May 1, 2014,
Fundamental Human Needs 
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How do you cope with those really intense emotions? And how do you cope with your children’s intense emotions? Do you try to crush them away before your children even realize them? Or do you provide your children with the opportunity of giving these emotions a name and understanding them?
Children, as any of you who are parents know, can feel everything intensely. And whether they like something or dislike something, you will most often get the message loud and clear.
But while children really feel their feelings, they don’t know how to name them or how to express them appropriately until they learn these things from their carers, in the first instance normally their parents. They take very careful note of how their parents express things and how they respond to the child’s own expressions of feelings.
It’s important, then, that parents help their child understand what they are feeling when sad or mad or glad by naming the feelings accurately when they are observed. This encourages the child to also name feelings rather than just expressing them out loud, verbally or physically.
During their socialization, a child also learns which feelings his or her family considers are OK to express and which ones they consider not OK to express.
For example, in some families it is frowned upon to express anger while in other families expressing sadness is considered a weakness. The parents then model for the child how to manage those feelings. So the good news here is that if the parents model appropriately, then the child will learn to express their feelings appropriately as well.
If you inspire your children with courage, then they learn to be confident. If children get the support of parents, then they learn that the world is a nice place to live in. If children live in peace, they will achieve harmony in their Spirit.
In our busy lives, we can miss asking ourselves: do we provide the support our loved ones, children and partners, to recognize their feelings and to transform them into words? Do we teach them that it is normal to feel anger, sadness, selfishness, boredom and not to be ashamed of such feelings?
For adults and children alike the need to feel all of their feelings without judgment is the second step to creating a life that is happy and full. Many people though set expectations about what it is they want their partner to feel, and even to think, just as they were instructed as young children.
Not only do you have a need to feel your feelings, you also have a need to speak about them and to be told that you are loved and cherished just for who you are, with all your thoughts and feelings. When someone listens to you talk about your feelings, you get the message that you are important to them.
And by listening to someone else express their thoughts and feelings, you in turn have an opportunity to acknowledge who that person is without needing to change him or her in any way. This freedom to feel, and then to express in an appropriate way, all your feelings, to be acknowledged for them, and to acknowledge your partner’s feelings is the way to a truly close and satisfying relationship (as is the recognition and satisfaction of all your fundamental needs within your relationships).
I invite you to share with me your own personal “Feelings Lessons”.
To the wonder of you,
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