I don’t mean “I need a new haircut” or “I need a holiday in Spain”.  I mean your real needs, the things that are crucial to your living a full live.  I’m talking about “I need to feel loved.  I need to be heard.  I need to pass on, to someone else, the love and joy that I feel”.  Because when you find those real, deep-down needs that you must fulfill to have a happy life, they are also the clues to the beliefs that are “hardwired” into your earliest programming. 

 

You  might say that “survival” is the most basic need, because if we don’t survive then there’s no point in worrying about the other stuff!  But straight after survival come the needs that we have that, if they are not met (either by ourselves or by others), we will have a mere survival, and not a life.  What do you want for yourself?  Just to survive?  Or to really live?

 

I have always known that family is very important to me.  As a member of a family of seven (one sister, three brothers & the parents), the actions and interactions of “family” is what supports me, challenges me, drives me and sometimes limits me (depending on what I choose).  But when I started learning about NLP and how our own internal programming and view or “map” of the world affects us, I dug down to the very core of my beliefs.  And right there, at the heart, is the fact that - for me - family is sacred.  Way beyond what is nice and cosy, snuggled up by the fire, heart-to-heart chats with family members.  It is like my “Prime Directive” (for all Star Trek fans), and my decisions and actions all stem from that.  The basis for it was built up in my earliest years, through experiences and understandings that I had as a child.

 

But is it always useful for me, now, as an adult with family of my own?  Is it helpful for me to hold sacred a system which may need to change and adapt over the years?  This is a rhetorical question, by the way.  While I myself will always be searching for the answer to this, and acting on it, it is only relevant to you in terms of what your Prime Directive is, where it came from, and whether it still supports you.

 

After survival comes belief.  Choose carefully what you believe, and keep checking to see if it supports you throughout your life, in all and changing circumstances.  Remember you get to choose.