Why asking for what you need is so damn hard...

Why is it so hard to ask for what you need?

I believe it is societal. For centuries, the image of the loving woman, the wife, the mother, has been one of putting everyone’s needs before her own.

She cooks, cleans, nurtures, and carries the often invisible mental and emotional load of her loved ones.

I find it hard to separate where the truth of my being and nature ends, and societal norms and expectations begin.

I truly love to care for others. It feels good. I love to nurture my family, make delicious home-cooked meals, and to create a home where my family feels safe, calm, and centered. I like to have the ability to volunteer at school, pick my kids up from school, and take them to their activities.

But only when I still get my needs met.

There is a fine line between giving from a place of overflow and desire and feeling resentful and burdened by the weight of giving.

You have to sort through the muck of what actually feels good in your body, and what you have told yourself you should do because culture, the other moms, or your family has made you believe is what you should do.

Here’s how you do that. Think about some of the things you’ve done in the past few days. 

Write them down. Sit with each one for a moment.

How do you feel when you think about them? 

😟 Do you feel depleted, resentful, and begrudging? 

🥰 Do you feel fulfilled, energized, and content?

😌 Do you feel neutral?

Keep doing the ones that make you feel fulfilled and energized. Don’t worry about the ones you feel neutral towards. 

But take a close look at the things that leave you feeling depleted and resentful. Ask yourself, what is my unmet need?

Now that you have identified your need… you get to be a detective. 🧐 How can you get that need met? Do you need to ask someone for help? Do you need to say no to something? Do you need to say yes to something? Do you need to flip the patriarchy the bird 🦜?

🛑 The most important thing when you are looking at this, is that your feelings and needs are personal to you. They are determined by feeling and looking inside yourself, not around you at what other people are doing or behind you at what your mom did or did not do. 🛑

Let me explain.

Some moms think I have lost my mind when I bring out 24 homemade chocolate cupcakes with real strawberry buttercream frosting that I made from scratch for my kid’s birthday party. I don’t do it because I think I should. I do it because I love preparing home-cooked treats for people.

I find myself looking at other moms like they have 8 heads when they move mountains and earth to go on a field trip with 26 screaming 1st graders, but I’m sure some of them really want to.

I have never been on a field trip with my kids. When I see other moms take the day off work, get a babysitter, etc. I used to think to myself, I should do that. And then I remind myself that it does not make me feel fulfilled, energized, or content because I have a need for calm (and field trips are definitely not calm).

I feel most connected to my kids when it is just us at our home or in nature, and there’s never a shortage of volunteers for field trips at my kid’s school, so I’m not needed.

I stopped feeling like I should go on field trips when I got clear on why I didn’t want to go. My need for calm and connection. If either one of my kids really wanted me to go, I would suck it up and go, because they have needs too. But I would also be aware of what I needed after that field trip to refill my cup. Calm, quiet, and peace.

When you connect to your true feelings and needs and not all the judgments and opinions. It’s more clear and less scary to figure out how to get your needs met.

You can ask for what you need from a place of empowerment rather than guilt or shame.