What are adult needs and childhood needs and how do we separate them?

This is a very personal matter. We must realize that what is an innate need of a child may not be appropriate for an adult. I have heard many recovering people say “I’m looking for someone to take care of me.” Maybe said in humor, this is not such a joke.

The unconscious may be cloaking a powerful force that wants “to be taken care of.” I have watched couples that I counsel where one of them proclaims how independent he or she is. Yet, the way they say things and the energy and body language they exude say “please take care of me, don’t leave me, I can’t survive without you!” Obviously, this person is giving very mixed signals to their partner. Simultaneously, their partner lives with a gut feeling that they can never live up to the projected nonverbal needs, no matter how independent the talk might be. Until the unconscious childhood demands are recognized in both partners, the dynamics of the relationship will continue to suffer. Usually the partner of a “needy” person will have childhood demands that nonverbally say “don’t you dare fence me in. I won’t be encroached upon. I won’t give up my freedom to anyone.” You can imagine what a dynamic and twisted “dance” this creates.

These are not adult needs, but instead charged remnants of childhood needs. It is all right to have these needs. It is not bad; neediness is just a feeling. But, we need to become aware of these needs and other unconscious childhood demands and acknowledge them. In so doing we will prevent them from sabotaging our best efforts for personal fulfillment.

No matter how much we might deny pain from an unfilled childhood need, the pain remains. It does not disappear. The denial of this pain perpetrates the need and projects it into the future. We delude ourselves when, on some level, we believe that the pain can only be eliminated when we are given what was experienced as lacking, even years later. This, of course, will never happen.

A good time to uncover these childhood needs is whenever we are stuck in a relationship dilemma, or when we hit a wall. When we find the part of ourselves that says: “It must be this way, not that way. Life must give me this; I must have it. ” When we find, hear, or express this voice and recognize its history we move to another level of awareness.

Adult relationships are critical areas that focus us on our original pain of deprivation. Thus, we need to take compassionate responsibility for these inner unmet needs, and recognize that we cannot wait for good feelings to come from outside. By taking responsibility, we become less dependent on being praised and loved, or rebelling against that dependency. We can give love to ourselves. To do so, we accept and relax the demanding needs of our resentful inner child. We do this by learning to discern these powerful inner signals from our body, and when they emerge we acknowledge them with compassionate understanding. We take a deep breath, respecting our history, and we realize that those feelings do not need to be projected out. These are needs we can minister to, or invite a loved one to consciously nurture us. Either way the need gets respected and nurtured. This brings us to our core by increasing our ability to have strong currents of good, warm feelings, enhancing our desire to share these feelings rather than withhold them. One learns to give up secret, childish, greedy and spiteful ways of administering feelings. Gradually, the childhood emptiness is filled through self-love and the fulfillment of adult needs.

When I study the authentic expressions of people I have counseled, adult needs become apparent. Personal growth, self-expression and the realization of our spiritual potential are the gifts of an adult life fully lived. The attainment of these needs brings fulfilling relationships, love and pleasure.

As we separate out our childhood needs, we discover our unique and personal path in life. We begin to create and understand our purpose. This is felt on intuitive levels, and as we integrate our life experiences with our passions and desires bliss becomes manifest. In my case, there was a period when I learned to separate and respect deprivations from childhood. This coincided with when I could free my adult self to bring more passion to my relationships, work and life. I marvel at the energy freed up and the clarity of focus that has come to me.

Our adult needs never require others to comply with us or give us what we want. This a childhood demand. The adult need for love and companionship can only be fulfilled when we are ready to love and share. This is very different from the childhood need to be loved. Many of us think we are ready for love, but through some fate of the universe it has not come our way. In these situations, I believe we are still operating with the cloaked childhood need: we are still looking for the perfect parent. When we stop projecting our past into adulthood, love will come to us and fulfill our adult needs. I have observed this process happening repeatedly as we begin to separate our unmet childhood from adult real time needs. This happens by assessing and being honest with our own inner cravings. We must quiet ourselves, tune in and listen to our own inner child with compassion and without judgment. The willingness to enter this awareness will begin an energetic process. By this I mean you will feel the emergent energy currents and feelings in your body and will also feel the shifts that occur with those body sensations. In the very noticeable shift that comes with recognition and acknowledgment of the childhood needs, inner constrictions relax and love flows. This is the great mystery of it all! We need to embrace this inner transformation in the same way we need to embrace the secrets of our very existence. Like the sun, the stars and the moon, all the great workings of Nature are still an enigma to us. All we can rely on is the relative consistency of these happenings.

When we come out of our own delusion, we can trust the organic, self-organizing universe to meet our needs. While this may sound like far-out, new age fantasizing, one's own, in-body experience will quickly dispel such doubts. For example, in my own significant relationships I sometimes observe my own deep, needy feelings from childhood begin to surface because I am feeling insecure or overwhelmed with life. When I observe the needy pull from within and compassionately acknowledge it something instantly loosens up inside and I realize I have a choice. I can act out the feelings on my loved ones, which is always bound to confuse them and leave me unfulfilled. Or, I can love that part of myself and experience the shift within where the need relaxes. Instead of demanding love I can give it. Mysteriously, with a little patience and without any request, love does come my way in a manner I never would have imagined. In doing so, it meets my adult needs, maturing me in the process, and validating my self-responsibility and respect for my resident unmet childhood needs. I am not sure if they ever completely go away, but they can definitely become manageable in a very playful way.

I am always amazed to watch people in this station of their development. Their world begins to meet them with exactly what they are up for. They begin their own, unique fulfillment process. They draw to themselves a piece of pleasurable gratification, in whatever form, that is more expansive than what they had previously been able to imagine or embody. The gratification and enlightenment come from experiencing the relaxing of the unconscious childhood demand for fulfillment.

Separating adult needs from childhood needs is an advanced “step” in one’s healing into wholeness. Those of us who have done this very personal task have the blessing of living in holism. In this integrated experience creativity abounds, along with feelings of bliss and accomplishment, and a sense of meeting the world on its terms . . . and your own. We experience empowerment, intuitive inner knowing, body-mind-spirit connection, serendipity, grace, and synchronicity. We possess an awareness of impermanence that is extraordinarily liberating allowing us to live from the inside out.

We who are recovering our lost selves have the opportunity, responsibility, and adventurous pleasure of being in a position of transforming not only our own lives, but also our world for the better. We include a wide range of people — people who are recovering from addictions, codependency or childhood traumas, and most importantly people who are growing out of emotional and psychological systems that no longer work. I perceive us as a “tribe of healers. ” Together in healing consciousness we will significantly influence the positive movement of ourselves, our loved ones, our friends and society as we embrace the new millennia. As we let go of the childhood demands, isn’t this what we really want?

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