Cool experience this week… I was working in Psychology and I got into a conversation with one of the Psy-D interns that is doing her residency here at T.I. We sat and talked for almost 2 hours and for those couple hours… I was no longer in prison. I was having the type of conversation that… honestly… I don’t remember the last time I had. Prior to coming in here… I was in such a bad mental state that I rarely could (or would) hold genuine conversations with people… I was always looking to get whatever information that I needed… or they needed… out of the way and move on before anything “unscripted” would come up. Sad way to live. But here I was… having this conversation and finding so much joy and satisfaction in the words… really eye opening experience for me. It made me realize how much I crave stimulating conversations and how I must actively begin to seek them out in here (and out there on the other side of this). If I don’t… I begin to fall into the “rut” that many of us fall into by simply being comfortable having surface level conversations that get us from point A to point B as fast as possible… usually cruising right by any semblance of connection that we might achieve by actually talking to each other.
BUT that is all leading me to my point… the meat of the conversation that I thought would worthwhile sharing with you guys as well. We started talking about fulfillment and how it is the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow that we call life that we (in here and out there) just can’t seem to ever actually obtain. We get caught in the “grass is greener” mentality no matter where we are in our lives… leaving us feeling a sense of emptiness. At some point, she brought up Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” and how this is one of the tools that she uses in her own life to try to grasp the notion of fulfillment. I remember learning of Maslow’s theory somewhere along the line but certainly needed a refresh… which she was graciously willing to give me…
Basically… Maslow’s theory states that people are motivated by 5 categories of need: physiological… safety… love … esteem and self-actualization. In his theory… higher needs in the hierarchy begin to emerge when people feel they have sufficiently satisfied the previous need. So when thinking about what motivates people… we can look at these needs and see that the hierarchy starts with more concrete things such as food and water then progresses to the abstract such as self-fulfillment. Accordingly to Maslow, when the lower need is met… the next need on the hierarchy becomes our focus of attention.
The needs…
Need 1 : Physiological need. This refers to basic physical needs like drinking water when we are thirsty or eating when we are hungry. Within this section… the focus is really on finding our homeostasis… which is when we maintain consistent levels within our bodily systems… aka making us (physically) feel “normal”. Maslow considers these needs to be the most essential. If someone is lacking in more than one need, they’re likely to try to meet these first. Thinking about this practically… if someone is extremely hungry… it’s hard to focus on anything else besides food… if someone is extremely tired… it is hard to focus on anything besides sleep… and so on.
Need 2: Safety. Once our physiological needs are met… the next need that arises is a safe environment. Our safety needs are apparent from the time we are kids to adulthood… simply put – we crave and “need” a safe and predictable environment in order for us to feel comfortable and have the ability to focus on other aspects of our lives. If we do not feel like we are in a safe environment… it is extremely hard for us (if not impossible) for us to look past this fact and work on more abstract aspects of our lives such as connections, mental health etc.
Need 3: Love and Belonging. This involves feeling loved and accepted… both romantically as well as ties to friends and family members. It also includes our need to feel that we belong to a social group… that we matter and exist to others besides ourselves. This one hits home in a massive way behind these walls. The moment that we are sentenced and designated to a prison… we are immediately stripped of this need… we are taken away from our families… our friends… our children… our loved ones. We are stripped of our identities in a way and even though the goal is to continue communication and connection through phone, visits, mail, email… it will never be the same while we are on the inside. This being the case… we must find ways to nurture the connections that we do have… both with our loved ones out there and our “homeboys” in here. At the end of the day – the guys around me are the only ones who can genuinely empathize with the heartbreak of not being able to physically be with my boys… with my friends and family… so I must find a connection with them (through our shared experience) in order to meet this need.
Need 4: Esteem. This need involves the desire to feel good about ourselves… to have a positive outlook on our overall self. There are two components here… the first involves feeling self-confident and having a positive outlook on the person we see in the mirror. The second involves feeling valued by others… that is – feeling that our achievements and contributions (whatever they may be) have been recognized by the people around us. When peoples’ esteem needs are met… we feel confident and see our contributions and achievements as valuable and important. But… when our esteem needs are not met – we experience a sense of “inferiority”… that we aren’t good enough… or don’t deserve the “good things” in life. This is another example of how powerful our minds are and how positive “self talk” is crucially important to our overall mental health.
Need 5: Self-Actualization. This is what Maslow refers to as feeling fulfilled or feeling that we are living up to our potential. One unique feature of self-actualization is that it looks different for everyone… one person might meet this need by helping others… another may feel self-actualized through achievements in an artistic or creative endeavor. At the end of the day… self-actualization means that we feel as though we are doing what we believe we are meant to do. Easier said than done… right?!
And there it is… a whole psychology lesson wrapped up in an extremely interesting conversation (for me at least). I believe this idea of “needs” and using a tangible tool such as Maslow’s hierarchy to continually check in on ourselves can be very helpful for us inside but also on the outside as well. We are always chasing that ever elusive feeling of fulfillment and maybe the next time we are searching for the finish line… we should take a look at the details of our lives to check in our more basic needs first. Who knows… maybe by taking this one step a time… we will actually find that pot filled with fulfillment and purpose at the end of our rainbow. Happy searching 🙂
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Check in on yourself.