Emotional Sandwiches

by Sarah Ashley Neal

  When you miss something, does it imply that you had it previously but now you don’t? When you miss something that doesn’t appear in your life anymore it can be emotive, and whilst you may not be clear on your feelings, you are aware that it is missing. So this is one form of ‘missing’ that is real and is based on fact more than theory. We are not questioning whether missing something is either right or wrong or if any feelings that arise are relative as there is no context to discuss. It is purely to illustrate that it is plausible to miss something when it is gone.

  Alternatively you may have thought about something so much that you are simply aware that by not having it in your life, you could be missing out. I would suggest you may have gone one step further and reflected all of the signs of a person who is missing something. Maybe you have looked into its known benefits and thought, Yes, I would like a bit of that…, or you have dreamt about how it will change your life if you have it and so you now need to pursue it until it materialises. This isn’t a negative thought pattern, by the way. This is a good practice if you want to make headway in turning those dreams into a reality and it underpins the Law of Attraction theory.

  I believe it’s important to differentiate between what you really miss and what it is you think you miss. When you can do this and separate the two you will be more able to interpret your needs. You are likely to recognise if a need is a necessity or just a desire – a nice-to-have! What you think you miss only becomes a negative if you begin to yearn for it at the expense of making an unnecessary sacrifice and turn every need into a necessity to the detriment to your health, finances or relationships. If you have not had something before, you have no way of knowing if you really want it when you get it!

  I have listed a few examples below, in no particular order, which could be considered a necessity or a nice-to-have in life and you will have plenty more of your own to add:

  I need a holiday

  I need a heart transplant… now…

  I need my kids to…

  I need to finish this first before I…

  I need to get married

  I need to eat healthier

  I need to stop smoking

  I need a new car

  I need to start yoga

  I need to learn a language

  I need to leave work on time or…

  I need you to tell me the truth because…

  I need to work in a team

  I need to get up early as…

  I need some decent clothes

  I need to save for a rainy day

  I need to get a divorce

  I need to start doing…

  As basic as these examples can seem on the surface I bet some of these will be a necessity to someone because of the positive impact they could have on other areas of their life. Your necessities could be superficial to someone else because you both know so little about each other that you are making judgements based on a limited set of facts. We don’t always know why one person will place more importance on needing something in their lives unless we learn more about that person.

  When does a need become your priority? When does something you want become your need to have? How do you interpret your needs as a necessity or a desire? Does needing something, without knowing why you need it, taint your ability to recognise when a need really is a necessity but you have cried wolf so many times you even question your own motives and wonder if you are calling your own bluff?! Do you begin to lose sight of what is important to have or to do in your life to such an extent that you try to meet every need and feel exhausted in the process? How often do we create a need and hold it responsible for the events that follow when it isn’t fulfilled? It’s when that initial need gives rise to a fruitful knock-on effect and life just gets better – then you will be happy to brag about how you made the right decision. Whether it was based on logic or a gut instinct, it has paid off!

  “I need to buy a sports car otherwise I won’t attract the ‘one and only’ into my life. If I don’t find true love then I won’t have anyone to share my life; I may not get married; I won’t have children and no one will look after me when I get old. If I don’t buy that sports car then my life may as well be over!” Oh dear; I think he/she needs the sports car because they have led themselves to believe that they will appear more attractive, and just look at all the things that this person will not be able to achieve if they don’t find a way to buy one!

  “It is important to me to buy the sports car, so I am going to have to find a way to meet this need. I will take a second job and work all the hours I can. I will stop going out at the weekends so I can save the deposit and hold back on spending my money on things I don’t need”. OK, so the car is important and I like the idea he/she is prepared to make a few sacrifices to reach a goal – commendable.

  “It has been six months and I am exhausted. I haven’t had a day off for weeks, I feel ill, I haven’t seen my friends for ages and I have forgotten what it is like to have a good night out.” It appears that the desire to have a sports car is now hindering his/her health, relationships and social life. Is this car really a necessity? If someone wants it enough and they are willing to make sacrifices it has probably become a necessity to them. Whether it is a wise decision to someone else will be irrelevant.

  “Hey, how do you like my new sports car? I’ve painted the town red since and fallen in love. I feel great about myself and I am the proud owner of the dream I made come true.” And so the plan worked. I love a happy ending. It could have gone the other way but who wants to hear that side of the story.

  The message is clear: we do what we feel is important at the time and hope that we make the right decision. If you believe you have a need and you have convinced yourself it has to be met, then you are likely to focus and do your utmost to reach the end goal. Unfortunately we tend to need too many things and expect them to all serve us well but they don’t. Need gets greedy and we can lose perspective on what is important. Everything becomes important and if everything becomes important then we are going to be on a treadmill for a very long time!!

  There will be hundreds of examples that will demonstrate how often we rely upon doing one thing in order to achieve a number of others. On occasions this will be the right mindset. If you were building a house, then there will be plenty of things that need to be done first before you can complete the other tasks; these are called dependencies. You will be dependent on one thing happening before you can move on to do something else. Sometimes you have to do them the right way around. If you want to put the roof on a house first, then go ahead and give it a go. Prop it up with a few poles and build around it – but I can’t quite see how that will work. If you want to become a doctor or teacher then you will need to train first. If you want to set up a business then it is likely you will need a product or service to sell and have to think of an original idea. If you want to have a baby you will need to… and you get the gist! Certain things can only work out if you do something else first to make it happen. Necessity comes to mind. It is quite possible you didn’t need to build a house, become a doctor, start a business or a family, and these were just desirable initially but once the desire became more than an idea, necessary steps needed to be taken thereafter.

  Why are some of us so needy?! We all know someone who needs someone in their life – all of the time. Do they need someone or have they simply got used to having someone around so that when they are not there, they will look to find someone else because they need a companion or someone to validate their actions or even their feelings? We may convince ourselves we need a particular person in our life – but maybe we lack the confidence to live a life without them. Personally, I always feel lonelier being around people who don’t make me happy (although I still wonder if anyone makes us feel anything, emotionally). If I am unhappy on my own, at least I only have myself to blame! However, being around the right people, at the
right time and for the right period of time has to be fulfilling. We all need to feel loved… some of us just don’t know it!

  We may be thoroughly happy with being conjoined, and needing our own space isn’t a concept that we would need to entertain. Space, for some of us, is a necessity if it means we are more able to cope with having a relationship or keeping one alive! What we need from other people in our life will vary; we need different things from different people at different times. We don’t all have the same requirements and this is why people tend to make judgements because they may not have the same need. I think we are all guilty, at one time or another, of saying something like, “What does she need that for?” or “Why does he need to do that?”

  Sometimes we ‘feel a need’; it heads our way and we just have to do something about it! “I need chocolate” – but you probably don’t. “I need a holiday” – and you probably do! We all need to eat, love, work, cry, laugh or scream. Sometimes a need passes; it heads towards us and just as we are about to embrace it, the feeling that has been driving it in our direction disappears. We either forget we ever had a need to do something or we are left wondering how we can need something one minute and not the next.

  Need – I told you it is prone to exaggerating and you can’t always take it literally when you hear it muttering in the background. This is why giving in to temptation is as a result of thinking you need something: the chocolate because you have just fallen out with your best friend! Maybe you need to resolve the friendship and just share the bar of chocolate! You see, we do need each other really.

  We know we need other people to do things for us and we talked about that when we explored Trust. We trust people to do a job for us and we may need other people to do those jobs for us; we have become accustomed to having our expectations met. We can’t do everything on our own so as a society we have collectively created a whole bunch of ‘needs’ (that may not be truly needed), all of which have evolved into norms. Needs in one section of society are considered a luxury in another and what is a necessity for the people in one country or on one continent is simply a desire for the other or doesn’t even appear on their ‘need’ radar.

  Interaction with other people throughout our lives is needed to help us to learn, develop and grow into the people we would like to be. We make comparisons and we form opinions; these help us to recognise our own personal needs and we decide if they are desires or necessities. We make our own choices and we are presented with opportunities to learn lessons.

  Life is one big adventure and if we set ourselves unnecessary limitations then our suitcase will not contain everything we need for our journey. I know it’s a good idea to travel light sometimes but, let’s be honest, blaming the airlines for setting a weight limitation is not the answer. It is all about accountability: the sooner you accept that you are responsible for your actions and your own feelings, you free yourself from limitations that are weighing you down.

  That is why they always say to you at the airport check-in desk, “Have you packed this yourself…?” They aren’t silly!

  Course 5

  Fillings to Educate the

  Taste Buds

  Learning and Development

  ‘A humbling experience empowers you to connect with your feelings.’

  Before boarding the last ride in this playground of perspectives, it is worth noting that life asks rather a lot of us, don’t you think? Equally we ask a lot of it too and so it is no surprise that we seek to blame something or someone when it all goes pear-shaped.

  So far, you’ve had plenty of opportunity to discover and explore. You may have wandered into new territory and with little warning found yourself being interrupted by a past experience. Without wishing to seem rude you invited the old perspective to join you, making it clear that it was only welcome to tag along while you were comparing notes. There are bound to be times when you do look back and see all your old learning curves bobbing around in an ocean of memories, having served their purpose and made an impression.

  After rounding up all the lessons that invariably get left behind, we can then choose how to put them to good use. Learning involves reflection. How, where and when we reflect is not prescriptive. Stumbling onto a spiritual path, believing that the sheer act of baring your soul will somehow make you feel so much lighter, may later leave you exposed wishing you could quickly cover it up again. Maybe you simply overlooked what it means to connect with your true self and thought it was about giving up something rather than enjoying the emotional freedom you have to gain.

  It is time to educate the taste buds and confront the fillings that are held together with an arrangement of ifs and buts that dent our pride, make it hard to swallow and play havoc with digestion. They are not, however, about being subservient or overtly apologetic.

  H*O*N*E*S*T

  Choosing the Right Policy

  Accustomed to taking responsibility, Honest sat quietly on its throne preparing to self-reflect. It came face to face with people every day and it wasn’t unusual for this reputable character to suffer from self-doubt like everyone else, but not everyone appreciated that its intentions were always sincere. Honest tried to use its better judgement and regularly made sacrifices, but it couldn’t seem to please all the people. However, it vowed to tell the truth and took pride in having a trustworthy reputation.

  Honest was often challenged by Dishonest and having grown up together they were both able to differentiate between a truth and a lie; they just didn’t agree with each other’s motives. Even when Dishonest knew that it was lying, because at other times it really believed it was telling the truth, it usually had a hidden agenda and set about confusing its audience. The two rivals came to the conclusion that if an audience couldn’t differentiate between a truth and a lie, the people would have to default into making up their own minds like a jury that had been asked to deliver a verdict. There will always be court jesters running around at the same time with the sole aim of causing distraction!

  Trust would be asked to work overtime so that Honest could contest its innocence and the next round in the game would take place between Logic and Instincts. Unfortunately when the latter two characters get together, the final result may be based on interpretation of the facts presented at the time – if indeed facts are what they are! Sometimes we believe what we want to believe and sometimes we believe what we are told.

  Challenged by Dishonest, who behaved like a competitive sibling that had to challenge for challenge’s sake, Honest took comfort in the fact that it had led people on countless occasions to live a life based on honesty. It wasn’t going to stop now! In its own kingdom that was founded on respect, it understood that dishonesty was never going to be ruled out. Honest was always living under the threat of being overthrown and as a natural born leader it would focus on leading by example.

  Honest would endeavour to remain unbiased and work with the facts it had to hand at any one time. It would strive to resist temptation to blame; it would encourage people to learn and develop using empathy instead of sympathy as a tool for compassion. It also discouraged people from ‘acting a part’ in their lives that would compromise their own truth and mislead other people into thinking that they had it all figured out – when they hadn’t. We can all be forgiven for wanting to make a good impression but not at the expense of forgetting to walk our true path and being dishonest with ourselves along the way.

  Even though it wasn’t going to be easy, Honest wanted to practise humility. When Honest was given an opportunity to speak the truth, because someone asked it for advice, Honest felt humble and this validated its entire reason to exist. It made every effort not to brag when it knew it was right, even though at times it was hard to hold back from saying, “I told you so…” Holding its tongue, when the last word has already left the brain and is about to roll off the tip like a diver about to dive off a springboard, is illustrative of a good leader. As Honest dive
rts the incoming traffic to the back of the queue, the silence thereafter speaks volumes.

  When we are given a chance to be honest, there is a fine line between answering the question you have been asked and taking advantage of saying more than needs to be said without permission.

  In a courtroom, the judge intervenes and says, “Please just answer the question you have been asked”, which you will have previously sworn to answer, telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The barristers will want you be honest but they don’t need you to elaborate on the truth because they are not seeking surplus information that will only confuse the jury. Instead, they want an honest answer that will either confirm what everyone already knows, or can be used to persuade an audience during a closing argument. Ironically the whole truth may not have a chance to surface because the barristers in control will be directive and limit the ‘volume’ of spoken words, giving them a cut-off point. A fine line exists and you need permission to cross.

  A scenario below presents opportunities to cross a fine line on more than one occasion and points out a few reasons as to why you could be held back from crossing. Your honesty is requested through invitation and you have been given a licence to use free speech within your reply. But does that mean you can ‘speak your mind’ freely? Freedom of speech falls into a grey area for discussion that requires a certain amount of grey matter to both get started and conclude respectfully.

  Let’s choose a simple example because the theory is the same if you want to consider it within a more complex situation for yourself. Your friend (who we will refer to as a ‘she’) has asked you for your advice about what to wear at the Christmas party. She asks you quite openly to be honest but how honest does she want you to be when allowing you to rattle off your reply?