This is episode one, permission to meet your own needs. You're listening to the Rise up and Shine podcast with Claudine and Ashley as an empty nester and a mom with young kids. We have both shared very similar and very real struggles from chaos to coaches. We now help other women live an authentic and meaningful life. So tune in weekly for girl talk and tips on how you too can rise up and let your light shine bright. This is the Rise up and Shine podcast. Welcome back listeners today. We're talking about a really interesting topic and that is human needs and in 1943, Abraham Maslow developed a theory of human motivation and he had a hierarchy of five stages of needs. And while we're not going to delve into that specifically and uh you know in great detail, what is fascinating is that we all do have needs and what we're going to talk about today are ways that we can meet our own needs that work for us that are healthier because we all have needs.

And one way or another consciously or subconsciously we're trying to get those needs met. The problem happens when we try to get those needs met in an unhealthy way and personal needs are things that we need met to live a life we love and to thrive, which is what we're all about here at the rise up and Shine podcast and our needs are neither good or bad. I mean they're different for every single person and again, they can be met in positive or negative ways relative to your desired results. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Um again, we all have different needs, but we all do have needs and today we're going to learn how to meet our own needs. Okay, because part of the issues that we're always looking to others to help us meet our needs and today we're going to talk about how to meet our own needs. So important, Right, So important. And this is this topic is I'm really excited to talk about it. How do I go about meeting my needs? But especially for women, we feel like we need to take care of everybody else's needs. We need to serve. We need to show up for others, which to an extent.

But what happens is we neglect our needs and so, and the more roles you have in life and responsibilities, it's even easier to neglect our own needs. To the point where we might, we might not even recognize what our needs are. We are so out of touch with what we need and that happens so easily in our culture for women especially. So I'm excited to talk about this because we have very specific things that we can, you know, steps to take to become more aware of what our needs are and be able to start meeting them ourselves within ourselves. Yeah, I think you're so right as, as moms, you know, you're currently a stay home mom. I'm obviously my kids are adults and I'm an empty nester. But when my kids were young, it was so true. I was so busy meeting their needs. Right? As as moms as wives, we're meeting our husbands needs, we're meeting our kids needs. And as christian women were meeting needs within the church were serving, you know, in which are all good things and we're happy to do, we're happy to do it. But along the way, we lost meeting our own needs.

And what becomes dangerous is unhealthy and unhealthy is when we look to others to meet those needs. Like we're too busy were too overwhelmed. So you meet my needs, right? And I can look to my husband and think you need to meet all of my needs. Now there are needs that my husband needs to meet that only he can meet. But we're not going to talk about that today in graphic detail, but there is one. But other than that, it's really not fair to put all of our needs to be met by someone else or even his mom's, our Children. We want that acceptance. We want that validation from our Children. Like if my Children behave and they look good, then I am worthy. I'm a good right, Right? And that's where it gets unhealthy, right? Because we're expecting other people to meet needs. I thought about the movie jerry Maguire right, that famous line, you complete me, right. And I started thinking about that and we're conditioned by that even in marriage, you refer to your mate as your better half for the other half or I'm the better half, right?

Or that I'm the better half. Yeah. But there's conditioning that were not complete without a mate, you know, and it's so common. It's in movies, it's in books, we see all these books about his needs, her needs. So we know their needs and love languages and it becomes very focused that without this other person without our spouse, our needs can't possibly meet met. And I think that's really unhealthy. I know for me in my own life, I think there were a lot of needs I placed on my husband that weren't fair to place on him. And what if we showed up in our relationships is 100% complete. And that's why I really like this Maslow's hierarchy of needs because for years and years I just could not identify very clearly and precisely what my needs were, especially when you're already in such an overwhelmed state, we can't really think rationally and find solutions to problems even though, especially as mothers, especially with young kids when we are moms of young kids, our brains are so frazzled and fried that we're trying to find solutions for our kids and where your shoes and let's get to the house on time or we need to have dinner at this time, daddy's coming home.

Let's give them a big hug. All these things that are just part of our responsibility and our role. And so, but again, when we neglect our needs were not showing up as that 100% best version of ourselves. And I think that is what is motivating for change. You know, when we realize that I am serving and doing all these things from my family, friends, even at work, whatever your roles are in your life, If you take a really close look at how am I meeting my own needs and how that directly affects how you show up, then you can really start identifying, okay, what do I need to do here? I should shift something a little bit and this was so transformative for myself realizing how I needed to take care of better care of myself. And again, this goes way beyond self care. Self care is definitely a part of it. But when you're not getting it, especially from Children, they don't always go around. Thank you mom for dinner. Thank you for finding my shoes. Thank you for getting me to school on time. That just doesn't really come with it, right. Um, but what happens if we're expecting that, then we're going to be constantly discouraged, constantly disappointed.

And I've been there and a lot of moms are there in that place. And so what can we do to shift that? So we can feel better and we can get those needs met even within ourselves, like to think of meeting my own needs Oh, I can do that. It was so eye opening. Yeah, absolutely. For me too, I think for many, many years, you know, I gave up a career willingly and happily to stay home and raise the Children and I always worked part time just to help bring money into the household. But I didn't have a career per se. And so I really looked at my husband to provide financial security and we had some really tough years because he too was in commission only sales. We both did real estate for a time and when the market crashed, yes, it was not financially secure to say the least. And so there was no financial security and I remember being really bitter towards him because I expected him to meet that need? Like I never thought, well I need to be responsible to meet my own financial needs.

Like he, I gave him all the power, basically, I basically said in my head unconsciously, I wasn't even conscious of it, but here's one of my needs and I've given it all over to you and you better do it right. Of course, I didn't say that out loud. I probably wasn't even super conscious about it, but it hit me one day because I was so upset and bitter. And then, and then I realized, Oh, I'm expecting him to meet this need? It's like, what if I meet that need for myself, what if I develop a career now that the kids are grown, that was my choice to give that up. Um then why don't I meet my own financial needs and provide my own financial security. That was it for me about 10 years ago and it was eye opening. Like I can meet my own needs, I don't need to select him. And of course he helps provide and he is the at this point, still the higher wage earner, but it was letting go of that expectation, this unrealistic, unhealthy like you have to do it all expectation and accepting that I can be part of this too.

I can provide for my own needs. And then, as you said earlier, giving the power over to him. So then that means that your power less, but it's not necessarily true. You do have the power if you want to choose, I want to have a little bit more say, or I want to feel more financial secure. I have that power where I can go get a part time job or start a new career if your kids are of age and you know, so what do I want? And what are the needs, the deep needs that are getting in my heart. And that's what's so important to dig deeper, dig deeper and just spending some time and what do I feel like my needs are because again, we get so bombarded with life and we're busy and schedules and stressed that we don't, we neglect that, that is the need of itself of just identifying what your own needs are and accepting that we have them. And I think as a christian woman to for me, I think about that scripture in Philippians 24 and it says let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others or needs right?

And I think for so many years I understood it is don't look at your own interests or needs only look to the interests of others. It's so funny how word placement the only is it right here is that right? There makes all the difference. And I had misread that for many years and I felt like I'm really selfish if I think about myself or my interest or my needs not understanding that I couldn't be the best version of myself or show up as the best version of me for my Children and my family. If I didn't take care of my needs and then, you know, I was resentful because I felt like I'm doing for everybody else. And what about me? And then you think, okay, well my husband should be doing more for me because look at what I'm doing for all of you and it's just very unhealthy and it's a vicious cycle and really reading that and understanding, wait, it does say not only to your own interest, but then you know, so we protect against being total selfish. You know, it's all about me but at the same time we do have to take care of ourselves not just others. That's when we give them power.

I will be okay when you do this, when you fill this need bucket then I will feel validated and important but really know that we are valid and important and just the way that we are. And I love that you're saying that because I think some of those corn needs like self worth validation, acceptance and love. We tend to look to others to fill those buckets of needs. It's okay to love yourself to be patient with yourself to be kind with yourself yourself acceptance. We feel like well if I dress a certain way or look a certain way then people will accept me. But what if we just accept ourselves for who we are already all those things, all those needs, if we do for ourselves first then we can give unto others. It's it's interesting the way it works. It's a lot like the oxygen metaphor, you know on the plane, you got to take care of yourself first before you can take care of others and I think is we meet our own needs and we have those core needs met by ourselves and don't look outside of ourselves, then we're able to give that and return to others in a greater measure.

I really believe that. And I've seen it over and over and over. If I feel accepted by myself and I'm not looking to you. And what happens is even in relationships. If my friend says something that hurts my feelings, you know, it can sting for a moment. But if I don't have these core needs met on my own, then I'm going to fixate on it and it's going to affect my self worth, my acceptance, all those things. But if I love myself and accept myself and validate myself, I can look to my friend and go, hmm, I wonder where my friends at. She must have been hurting too. Have said such a comment to me. Or I can come from a place of non judgment and not emotionally react and say, let's talk about that. And it's just a different energy. It's a different place to come at that when our own needs are met Well. And also it allows us to overlook offenses a bit easier saying be a doormat and go ahead and let people treat you poorly. I'm not saying that at all. But it does allow for you to um not take it so personal.

Which can be hard because when we are seeking that approval validation outside of ourselves that I am worthy if you meet my needs because then I know you love me or I know you care about me, then that's exactly what's happening right now. It again is just going back to give that power over to the other person and then we become powerless, not where we want to be Absolutely, that's unhealthy, right? Yeah. Like I was mentioning there's so many books that teach us how to meet other people's needs, but I don't know where the ones are to help us meet our own coordinates. I'm sure they're out there, but we do have some practical. So, um, let's share some of those practical with our listeners actually of how we can meet our own needs. So number one, just become aware, be aware of when your needs are not being met, right? When you feel like maybe I need to give a little bit more attention to what I'm needing right now and a lot of times we'll know when that is well known, we're out of balance and it's a good time to really take a closer look at with curiosity, no judgment what needs have yet to be met and what needs do I need to make sure I'm meeting, right?

You know, for me it's funny you say that because for me, I know when the need is unmet because I usually have a strong recurring negative emotion. So before I was aware, like before I even got into awareness mentally, consciously in my thoughts, I would have a strong negative emotion, you know, I get angry, resentful, bitter, all those the ones that we can feel, but we don't want to be stuck with that. So I was like, oh that's when I started connecting the dots, Oh something's not being met here. So for me it's a strong negative emotional reaction. That makes sense because for minus the overwhelmed. And then I start feeling a little irritated, I'm doing all this and I started cycling through those thoughts. I chose this life, I chose this life. What about me a second? Practical for meeting our own needs is to be able to identify it and Ashley, you and I both have resources on our website that will go over Maslow's hierarchy of needs with some more information. So you can get those resources that mind over chaos dot com or Claudine Sweeney dot com.

And there's a resource there that could help you identify it. But it's important to identify what need like for me, like I mentioned before the financial security that goes under safety. But identifying the need that's not being met will help you along the path to getting those needs met. So, identify third one, Give yourself permission. This is so important because a lot of times we're going to get stuck on that thought like, well, I can't think about me, I have to show up for everybody else. I have to meet everybody else's needs. I need to be on all the time, right? You need to be able to fix things and help people and most of that is our family, right? I need to be showing up for my family and at the expense of our needs. But giving yourself permission, it is okay for me to meet my need. That is okay. And that is huge because it can help take that pressure off of feeling like it's wrong because what happens as women, we think what we should be doing or we think we're going to be judged for it. And a lot of times it's not the case.

We think, oh, if I do something for me or trying to meet this need, then someone else is going to think il of that or judge me for that or what have you. But really giving yourself permission is key to be able to making change, right? Absolutely. It's such an important one. Right? Instead of stuffing it, like I don't need anything, I can do this and you can give yourself permission. Don't need permission from someone else outside of you. We can feel that so strongly that it feels like that's what we need to be doing. But remind yourself, I can give myself permission. I can give myself permission to go take a bath. I can give myself permission to whatever your need is a Good one. And the last practical that I have is how can I meet my own needs? Thinking outside the box instead of looking to others. Get creative and figure out, okay, I need to feel safe. I need to feel like I belong, what can I do actively to help get this need met for myself, instead of looking to someone else to meet your needs.

And this is where coaching is really valuable because we can help women identify their needs and then get creative and think of ways other ways that they can get those needs met in a healthy way rather than with expectations of others that may or may not get met. Now, it's never wrong to have expectations of others like you shared earlier and communicate them, but when we're expecting to get our core needs met by other people that might not even be equipped to meet him, we're going to be in trouble and coaching can really help with this, really helping us find ways creatively to get our needs met, give ourselves permission identified awareness. All that works into that. Absolutely. Alright everybody, thank you for tuning in again, once again on the Rise up and Shine podcast, we hope that something in this episode has helped you that you can take one little nugget into this week to help you identify your needs, yourself permission and how practical things that you can do to meet your needs. So you can rise up and shine and be your best self and show up as the best version of you.

Take care. Alright, everyone, thank you for joining in on our conversation today here on the rice, I've been shined podcast. If you haven't already, please take a second to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And while you're at it, share this episode with a friend who you know it can bless today. If you want to visit us as well on our websites, you can catch Claudine over at Claudine Sweeney dot com and Ashley at mind over chaos dot com. Our links are in the description. We also have some free resources there for you as well. So remember, ladies, no matter what you are facing in life, it is never too late to rise up and shine and live your best life. Mhm.