I need them to love me

Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 137

What happens when you think that you need someone else to give you something? Primarily, what happens when you think that you need to believe that somebody else needs to show you love in order for you to feel alright?

It's something that hopefully most of us don't feel all of the time, but I bet it's something that most of us have felt at least at some point or other. And you can probably think of somebody in your life who, frankly, you'd just like to show you a little bit more love than they're doing. And it can be a real whirlwind of a situation to be in. Because I'm guessing if you're listening to this, this idea that someone else needs to give you love probably doesn't align with your politics. It probably feels quite sucky and yet you probably still want it.

And I wanted to break down a little bit how that plays out in our brains, in our worlds when we do have these feelings that we need someone else to give us this because quite often we don't sit and we don't spend any time with it because it feels so icky to us that we just try and rush to try and get away from that feeling and those thoughts as soon as possible. It feels a little bit grim. So we just try and move away or we judge the hell out of ourselves for thinking that stuff. And my experience is that the more that we try and shove emotions away, the louder they get because they want to be dealt with, they want to let themselves be known. And these thoughts that we have are your brain trying to protect you from what it sees as danger.

Someone else not giving you the love that you think you need is tantamount to rejection. And so your brain's going to shout and shout and shout until you start listening. So just pretending that it's not there or telling yourself that you shouldn't think that kind of thing isn't useful. Getting yourself to a place of emotional safety where you can pause, spend some time with it, feel a little bit curious and work out what's going on, can actually be a lot more useful. I notice when I think that there is someone in my life who I expect to give me more love. I want them to give me more love.

I am all up in their business, all about what they should be doing, what they're not doing. I'm completely distracting myself away from any kind of noticing of whether I a thing. I am absolutely consumed by the things that they are or are not doing or are or are not saying. I've lost track of my own wants, my own desires, and it makes me feel really grabby. I get kind of nervous and off balance. It's like I lose myself in all of the mix of the things that they're not doing. I forget about the things that I want. It almost becomes a sort of addictive feeling, like an obsession with the things that they are not, rather than centring myself on the things that I want.

And when I lose my sense of gravity, when I lose myself into someone else's story, I'm not showing myself the kind of love that I think that they are the cure for. I'm not showing myself the kind of love and care and respect that I'm hungry for them to give me. And the chances are that the reason why I'm so hungry for them to give me that solution is because I've been self-abandoning. Every time I come back to my own story, every time I stop seeking someone else to give me the answers and I pause and breathe and look at where I am able to provide this stuff for myself, I stop getting lost in other people's businesses.

Other adults are allowed to feel and want and desire whoever they want. They're allowed to want to spend time with whoever they want to. They're allowed to reply to text messages and emails at whatever pace they want to. They're allowed to invite whoever they want to whatever they want. And me getting all grabby about it is not going to change any of that.

What I can do is keep recentering myself, bringing my story back home, and then I can work out who I want to be spending my time with. I'm not getting all up and distracted in what other people may or may not be doing. And frankly, that feels a lot like safety to me.

I hope that this has been useful for you this week and maybe if it doesn't feel relevant right now, that you could park it for a day where you may, I hope, never need it. And yet out here humaning you may well need it at some other point or pass it on to a friend that you know may benefit from listening to this because it's a really common theme for so many of our lives.

When you share the podcast, it really helps me get this message out to people that if we treat ourselves with more kindness, we would create more kindness in the world. And I think if there's one thing we can all agree on, the world needs a bit more kindness right now. And that's always going to start with you. I hope this has been useful, and I'll speak to you next week.

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