Posted on August 3, 2019 by Jenn Zatopek

Somewhere along the way we stopped thinking it is a beautiful thing to have needs and wants. Perhaps it was compassion fatigue or ongoing trauma or a destructive relationship that cultivated the notion that our needs our bad, wrong, or shameful. Maybe we learned from an early age that our needs were not going to be met by our parents, teachers, or other adults in our lives.

Whatever the causes, it is one of the greatest lies of our time, the idea that we must swallow our neediness with fake smiles, false laughter, and carefully constructed presentations of doing well when really we are hurting inside. The pretense of forced laughter amid deep pain can kill a life slowly, one day at a time. I see it in my counseling clients whose bitterness at life and silent resentments have twisted their souls into unrecognizable humans, bent on destroying themselves rather than living fully awake and alive.

As I continue to grow into the woman the Divine has made me to be, I realize the depth of my needs, wants, and desires. The Imago Dei is indelibly stamped on my soul, as it is for us all. Again, this notion of neediness is a good thing, a holy thing, an important thing for humans to accept, nurture, and celebrate.

However, I do not expect others to meet many of my needs all the time, for love and companionship, for friendship and support. But neither do I isolate from other humans and pretend that I am self-sufficient island, an archipelago unto myself.

Rather, I am like these sunflowers pictured above. I used to feel great shame enjoying them as a child. They aren’t grand, right? They are not fragrant roses or delicate bluebonnets or wispy alyssums, blooming in the cool early morning.

Sunflowers are communal. They grow in packs and thrive together and lift each other up, and in the wind, their radiant yellow heads dance together as we stand in breathless wonder at such beauty in the midst of the harshness of summer  heat.

As a writer and therapist, please find the people who will let you be you, in all your neediness and imperfection, in all your challenges and weirdness. The people who allow you to be fully yourself, who love and accept you as you are are like gold coins scattered along life’s paths, like these delicious and dreamy sunflowers.

Please remember it is a holy thing to cry and receive love but also it is important to have your worth affirmed by others too. Most especially it is equally crucial to find time alone to have your worth affirmed by the Divine who is the author and source of all wisdom and love and compassion.

May you enjoy being a sunflower and know if you are lonely you can be surrounded by others, if only you look around. 

(Photo by Gérôme Bruneau on Unsplash)