July 19, 2014 By Admin

Human Needs and Spiritual Experience

Human Needs and Spiritual Experience and the Need for Supportive Rituals

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Recently the Human Givens Blog in the United Kingdom presented a post about human needs. I will paraphrase their information as well as information from other sources for Mindful Happiness. Having such needs met may have strong positive impact on both physical and psychological health.

Not having them met may result in various clinical, psychological conditions and disorders. Happiness is associated to emotional need satisfaction, and anxiety, depression and addictions are associated with emotional need deprivation. For optimal functioning humans require about ten core emotional needs to be met on a regular basis.

These needs are noted below:

Being and feeling safe and secure
Positive attention from and interaction with others
Volitional autonomy to make personal decisions for life
Emotional connectivity with others – probably better in face-to-face than in digital-to-digital
Membership in a larger community than the self – perhaps sometimes a connections with something greater than the self
Emotional support, acceptance and intimacy in significant relationships and friendships
Quiet reflection and privacy to simply be with yourself – alone
Personally meaningful member ship or social status within your selected group or groups
Good self-esteem from sensing competence, achievement, acceptance, and personal meaning in life and,
Deep personal meaning in life – a purpose for being

For more information refer to blog.humangivens.com on 2-4-14

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

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