Feelings as indicators of Unmet needs...

I "Feel" hungry. I "Feel" thirsty...I feel afraid and I panic if I begin to suffocate.

So feelings are an indication that something is not going well. An alarm. A trip switch...? A Short circuit...? I do not know.

I suspect it may be what happens when increased energy flows along my neural networks hit a knot or two...

Spiritual practices increase energy flows...? so it is said...

No surprise then that so much of distorted behavior seem to be generated by structures that promise spiritual development and growth.

So feelings are a warning that all is not well...

Talk about a burst of anger...yes indeed...a warning that all is not well...

I’m not sure what you do not know.
... shit happens. All is not constantly well.

The distorsions propagated work for us if we accept them as “the solution” (or even “the truth”) Then we give “them” power.

PS : my last burst of anger gave me the energy to stop something I don’t want anymore. A simple “no”. Then I was sick for 3 days... wanting but refusing support. Wanting to choose my strategy to get supported. Long lifelong stories !

Does this mean that if all is well...there would be no feelings...?

mentor.srilanka wrote:Does this mean that if all is well...there would be no feelings...?

Interesting!
Makes me connect to Thom’s Robot image
When I fear something too much I turn into a world without feelings.

mentor.srilanka wrote:I "Feel" hungry. I "Feel" thirsty...I feel afraid and I panic if I begin to suffocate.

So feelings are an indication that something is not going well. An alarm. A trip switch...?  A Short circuit...?  I do not know.......

Whoa whoa whoa  mentor.srilanka,  Wait a second, this moves faster than I can handle.  I am in some alarm, wanting to stop this train of thought!

 For sure, I agree with what you say, that feelings can indicate when something is not going well.  So often that is what they do.  

But, are we leaving out the feelings of fulfillment, of joy, of exhilaration, of peace and calm and serenity, when things are going well, when some need is met?  Have you experienced noticing any of your met needs?  

I am thinking of how often I take the feelings I get when a need is met for granted--sometimes not paying attention to them.  The need for life, when each in-breath occurs and I feel,... well,... almost nothing, --but I think maybe it is peace and calm.

Am I not understanding what you are saying here?

Or, am I, perhaps, pointing to something you had not yet considered?

Carol

Like after a meal...Like after a deep breath...Like after a long drink of cool water when thirsty...like the stimulations of tongue and palate by spicy rice...sweets and salty sour tastes...like as I grasp my paycheck imagining the weekend ahead...?...like the feeling I get when I drive my brand new rolls past my neighbours beat up mercedeze...like I feel when I see how successful I am compared to those on the street...?...like I feel when I look at my sexual partner and see how handsome and wealthy he is...?....I guess these feelings indicate that all is going fine with me and the world... will hopefully find some time to get back to this...this seems very promising...feelings as indicators of things going fine...

Yes yes yes! As in feeling delighted when experiencing met needs for communication and connection!

CarolF wrote:Yes yes yes! As in feeling delighted when experiencing met needs for communication and connection!

Yes yes yes or enjoying the beauty of your words
And then suddenly realizing - hang on a minute ...

This is not the fairyland world of my dreams.

mentor.srilanka wrote:Like after a meal...Like after a deep breath...Like after a long drink of cool water when thirsty...like the stimulations of tongue and palate by spicy rice...sweets and salty sour tastes...like as I grasp my paycheck imagining the weekend ahead...?...like the feeling I get when I drive my brand new rolls past my neighbours beat up mercedeze...like I feel when I see how successful I am compared to those on the street...?...like I feel when I look at my sexual partner and see how handsome and wealthy he is...?....I guess these feelings indicate that all is going fine with me and the world...  will hopefully find some time to get back to this...this seems very promising...feelings as indicators of things going fine...

Down to your paycheck (even more so if you’re satisfied with the meaningful work you have done) : yes I share your delight
And then : these are no longer delights I share. Cinema delights, maybe, if the film is to my taste.
I actually read your message as a film. The film I make with it is an old argentic film. At one point in the projection it gets stuck and starts burning. And now I realize that the dreamlike pictures of the beginning, the tastes and freshness, also transported me somewhere ...over the rainbow ?

Yes to “very promising”

Geobs wrote:....Yes yes yes or enjoying the beauty of your words
And then suddenly realizing - hang on a minute ...

This is not the fairyland world of my dreams.....
Down to your paycheck (even more so if you’re satisfied with the meaningful work you have done) : yes I share your delight
And then : these are no longer delights I share....

Dear Geobs, Dear Mentor.SriLanka,

Here we are with our interaction way off on this off-site site. Perhaps no one else will find us. If they do, that's fine with me; if not, that's fine too.

I am hearing your words, Geobs, responding to the series of met needs Mentor.SriLanka shares with us, and realizing that some of the delights you partake in, along with her/him, while others, you do not.  I, along with you, also partake in experiencing the delight MentorSriLanka experiences in her/his met needs.  And I also look at some of them, with, (do I dare reveal it?) some sense of wishing that they were mine to enjoy too. Wishing I could fully say, 'me too'.  Oh, how wonderful it would be to fully appreciate, for example,  the wealth and handsomeness of my partner as you do yours, MentorSriLanka.  

So, I want you to know, MentorSriLanka, that I am smiling as I write my words.  A small poke of jealousy I feel at your good fortune.  All while I feel gladness for you.  I too appreciate much in my life and feel many blessings.    As I believe Geobs does in her life, as well.

I have taken a moment to stop and notice that in the course of our learning and communicating what we understand about feelings and needs, there is a little side part that sets off some delicate, tender issues.

loving the process
Carol

Dear Carol,

Yes there are some tender issues. Fine with the air food and water - here the good feelings indicate all is going well. Not so sure with the brand new rolls. Yes...it feels good when I drive past my neighbours beat up mercedeze (To begin with it just "looks" beat up beside the Rolls....its actually a neat car just a lot cheaper...and less class...https://autodirect.lk/listings/benz-cla-class-180-amg-2019-2/)...this "Good" feeling...its a kind of "I am a lot better" kind of thing. Now though the feeling IS VERY good I am by no means certain that it indicates that everything is fine...maybe it would be fine if everyone rolled around in Rollses....but then would that VERY nice feeling still be around...?...SO...the satisfaction of the need to be "I am a lot better"...generates a good feeling BUT...what about the need itself...and what about needs in general....or rather the insistence on having all our needs satisfied...to feel good...aha...a need to feel good too...???....OK...so yes air, water, food fine...what else can be fine...a Rolls for all...?...

Do you have the feelings list from The Compassion Course?

I think the link is listed at the bottom of the lesson each week, a page or two full of feeling words.

Each individual's experience of life is unique, the practice of gratitude helps with discerning 'what is fine'.

Appreciation, thankfulness...two more words for gratitude.

Realistically, not all of our needs are met all the time.

I don't necessarily feel bad when all my needs are not met, i continue on as well as I can. (Perhaps my needs are simply met 'well enough' even though I may want more of this or more of that.)

What I do understand about NVC, The Compassion Course, is that they are creating a framework as a guideline of sorts.

The main aim is to help people with communication skills by teaching how to tune into things like empathy, feelings, needs, values, and so on.

How a person integrates this process is up to them. For myself, when I read the material, I look more for what the essence is, rather than the verbatim.

Dear Kassalee. The lists are instructive. I wonder whether the needs generate the feelings or Vice Versa...

Dear mentorSriLanka

Thank you for what sounds to me like a determined presence here.
A question comes up : What is your purpose when you open one of the lists? (or in life...)
Is it balance ? Stability (on the agreeable side) ? To understand? to find meaning? (I fully trust you that it’s not to be better than me or Carol or Kassalee or your neighbors.)

I’m very happy to see this thread unfold. Particular (and slow) gratitude to Carol's authentic share of a (judged bad) feeling + I see Kassalee offering you our common framework...

Gratitude is the concept in CNV that long didn’t work for me, a lot because of my history with comparisons.
I found a solution after 6 years of caring and self caring, online and in-presence... When I feel bad because someone has something I’d like too, I now look how this particular thing really inspires me. The word inspiration inspires me. It empowers me to look - not at what I haven’t got - but what I really want. Do I really want a world based on the power of money ? (For me, definitely, no. The power of the rich ? Poor world ! All this has long enough made me angry and seek how to change... very violently)
Yes my new system makes life smoother. I can meet needs rather than look at (or refuse) what I’m missing. Slowly. Where I come from (not feeling anything if it’s too bad) this is working efficiently. It does not necessarily mean finding the word.

Does this sound in any way connected to you ?


I see you struggling with things in the basic proposition of NVC. I love going on trying to see through it. Would you like to tell me what you felt was promising early on ?

I’m sorry I projected some sort of cinematographic irony on your world (my 3 favorite self-discarding tools : tell myself another story I can believe/go blunt and then angry or bored/disconnect from my feelings altogether (the list is not much help then...))

Just sharing my experience
Sylvie

Air, Water, Food...fortunately still plentiful...supporting my decision to understand compassion given the behaviors of structures that claim a dedication to compassion...and so to the first steps...needs...and then the next as feelings generated by the needs...and then my own needs of Air, Water and Food being fairly well supplied ... making it unnecessary for the generation of any feeling relating to them. So a decision, as is usual.

When I open my eyes it is to observe...what is without and how what is without...brings alive. speaks to, things within...leading to interactions...interminglings...new patterns that form...allowing change...and driving becoming through being and unbecoming into non being and back again...

Happy...?...or was it just a smile...?...at what...?...balance...?...stability...a dancing dynamic equilibrium...?

Want...?...Promising...?...long ago there was the Global Compassion Council...remember...?....it sounded very much like the Great Global Gathering that is going on all around....it looked as though it was somehow filtering into their awareness...I decided to have a look...

Connection...?

Sorry you did something...?....it really does not matter...because the thing that reaches out to itself through you...is only one.

Air, Water, Food yes...those are needs...and if they are not met...sickness, pain, suffering and death.

The lists...they will grow...as the species grows...and changes its environment...and then finding it necessary to change itself too...

Air, Water, Food...the rest can come or go...

If Needs are positively correlated to conflicts then are the feelings that arise from these needs the energy that drives these conflicts...?

No Needs = No feelings = No conflict ? !!! Imagine! No Needs and No Conflicts...do we cultivate needs because we are addicted to the feelings that they generate...and are engaged and occupied by the conflicts that result?

In my experience
No feelings = Depression
No needs coming and going = no life flowing

No conflicts = ?
Thanks for explaining what you mean by no conflicts

I see a lot of people who are afraid to make a decision...to decide...maybe because decisions change behaviors and when behaviors change...all kinds of things happen...relationships break...lovers run away...employees leave for better jobs with better pay...people lose weight...they stop binging on food, drinks drugs ....some stop competing and concentrate on what they are doing...making sure that they do it well...people become thoughtful...preparing for the decisions they have to make...and the more you make the more there are to make...people gt involved in increasing their awareness....they become aware of more things...they cool down as they realize that so much is going on...they realize that there is very little that they need...Air...Water...Food...few needs....few feelings...hardly any conflicts...focusing on what they are doing...increasing awareness...

All these changes happen.
Whether we decide them or not.
They can happen in peace and possibly with respect of people.
What peace and respect take is a change of how we look, collectively.

Take the need for safety :

CarolF wrote:I am thinking right now about needs for trust and safety.  I am thinking how it feels when these needs are unmet, both in relatively low intensity social ways, and in relatively high intensity, life-at-stake ways.  I am imagining many ways we configure our behavior in the interests of safety.  

Mentor.srilanka, you mention that there is danger in not conforming to certain practices of your culture.  I imagine you devote some effort to meet a need for safety in your daily life—as I do in mine.  And that when your needs for safety or trust might be unmet, that you feel uncomfortable and take action to ensure these needs are met.

Going on thinking, in terms of plentiful
Like food water air, societies can distort how met our needs feel.

CarolF, I do not see trust and safety as needs because I can survive quite well without them and in fact have and continue to survive very well despite death threats and the danger of arbitrary arrest, extortion, torture, rape, murder and disappearance. These things do not really matter. What would matter is suffocation, lack of water and starvation.

Danger is like learning to ride a bicycle. It is easy to fall, but once one gets the hang of it then it becomes plain sailing and great fun. Danger is just a matter of learning the rules of the game and how to game them when one wants a change from conformity.

The real danger is if there is no air or water or food...that would be a disaster.

mentor.srilanka wrote:CarolF, I do not see trust and safety as needs because I can survive quite well without them and in fact have and continue to survive very well despite death threats and the danger of arbitrary arrest, extortion, torture, rape, murder and disappearance. These things do not really matter. What would matter is suffocation, lack of water and starvation.

Danger is like learning to ride a bicycle. It is easy to fall, but once one gets the hang of it then it becomes plain sailing and great fun. Danger is just a matter of learning the rules of the game and how to game them when one wants a change from conformity.

The real danger is if there is no air or water or food...that would be a disaster.  

Something new for me to consider, mentor.srilanka. I am imagining skillfully sailing through dangerous waters with feelings of exhilaration, on high alert. And I am appreciating a chance to contemplate this unfamiliar perspective.

Carol

Suffocation, no water and no food...that is the basis of torture...which is widely practiced here.

I imagine there is a met need for simply staying alive—breathing, eating, drinking—each day you have successfully navigated the pitfalls of your world.  I am speculating that underneath this may lie a need for competence, without which the need to stay alive might not be able to be met.