What Do You Need?

We can’t get what we need if we don’t say what we need. We can’t say what we need if we don’t know what we need. Why don’t we know what we need? It’s not as simple as it sounds. Stop reading for just a minute and ask yourself what you need. Did you stop? Now take a look at the “what I needs.” Some things are not possible right now, like a cure. Some things will be what other people think you need. Our self-esteem can be so damaged by chronic illness that we actually believe others know what we need better than we do! Sometimes we don’t think we deserve what we need so we certainly don’t deserve to ask for it. Or maybe we have adopted the stereotype of the silent suffering sick one. Then again, we might have learned not to say what we need in our families. Or we think others will not approve of our needs. My bet is, that it’s “all of the above” in varying degrees!

Find a private place, take an hour for yourself, and write about your needs. Consider these questions taken from the January 3 reading in The Language of Letting Go by Melodie Beattie (one of my all time favorite books), “What do we need to do to take care of ourselves?...What do you want? Need? What don’t you want and need? What do you like? What would feel good?” Then you are ready to ask.