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- Journal: Discovering Needs behind Actions and Choices
- Journal: Layers of Self-Connection
- Journal: Facets of Self-Connection
- Journal: Working with Our "Limitations"
- Journal: Mourning and Self-Compassion
- Journal: Mourning and Learning Daily Practice
© 2014 Inbal Kashtan and Miki Kashtan • [email protected] • www.baynvc.org • 510-433-0700 If you want to share these materials, visit http://bit.ly/material-share for information about what we ask of you.
- Pick an action or choice that you are very happy you took or made. Describe the action or choice.
- Use questions such as the following to find the needs that led to this action or choice:
a. What were hoping for when taking this action or making this choice?
b. What was important to you that led you to this action or choice? c. What does this action or choice mean to you? - Shift focus back and forth between the action or choice and the needs that led to it. Does anything change in your inner experience as you do this?
- Repeat questions 1-3 with an action or choice that you feel neutral about.
- Repeat questions 1-3 with an action or choice that you feel unhappy about, even one that you have a judgment of yourself for taking or making.
- Did you have a different experience finding needs for the action or choice you are not happy with?
- Now pick an action or choice that someone else's took or made that you are very happy to have experienced. This person can be in your life or just someone you know about, including a political figure.
- Use questions such as the following to find the needs that might have led to this action or choice. Bear in mind that you cannot know, you can only guess: a. What might this person have been hoping for when taking this action or making this choice? b. What might have been important to this person that led this person to this action or choice? c. What might this action or choice have meant to this person?
- Shift focus back and forth between the action or choice and the needs that might have led to it. Does anything change in your inner experience as you do this?
- Repeat questions 1-3 with someone else's action or choice that you feel neutral about.
- Repeat questions 1-3 with someone else's action or choice that you feel unhappy about, even one that you have a strong judgment of that person for taking or making.
- Did you have a different experience finding needs for the action or choice you are not happy with?
- Any insights you are getting from this overall activity?
© 2014 Inbal Kashtan and Miki Kashtan • [email protected] • www.baynvc.org • 510-433-0700 If you want to share these materials, visit http://bit.ly/material-share for information about what we ask of you.
Give yourself between 5-20 minutes for this process, ideally in a location where you will have privacy and quiet. Find a comfortable place to sit. You can either journal through this process, or look at each step, close your eyes, and see what arises for you in response to the questions. If you're working with a partner, one of you can guide the other through all the questions, then switch roles. Read the full instructions first to get familiar with what you'll be doing, so you can just relax into the experience.
- Identify a need: Think of a need that is often not met to your satisfaction, or think of a situation in which you have some intensity about any need that is not being attended to. Name this need.
- Connect with this need: Take a few moments to fully connect with this need. To help you fully connect, notice any sensations in your body as you name this need. Notice any emotions that arise, and allow yourself to fully experience them. If you notice any resistance to experiencing this need, remind yourself that all human beings have this need – it is an expression of your humanity that you have this need, too.
- Identify the need beneath the need: Ask yourself one of the following questions, whichever one supports you to move into a deeper layer of needs. Take time for a response to emerge for you, for another need to come forward into your awareness. If the first question you ask yourself does not surface a new need, try a different question, but as soon as a new need arises, stop asking the questions and go back to step a. If this need were met, what need would that meet? b. What's important to me about having this need met? c. How would it contribute to me if this need were met? d. What would it be like for me to have this need met?
- Connect with the deepest layer of your needs: Repeat steps 2 and 3, descending through the layers of needs, until you experience a sense of full connection with yourself, or some inner release. You have now reached the deepest layer you can touch at this moment about this particular cluster of needs.
- How do you feel now? Do you have any insights from doing this practice?
© 2014 Inbal Kashtan and Miki Kashtan • [email protected] • www.baynvc.org • 510-433-0700 If you want to share these materials, visit http://bit.ly/material-share for information about what we ask of you.
This guided reflection is intended to support you in experiencing a variety of ways to connect with your needs, which you can use at any time in your daily life. People resonate differently with these different ways. You may want to explore each of these to see which support you in gaining more self-connection and inner freedom. You can use these reflections as a series or separately from each other.
- Focus your attention on a need that is not met to your satisfaction in your life. Put your focus specifically on the unmet quality of this need. You can say to yourself: "My need for ____ is not met," and repeat this phrase until you are fully connected with the experience of the need when it's not met. (You might want to close your eyes and focus inwardly while you do this.) What sensations do you notice in your body? What feelings arise?
- Now shift your attention to the need itself. Not to the idea of having the need met, but to the need itself; to the fact of having a need. You can say to yourself: "I have a need for _____," and repeat this phrase until you are fully connected with the experience of having the need. (You might want to close your eyes and focus inwardly while you do this.) What sensations do you notice in your body? What feelings arise?
- Now shift your attention to the met quality of the need. What is it like for you when this need is met? You can imagine this need met, and say to yourself: "My need for _____ is met," and repeat this phrase until you are fully connected with the experience of having this need met. (You might want to close your eyes and focus inwardly while you do this.) What sensations do you notice in your body? What feelings arise?
- Lastly, shift your attention to the need as a presence you want to encounter (another meaning of "meet"). This is similar to focusing on the need without focusing on whether or not it's it being met, but may be experienced differently. Focus on what it is like to meet this need in the sense of encountering it fully. You might say to yourself: "Hello _____. Welcome," and repeat this phrase until you are fully connected with the experience of having encountered this need. (You might want to close your eyes and focus inwardly while you do this.) What sensations do you notice in your body? What feelings arise?
- Note any insight from the shift in focus, and or any needs met by the experience.
- Consider: when would you want to engage with each of these different focuses on your needs? How might each serve you? What needs would you want to meet through this focus?
- Do you have any requests of yourself?
© 2014 Inbal Kashtan and Miki Kashtan • [email protected] • www.baynvc.org • 510-433-0700 If you want to share these materials, visit http://bit.ly/material-share for information about what we ask of you.
a. Whenever our capacity in a certain area is not matching our desire, we face a dual challenge: at one and the same time both increase our self-acceptance and stretching to grow in our capacity.
b. Connecting fully with all our needs enables us to meet needs for self-acceptance, understanding and connection, so that any effort to grow arises from clear connection with needs instead of any notion that we "should" be different from how we are.
- Write down a judgment that you have of yourself in relation to your overall capacities. (E.g.: "I am too stupid to do math" or "I never care enough about other people" or "I am clumsy and ungraceful" or "I am disorganized and never get anything done.")
- What needs or dreams does this judgment point to? (E.g.: creativity and ease, care and generosity, grace and beauty, focus and attention). For each need or dream that you write down, take a moment to connect fully with the need independently of whether that need will ever be met. What feelings arise when you allow yourself to touch the longing for this need? Stay with this activity until you sense a settling inside yourself. You may want to use the Facets of Self-Connection or Needs: Layers of Self-Connection journals to go deeper into self-connection in relation to these needs.
- What situation in particular triggers this judgment? Please be specific. (E.g. "Yesterday someone explained to me how to calculate interest on a loan, and I didn't understand anything she said." Or "My friend called me for support with a difficult situation, and I noticed that I wasn't interested in what he had to say." Or "I tripped on the dance floor last time I went dancing." Or "I set out to organize my room yesterday, and it took me 3 hours to get through one small pile of papers.")
- Do you notice any contraction inside of you when you focus your attention on the observation above? Any "should?" Are you comparing yourself with other people whose habits or capacities are different from yours? Notice and write down any feelings and needs that arise in you in relation to this contraction, comparison, or "should." Take a moment to connect fully with any need you discover before shifting to another need.
- Reflect on your feelings, needs, and any requests you have of yourself in this moment.
© 2014 Inbal Kashtan and Miki Kashtan • [email protected] • www.baynvc.org • 510-433-0700 If you want to share these materials, visit http://bit.ly/material-share for information about what we ask of you.
- Think of something you've done that you feel regret about. Write down what it is in observations (without judgments).
- What are judgments you have of yourself in relation to what you've done? Write them down, as much as possible without editing.
- How do you feel in relation to what you did? Notice and note both emotions and physical sensations in your body.
- Identify which needs of yours were not met in choosing this action: a. Needs related to your own values b. Needs related to the unhappy results even if your choice is aligned with your values (connect with the other person's needs)
- Take some time to fully connect with each of the needs you identified until you feel your heart open in full.
- Take a moment to breathe and check in with yourself. Do you notice more judgments? If yes, write them down.
- Again, identify feelings and needs behind these judgments. Pause each time you identify a feeling or a need to experience it as much as possible.
- Now shift your attention to the needs you were trying to meet when you did the thing you've regretted. Write them down and give your attention to connecting with them. You may also recall feelings from that time.
- How do you feel as you notice the needs you were trying to meet? Again, connect as much as you can with both emotions and physical sensations.
- Take a moment to breathe and check in with yourself again. How are you feeling now? What needs are met or not met in this moment?
- Do you have any requests of yourself at this moment that may support you in meeting your needs?
- If you notice any self-judgments arise, connect once again with the feelings and needs behind them. Continue to shift back and forth between mourning and self-compassion until the mourning is free from self-judgments.
- Read through all of the needs you have identified and connected with so far. Are there any needs of yours that are met by connecting with your needs right now? Is there any internal shift in your energy about the judgment? Any learning for you?
- If the judgment still seems as alive to you, consider the following question: Which needs of yours are you trying to meet by holding on to the judgment you have of yourself? How do you feel when you connect with these needs?
- Connect with your feelings and needs in this moment. Do you have any requests yourself in this moment? Any insights that you want to jot down to remember?
- What's something you did today that you have some mourning around (observation)?
- What needs of yours were not met by this? What feelings arise when you notice these needs?
- Take some time to connect with the need. Shift your focus from how this need was not met, to the need itself. You can use the phrase: "I have a need for ...." Notice what feelings arise now.
- Shift your focus now to understanding yourself. How were you feeling when you did this? What needs were you trying to meet by doing it
- Again take time to connect with the need. Shift your focus from trying to meet the need, to the need itself. You can use the phrase: "I have a need for ...." Notice what feelings arise now.
- Spend a moment reflecting on the needs that you didn't attend to as well as on the needs you were trying to meet. What feelings arise in this moment?
- What would have been another option for you to try in that moment that may have met your needs more fully? (If this question triggers any self-judgments, use the "Self-Judgments" journals, or take time for self- empathy.)
- Do you have any requests of yourself or others around you in relation to this situation?
© 2014 Inbal Kashtan and Miki Kashtan • [email protected] • www.baynvc.org • 510-433-0700 If you want to share these materials, visit http://bit.ly/material-share for information about what we ask of you.