In Celebration of Neediness
My own neediness is one of the tougher experiences for me to welcome. it feels graspy and suffocating. There’s almost a moral imperative connected to it. Like, if I welcome my neediness, it will never go away. I’ll just indulge in it, wallow in it, and it will just grow bigger and take over. And then I’ll end up in my underwear, homeless and soulless in the gutter in some foreign city, surrounded by piles of pizza boxes and candy wrappers.
To avoid this fate, I need to be vigilant and focused to make sure that neediness never infects me. And if it does, it needs to be isolated and no one can know, because it will be like a scarlet letter N on my chest, and no one will love me and I won’t get invited to the cool parties and I’ll die alone.
Similarly, being with someone who’s needy can feel like I’m coated in sticky goo, pinned down and bereft of life force, as they suck the juice out of me with the bottomless pit of their needs. No matter how much I give, they just keep sucking. They need to be avoided at all costs, and I can’t even tell them it’s because they’re needy, because they will reply with a needy and pleading question or defense, which will drag me into their candy wrapper pit in the gutter.
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In truth, however, I believe that we are all needy. We all have needs. And at least some of the time, we push away our needs, don’t come from our center, and our needs leak out as neediness.
This too can be welcomed and loved. If we welcome someone as needy, we won’t actually suffocate. We won’t actually lose our friends and influence in the world. We will just open a chamber deep in our hearts, leaning into the unconditional love that we all yearn for.
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Years ago, I was at a dance/party with about 200 people, and I saw my friend Steven, who I hadn’t seen in a while. Our conversation went something like this:
Me: Hi Steven, Good to see you. It’s been a while.
Steven: Yeah, I haven’t really been going out since my girlfriend broke up with me.
Me: It’s been hard, huh?
Steven: Yes. The hardest part has been that I feel so needy, I just don’t want to be seen in public.
When he said the word “needy,” I could almost imagine his tail tucking between his legs. He felt guilty and apologetic and isolated. I could certainly commiserate with him, having come down with a case of neediness many times. But something in me decided to break a rule, or at least, break a custom. My response:
Me: Well, you can be needy with me, if you want.
Steven: What? What do you mean?
Me: Well, any time tonight, if you feel needy or lonely, just come up to me and let me know. I’m happy to be with you however you are. You don’t need to have your act together. No need to hide your neediness. Just be needy with me.
The look on his face was one I’ll never forget. It was as if years dropped off him. Or better yet, as if a dried sponge filled with water. He did a double take. I imagined that it had never occurred to him that neediness could be welcomed, and that he didn’t have to hide it, work on it, apologize for it, bargain with it, or send himself to bed without his supper because of it.
He said, “so, I can just be needy with you, and you’ll still be with me?”
“Yes,” I replied. “It will be my pleasure. I can’t think of anything else more alive and intimate than being your friend in this place.”
Steven gave me a hug and eventually walked away to mingle with other friends at the gathering. Later in the evening, he came up to me. I asked him if he was still feeling needy, and he said yes, but that it didn’t seem to be getting in the way of him being with his friends. “It doesn’t seem to have the same sting as I thought it would,” he told me.
I believe it was his judgment of being needy that was bringing him to his knees. Once he realized that he had “permission” to feel his feelings, whatever they were, something inside him visibly relaxed.
That was it. Steven had a sweet time at the party, welcoming himself as he connected with other people. I had a sweet time as well. As I made myself available to Steven, I was also welcoming my own neediness. We had each other as anchors that night. Anchors in safety, connection, and love. His experience of neediness, and our willingness to welcome that experience, was a doorway into a deeper intimacy between us.
Welcoming him as needy definitely gave me a pause, as I felt the graspy bottomless nature of the pull of it. But I decided that, at least for the evening (and perhaps for the rest of my life), welcoming an uncomfortable experience was the least I could do for a friend. And, in truth, as I welcomed him, I welcomed my own discomfort, my own conditional love with unconditionality. My own sponge had a chance to fill.
It wasn’t comfortable. But it was alive and sweet and vulnerable and full of Grace. It had a profound effect on me. To this day, my relationship with neediness is fundamentally changed. My thoughts tell me to quarantine myself. But my knowing is that love can penetrate into that experience, and indeed all experience, as I bring my tender, open, and curious heart.