#abraham maslow

[quotefeeling]

In any given moment we have two options: To step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

Abraham Maslow

[thoughtkick]

In any given moment we have two options: To step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

Abraham Maslow

[perfectquote]

In any given moment we have two options: To step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

Abraham Maslow

[self-care-club]

Adapted from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

What is a need? (Adapted from this article)

It’s important to be connected to our needs because true needs are always in our best long term interest. Our needs for air, food, water, shelter, community, companionship, autonomy, respect, etc. are all in our best long term interest to fulfill.

Wants, on the other hand, don’t necessarily correlate with long term well-being. In fact, many wants, when fulfilled, actually contribute to our long term detriment.

Put another way: needs refer to the conditions that must be met in order for us to live a balanced life; whereas wants are strategies we use to fulfill our needs. This is why needs inherently map to long term well-being, while wants don’t have such a correlation. Wants can either contribute to our long-term wellbeing, or they contribute to our long-term detriment. In order for our wants to be good for us in the long-term, we must understand which needs they map back to.

Ideally, we should be connected to our needs first, and our wants second. When we become disconnected from our needs due to past trauma, we rely too heavily on our wants to guide our decision making. The disconnection from our needs increases the likelihood that we will attach to wants that lead to our long-term detriment. 

[perfeqt]

In any given moment we have two options: To step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

Abraham Maslow

[nousrose]

Every human being has both sets of forces within him. One set clings to safety and defensiveness out of fear, tending to regress backward, hanging on to the past, afraid to grow away from the primitive communion with the mother's uterus and breast, afraid to take chances, afraid to jeopardize what he already has, afraid of independence, freedom and separateness. The other set of forces impels him forward toward wholeness of Self and uniqueness of Self, toward full functioning of all his capacities, toward confidence in the face of the external world at the same time that he can accept his deepest, real, unconscious Self…This basic dilemma or conflict between the defensive forces and the growth trends I conceive to be existential, imbedded in the deepest nature of the human being, now and forever into the future…Therefore we can consider the process of healthy growth to be a never ending series of free choice situations, confronting each individual at every point throughout his life, in which he must choose between the delights of safety and growth, dependence and independence, regression and progression, immaturity and maturity. Safety has both anxieties and delights; growth has both anxieties and delights. We grow forward when the delights of growth and anxieties of safety are greater than the anxieties of growth and the delights of safety.

Toward a Psychology of Being

Abraham Maslow

[surqrised]

In any given moment we have two options: To step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

Abraham Maslow

[resqectable]

In any given moment we have two options: To step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

Abraham Maslow