Identify Your Needs

We’ve gone over how our bodies respond to our environment (which can sometimes cause trauma), so let’s work on a DIY Response Plan to help us stay within the Zone of Resilience. In the first edition of the Healing Zine we talked about identifying your feelings and healing modalities to help you address those feelings/emotions. In this edition, we want to empower you with the tools to help you identify your needs. Similar to emotions, needs are unique to you and your experience.

A way to visualize “needs” is to use Maslow’s Hierarchy³⁹ of needs.

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Emotions can often help us identify our needs. For example, if I am feeling hungry or exhausted, I most likely have physiological needs that are not being met. If I am feeling scared and anxious, I likely have safety needs that are not being met.

Often our needs require external support to be met. Whether that external support is a friend, family member, partner, a Care Advocate, or another resource, we know that asking for help can be a daunting task. In this edition we hope to support you in not only identifying your needs but also creating a plan to access those needs.

It takes a few steps to create your own plan to address your basic, psychological and self-fulfilling needs.

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1. Address your feelings/emotions (and use the first Healing Zine edition to do so). This will often lead you to the next step.
2. Identify your needs. The Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs pyramid may be a helpful tool.
3. Get specific, the needs in the pyramid are general. For example, if you need food, identify how many meals you need and for how many people and any dietary restrictions.
4. Write out your action steps. It may be helpful to visualize yourself being at point A and your need being point B. Then write out the different things that would have to happen to get from A to B. Then list them in order. For example, if you need food, you’ll want to identify resources that provide food, create a list of food you need, identify transportation and schedule a time to go. The more detailed the steps are, the more prepared you’ll be.
5. Identify the resources and support you’ll need to complete your action steps.

These 5 steps may not make your experience easier but writing out your needs and action steps may give your mind a sense of relief. It may also help you in asking for your needs and advocating for yourself.

In the following section, we will review some examples of needs by category. You can always schedule an appointment with a Care Advocate to go over your needs and create a plan for getting them met.

Basic Needs

Physiological: These needs are required for your basic survival. When these are not met, it can be extremely difficult to address any of your other needs. For example, if you are hungry, it may be very challenging to focus on school and get the grades you are hoping for. Having access to food, water, and shelter allows us to access our other needs. Physiological needs are:

• Clean air and water
• Nutritious and affordable food
• Safe home where you can rest comfortably

Safety: Once physiological needs have been met, attention and desire turns to safety and security. This includes security of body, employment, resources, and property. Feeling and being safe can mean different things for different people. You may have safety concerns relating to someone causing you harm or you may be navigating PTSD and feeling unsafe all the time. Safety and security needs are:

• Living in safe neighborhoods and community area
• Job security and financial reserves
• Access to affordable healthcare, medicine and medical devices

Psychological Needs

Belongingness and love: The third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. Being a part of a community can be important for our overall well-being. Having others that we can lean on for support, share our ideas and goals with and experience joy together can be an important part of healing. Belongingness and love needs are:

• Intimacy, trust, and acceptance in relationships (family, friends, partners)
• Receiving and giving affection and love
• Affiliating, being apart of a group or community

Esteem: Esteem needs can be classified as external or internal. Internal esteem needs are related to self-esteem, such as the need to respect yourself and achieve. External esteem needs are those such as social status, reputation,and recognition. If you’ve experienced any form of trauma but especially interpersonal violence, it may be difficult for you to trust or even like yourself, and that’s okay. When we prioritize meeting our needs we can regain our sense of esteem. Esteem needs are:

• Affiliating, being apart of a group or community
• Sense of confidence mastery and achievement
• Recognition and respect from others especially family, friends, coworkers, and community

Self-fulfillment Needs

Self-Actualization: It can be defined as the quest of reaching your full potential. Often when our basic needs are not met, neither are our psychological or self-fulfillment needs. It’s common and valid to jump around, and it’s important to note that everyone is different. It is encouraged to start at the bottom of the pyramid and work your way to the top. Self-fulfillment as a need is never fully satisfied due to the fact that people can ‘grow’ and evolve. Self-actualization needs are:

• Problem-solving, grounded in empathy
• Spontaneity and creative outlets
• Appreciation for life and it’s lessons