True or False? I Need to be Needed

If it’s true, be careful. Need is a powerful emotion.

And when needs become consuming, or unquenchable, they almost always lead to meltdown.

Think about it. When we get consumed by one thing–fixing up our homes, for example–it creates an unending to-do list. A never-ending menu of things to be fixed: chips in paint, dings in the wall, trim popping up, doors that don’t lock just right.

The same thing is true with success. We can always think of something we can do to achieve a little more. Put in extra hours, produce one more thing, market our one more thing better, make a video about the one more thing, get noticed by someone with influence.

Unquenchable desires are found in relationships too.

Sometimes we get locked into unhealthy, relational cycles where we need to be needed. When we’re in one, we have thoughts like these:

• I want to be their closest confidant. To be the one they tell things to that they don’t tell anyone else.
• I want to be the person they admire most. Who they want to be most like. Whose choices they most respect.
• I want to be the first person they call, the first person they ask for advice or the first person to hear their big news. The person they call most. The only person they call.
• I don’t want them to go somewhere with anyone else.
• I’m worried they may be getting closer to [insert person] than they are to me.

Friendships can’t breathe and grow, or expand to include other people, when we allow our desire for closeness with one person to become unquenchable. When we are always looking for something more we can do or say to maintain our position as the most valued person in someone else’s life.

It is natural to get hung up on someone you admire. To enjoy their approval and appreciation for you. To like to spend time together. Good for you!

But it always backfires to want to be the only one a person values. No single human can meet all of another person’s needs. And if you ever succeed in besting everyone else in their life, you might actually be in trouble.

Because if all they have is you, the pressure is on you to satisfy their every need. Make another phone call! Send a card! Listen to their problems. Celebrate their accomplishments. Your list of things to do will never end. And you’ll eventually miss one of the things they need or expect a friend to do.

Worse yet? I need to be needed is sometimes just a polite way of saying, I want to control you.

Suspect some unhealthiness has crept into one of your relationships? Try this.

• Spend time doing something you love without anyone else around.
• Hang out with someone else who you enjoy being around.
• Invite other people to hang out with both of you.
• Join a book club, a fitness group or an art class to meet new people.
• Suggest the other person also hang out with others who you know enjoy their company.
• Make a point to be happy when your friends have other friends.  It proves you have good taste! =)

True or False? I need to be needed.

False! False! The best way to move toward health is to realize that statement is false.

We all want to be needed, and being appreciated is healthy. But we don’t need to be needed.

If we sit at home watching a great movie, if we go on a hike out in nature, if we read a good book, the people in our world don’t stop breathing.

So go ahead. Take a day off needing to be needed today.