Mini Bombs and Morons
All Actions Are an Attempt to Meet a Need
Inspired by Key Assumptions and Intentions of NVC, this piece refers to the assumption that All Actions Are an Attempt to Meet a Need.
At dinner, I sat across from my son and watched with curiosity while, instead of eating, he made explosion sounds and jerked his head as if mini bombs detonated right under his chin.
All actions are attempts to meet needs.
I was alone, cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. Matt was taking out the recycling and trash and my son was in the shower. My daughter was curled up in a den she had created from the bookshelves, chair, cushions and blankets. Ten minutes passed, then the silence was broken by her screaming, “You’re all being so mean, you morons!”
All actions are attempts to meet needs.
Sometimes it’s obvious what needs our actions point towards. I eat food because I need sustenance. I ask for a hug because I want connection.
But you may ask for a hug because you want support, or closeness or physical touch or acknowledgement of something big. One strategy can point to many different needs.
To further complicate things, have you ever witnessed an adult lose their cool at someone because they wanted respect, and think, this is your way to gain respect?
Or maybe an adult loses their cool because they are overwhelmed and need space and peace? Or maybe they need acknowledgement of something big.
Sometimes the need can be elusive. And we can behave in ways that leave the needs we were trying to meet even more unmet. But knowing that our behavior is an attempt to meet a need can help us see the humanity of ourselves and others. It can help us see that our children (and us) don’t always behave in ways that make sense on the surface. But when we go deeper and look for the needs, there’s this aha moment of human to human connection. Suddenly you make sense, I make sense, and even my children make sense.
So when a five year old is melting and screaming having just returned home from a day of fun, it doesn’t make sense at all. They’re safe and dry, it’s quiet, what’s there to cry about? What could possibly be the matter?
Well, the hyper attention of the fun day could now be registering in their bodies as tension, while the rest of the environment is deemed safe, it’s a safe time to let all that tension OUT. Or perhaps the superfun day was also draining and exhaustion has crept in as the adrenaline declined.
In any case, that the source isn’t in-front-of-our-nose obvious, with a little thought and curiosity we can make some pretty close guesses. And what is this five year old needing? Self-expression of upset. A space to safely decompress. Food? We can give them all that by being present, gently witnessing, making sure nothing gets broken and being available when their prefrontal cortex comes back online.
When we can see the human need beneath the behaviour, we have access to the deepest longings of our heart or of another human heart. We can meet at that level, and from there build understanding and connection in a way that works for all of us.