugs and miss them” then I’m telling my body that I’m safe and connected to my deeper desires. 

Anyway, that’s all for now. Would love to hear if anything resonates with you?

@Susan Tutt

There is a common misconception in relationships. Particularly those more intimate relationships like partners, family and close friends.

The misconception is that I am responsible for meeting the other person’s needs and they are responsible for meeting mine.

For example in a romantic relationship, each partner sees themselves as responsible for meeting the other person’s needs.

This is not how I see things, although I find it very difficult to implement the way I do see things.

How I see things, as inspired by Nonviolent Communication, is that I am responsible for MY OWN needs and for finding ways to meet them AND I long to be in a connection with you whereby compassion is flowing between us and therefore I want to HELP you meet your needs and you want to help meet mine.

This to me is a description of a healthy relationship.

Each person takes full responsibility for their own needs, meaning that they don’t expect (even subconsciously) that the other person will meet their needs.

I find this SUPER HARD to implement in my intimate relationship or with my parents.

It’s tricky because I want my partner, for example, to see me, to understand me, to love me, to make space for me. I want this very much.

And it’s a fine line between wanting this to happen and expecting that it will happen.

It’s a fine line between wanting that my partner will support me and expecting that she will.

For me though, it’s a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE energetically.

When I’m connected to the energy of wanting or longing then this comes out with a clarity but with no demand that my partner should fulfil it.

It’s like “I love when you support me in X, Y and Z ways”.

But when I lose touch with my wants or my deeper needs and they turn into demands or expectations of other people, then it comes out as “You must support me now, you are my partner, that’s what partners do”.

I find that when I have this demand/expectation energy in me I feel tension and stress in my body and my partner feels this tension as well and is put off by it.

I believe that the autonomous and all knowing part in her is saying “Don’t try and trick me into believing that your needs for support and love HAVE to be met in these specific ways by me right now. Don’t reduce the enormity of who you are to this. And please don’t place that pressure on me that if I don’t give you love and support now the way you want it then you won’t be OK. That’s too much pressure for me. It makes it out that I’m responsible for your well-being.”

This resonating with anyone?

So our work in our relationships - be it with partners, parents, children, close friends, siblings etc. - is to embody this energy of my needs and my desires are ginormous. Meaning they can be nourished in infinite ways and by infinite people. This still means that I express to these people my preference and enjoyment I receive when they specifically and in this specific way meet my needs BUT I endeavour to do so in a way which is free of expectation that they WILL or HAVE TO do what I’m wanting them to.

For me this is a life’s work because our tendency, which is very deep in us perhaps from when we were infants and from many many generations gone by, is to attach our needs onto specific significant others and cling onto them for dear life (aka ‘if you don’t meet these needs of mine I won’t be OK’)

Wondering if this is resonating with you? What relationships are coming up for you as you read?

For me this is one of the key reasons why relationships break down.

@Susan Tutt