Search Results

There is no good nor bad except for need. < Back C01 General Principle List of all principles There is no good nor bad except for need. Image: Pixabay – 12019 (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you fully satisfy what you need, the more you label this as good. The less you resolve a need to the point you’re left in some degree of discomfort, the more you characterize this as bad. Anything you ascribe as good points back to what helps you function. Anything you ascribe as bad painfully detracts from your ability to function. Judgments of good or bad apply only to what we do about our needs, never the objective fact of the needs themselves. If no bearing on your needs, then no moralizing. Description Which do you think is more likely? Any judgment of good or bad is always subjective and arbitrary. OR Good and bad can be linked to the objective facts or our needs. Anankelogy While morality has its arbitrary side, anankelogy recognizes it also includes an objective dimension . For example, while you choose how to react to feeling threatened in a conflict, your life objectively requires to remove any actual threat to your ability to fully function. You do not choose to have your defenses painfully provoked, only how you interpret and act upon your triggered defensiveness. Anankelogy distinguishes between the objective fact of unchosen needs and our subjective chosen responses to such needs. It calls this moral distinction . While we can disagree about how to morally respond to our needs, there is no point in disagreeing with the objective phenomena of the needs themselves. If I tell you that I am thirsty, or must find my own purpose to excel at my job, it remains pointless for you or anyone to disagree. These needs exist amorally. The morality judging things as good or made serves as code for need, in more ways than one. First, in the obvious sense that morality outlines a code of conduct to guide our need-impacting behaviors. Second, in the less obvious sense that moralitysymbolically represents what you and I require to function, personally and interpersonally. And more specifically to what we choose to act toward each other’s unchosen needs. Labeling something as good categorizes it as beneficial to our needs, and to our capacity to function. Good friends provide for our objective need for social support, for companionship. A good road provides for our need to get us to our destination. A good private space provides for our need for solitude. Apart from such needs, there is little to categorize as good or bad. Yes, we often regard something as “good” or “bad” in a purely aesthetic sense. “Good food” may taste great but not necessarily good for you. Our aesthetics serves our need for appreciation, for beauty and potentially for meaningfulness. The more something appeals to us, and we view it as good, the more it satisfies some emotional need. What satisfies one need may be less satisfactory to another. Bad food may be stale, for example, but still sufficiently nutritious. Anytime we label something as bad , we are categorizing it as objectionable to our needs and to our capacity to function. A bad friend is one who betrays you. A road full of potholes that could damage your car you naturally regard as bad. A private space easily invaded is not so good, or maybe even bad for your need for solitude. After all, you didn’t choose to have these needs . If every core need exists as an objective fact , then anankelogy suggests there is an objective side to morality . The less you can resolve your objective needs, the more your capacity to function objectively declines. Bad. The less you can resolve your objective needs, the more your capacity to function objectively declines. The more you can resolve your objective needs, the more your capacity to function objectively improves. Need-response Need-response clears up a lot of moral relativism. Morality is relative to the absolute of unchosen needs . You can adjust what you do about your needs, and others can change what they do or don’t do in response to your apparent needs. But no one can relativize the natural needs themselves. When anyone compromises your need for self-efficacy , for example, your wellness suffers independent of your subjective awareness of the experience. The less you can freely do for yourself, the less you can fully function. Your body then warns you of this diminished level of functioning in the form of emotional pain. Your pain subjectively follows the objective drop in your ability to fully function. Existentialism reminds us that we have far more choices than often assumed. But apply this only to our chosen responses to our unchosen needs . Once the objective fact of a need occurs, it is then too late to circumscribe it with moral options. Reactive Problem The more we assume others can change what they need to suit our own expectations, especially if coercing them to suppress their needs to honor ours, the more their capacity to function will objectively decrease. Anankelogy recognizes this conflating of unchosen needs with chosen responses as moral conflation . The less they can fully function, the less they can capably honor our needs. The more one pressures another to respect one’s own needs, in the name of what one deems as “good”, the less capable the other can respect that need. This easily leads to anger, to a risk of emotional abuse, and sometimes results in violence. The more you rationalize your need to defend yourself at any cost, for example, the more you easily overlook the other side’s inflexible need to defend themselves. This applies also to wars between nations or between different ethnic peoples. The selfish standard applied gets easily replied in return, easily inciting cycles of violence that blinds each side to the other side’s inflexible needs . When failing to first affirm another’s unchosen needs when confronting their actions affecting your own needs, you risk provoking their pain. They naturally dig in their heels when you trigger their defenses over something then cannot possibly change. Just as you naturally get defensive when confronted by another. Anankelogy recognizes this rush to label something good or bad as a component in need-response conflation or moral conflation . That’s when you assume unchosen needs and chosen responses are the same thing. The more you provoke mutual defensiveness with such self-serving moral stances, the more you easily provoke pain that all would prefer to avoid . Once you go down that pain-normalizing path, you tend to moralize pain as bad . Your “good” sinks to the level of avoiding pain more than resolving the needs causing your pain . Your “bad” sinks to the level of suffering the pain your own behavior provokes. You sink to the level of discomfort avoidance that traps you in painfully diminished levels of functioning . Responsive Solution Need-response carefully distinguishes between your unchosen needs and anyone’s chosen responses to them. This can help you deescalate many conflicts. The more you affirm another’s unchosen needs before you bring up their chosen behaviors, the less you get yourself in trouble. Need-response offers a simple communication format for this. You may recognize it as the “praise sandwich ” that sandwiches the “bad news” of how they negatively affect your needs between two pieces of “good news”. Consider this example: Good news : “I affirm your need for self-determination, and prefer to avoid doing anything that could restrict your right to choose your own destiny to reach your life’s full potential.” Bad news : “However, I must point out how your recent actions can threaten my security. I don’t see how you can reach your full potential while limiting mine.” Good news : “I will assume you mean no harm. I trust you intend to do your best, and together we can find ways to mutually respect each other’s affected needs. Thank you.” This praise sandwich approach points to the anankelogy principle that wellness is psychosocial . Modern frameworks tend to reduce wellness to its internal biological and cognitive elements . This needlessly stigmatizes those requiring support after suffering damage from socioenvironmental threats to their wellbeing. Research now exposes the oft-overlooked harm of our norms of hyper-individualism . Watered down philosophies of existentialism allow the powerful to blame the relatively powerless for the threats and suffered harms these powerful folks repeatedly cause. While you individually experience the bad of such threats and harms, it is not entirely good to expect you to do all the therapeutic changes. Especially if those bad socio-environmental threats keep damaging your wellbeing. Need-response exist to address such external contributors to your wellbeing. Instead of relying on alienating norms that pits us against each other, or assumes powerholders are inherently bad , need-response addresses the unchosen needs on all sides. Need-response provides you the tools of responsivism , to cut through alienating norms to incentivize others to support your wellness needs. You can then challenge the “bad” of unresolved needs with the increasing “good” of resolving more needs, reducing and even removing the cause of pain, and restoring more wellness. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: Can a need be “bad” because it only occurred from a bad behavior? Good tasting food can be bad for you, so maybe it’s how we used those labels. Good and bad remains distinct from right and wrong, so how does that apply to all this? My good could be your bad, and that relative side of morality is not covered here. Relieving pain feels good, but you’re saying that this is not actually all that good? Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

Your safest generalization is to love. < Back H01 Love Principle List of all principles Your safest generalization is to love. Image: Pixabay - Mylene2401 (click on meme to see source image) Summary Our understanding of anything naturally begins with a generalized overview. Then we drill down to specifics the more relevant to our needs. Or we latch onto comforting generalizations to ease the pain of our unmet needs. We then trust unsafe generalizations, which dodges the specifics essential to resolve our needs and remove our pain. Love liberates us. Love upholds your innate value to fully resolve your needs. Love inspires us to honor the needs of others as our own. Love remains your go-to generalization to thrive. Description Which do you think is more likely? The higher standard to love one another is merely an aspirational ideal that no one actually meets. OR Loving others simply requires the bold step to honor another’s needs on par or more than our own. Anankelogy Here is where we explore this principle in relation to academic anankelogy. For now, this serves as placeholder text. When I find the time, I will post the full deal here. Need-response Need-response positions itself as the only profession to prioritize platonic love over laws, over medical or cognitive processes, or over anything unable to promise measurably improved wellness outcomes . With the safe generalization of love, we can peel back the popular myth of popgen self-interest. You can replace its inclination toward rationalized selfishness with mutual regard for each other’s affected needs. You can replace its inclination toward rationalized self-righteousness with humbling get to know how each other impacts one another’s inflexible needs . Legalism spurs you to generalize. It prompts you to cling to your assumptions as defensible facts. Which easily pulls you down into painful falsehoods. And trap you in dark caverns of myopia. Love inspires you to be specific. It encourages you to use your initial generalizations as stepping stones to relevant nuance. To step beyond fleeting concerns to see the big picture and embrace the deeper value of us all. Anankelogy recognizes a range from a healthy kind of generalizing to a deeply problematic kind. provisional generalizing – when you recognize your generalities include unidentified specifics, ready to replace them with applicable specifics. popular generalizing (popgen) – when you accept popular generalities as fact, ignoring any disconfirming specifics and rationalizing exceptions to what’s apparently widely supported. relief-generalizing (relief-gen) – when your trusted generalities crystallize into hardened beliefs you rely upon to relieve you of the pain of your unmet needs, trapping you in pain. oversimplification – when you extremely exaggerate, often to the point of believing as indisputable fact the oppositive of what is accurately true. The more you anchor your trusted generalities to the steadfast generalization that all lives possess innate value, the easier it can be to transition from questionable generalities to relevant specifics to more fully resolve needs. Reactive Problem The less your needs resolve, the more drawn to relying on questionable generalizing to cope. Your ability function starts going down. You go from what anankelogy calls “peakfunction” to “symfunction” that compromises your wellness. The less you can function (i.e., the less well you are), the more you opt for alternative that partially eases your needs. Whenever what you specifically need cannot be accessed, you settle for the next best thing. You then slide into what anankelogy identifies as “symfunction capture ” in three gradual steps. Symfunction creep : you go from fully resolving all needs to partially easing some needs. Symfunction strain : you go from partially easing some needs to partially easing most needs. Symfunction trap : you go from partially easing most needs to fully resolving only a few needs. This slippery slope helps to explain how many of us suffer dysfunction . The less your needs can resolve, the more they alert you with emotional and physical pain to compel your attention. We often cope by trusting comforting generalities. When we can full function because our needs resolve more fully, we can recognize most generalities include unseen specifics affecting our lives. As we lose our capacity to function fully because of fewer resolved needs and mounting pain, we start accepting watered down versions as fact. These things must be true, we tell ourselves, so I can avoid further suffering. But the more we cling to our generalizations and miss relevant specifics to resolve our needs, the further we stay in pain of our unresolved needs. It becomes harder to recognize and affirm the innate value of all life when losing confidence in our own value if tied to our ability to function. Responsive Solution Affirming the innate value of another has a way of pulling you out of your shell. When consumed with agony from feeling overwhelmed by your own unmet needs, try doing what you can for what someone else may need. No matter how small. You may find the results refreshingly liberating. You may not have the specifics necessary to make any significant impact. But starting with the generalization that they are worthy of your attention and care brings out the best of humanity. Their appreciation can do wonders for taking a weight off your shoulders. Need-response instills this discipline to first generalize the worthiness of others before trying to call attention to your own. You address others using a format of positive-negative-positive. Positive: You a ffirm the inflexible needs of the other. Negative: You b ring up how their actions affect your needs. Positive: You c lose by pledging to continue this good faith mutual approach. You generalize in both senses of the word. You keep it on the simple side. Skip any complexities. If relevant, save those for later. You apply to another what you apply to all. You apply it to yourself. You show you’re fair. You let the power of love open doors and solve more problems. To resolve more needs. To remove more pain. To restore more wellness. Let love serve as your safest generality. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: Not everyone is receptive to my bold offers of kindness, and some mysteriously react in anger. I find it very increasingly difficult to love those who seem unable to honestly love themselves. Life is complicated, so I have to start with my trusted generalizations just to get by. Who’s to say what is a relevant detail and what’s just to distract from what truly matters? Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

< Back 2024 INsights 0701-0930 2024 INsights 0701-0930 2024 INsights 0701-0930 Previous Next

While no one sits above the law, no law sits above your needs it exists to serve. < Back G01 Law Principle List of all principles While no one sits above the law, no law sits above your needs it exists to serve. Image: Pixabay – FelixMittermeier (click on meme to see source image) Summary Constructs of law serve as a metaphor for needs. Apart from exposed needs, there are no human laws. The more enforcement of laws goes against what others inflexibly need, the less measurably legitimate that enforcement of law. Violent law enforcement that provokes you to defend your threated safety, for example, slips easily into illegitimacy when authority expects passive compliance. You cannot blindly obey any law that ultimately denies you of your ability to obey laws. Description Which do you think is more likely? Every law exists as a literal extension of authority to maintain the social order. OR Every law serves as a metaphor for the public-facing needs it exists to address. Anankelogy We widely agree that no one sits above the law, not even elected rulers nor constitutional monarchs. We widely agree that we all sit equal under the authority of law, so that no one can rise to influential power and dictate their arbitrary will to us. But taken to extremes, authorities coerce us to submit to laws to serve their own ends. If no one is literally above the law, does this allow those we trust to create, interpret and enforce the law to effectively sit above us? Can any law legitimately require you to go against your ability to function well enough to obey these laws? You could never obey a law that required you to hold your breath for five minutes, or forced you to replace drinking water with wood alcohol, or required you to defy gravity at will. You cannot make gravity go upward to fit some arbitrary law. You cannot obey any law that prevents you from being able to continue obeying laws, since you would soon no longer be around to obey laws. Law-based authority loses its legitimacy the more it undermines your capacity to effectively respond to the needs all laws exist to serve. For example, the more you get exorbitantly fined to the point you can no longer afford to survive, the less such authority serves its need-responsive purpose. Similarly, you cannot easily submit to laws requiring you to rearrange your priority of needs to fit someone else’s preferences. Yet that is exactly what toxic laws require from many of us. Laws speak to our flexible behaviors and never to the objective reality of our inflexible needs, nor to our inflexible priorities. That fuels a huge chunk of our political polarization. Need-response Anankelogy recognizes how your natural needs do sit above the law. Whatever naturally exists prior to human governance—to which laws are created to serve—sits above those laws. We cannot force the objective reality of nature to serve the subjective whims of human wants and desires, no matter how powerful the authority insisting on such demands. How we act puts the impact of our behavior under the law. But the natural needs and natural priority of needs actually sit above the law. If obeying every law prevents you from being able to fully function, then the problem is not you but the law. . Or what anankelogy identifies as toxic legalism . Reactive Problem Toxic legalism easily overlooks the subservience of flexible law to inflexible needs. Toxic legalism risks undermining the purpose of law in five key ways. Hyper-individualism . The law aptly presumes individual moral agency. Legalism expects you to individualistically obey laws while neglecting the impactful context of socioenvironmental factors restricting your full moral agency. Legalism expects you to be an island. Hyperrationality . Our laws spring from what Weber called rational-legal authority , Legalism expects you to rationally decide what is best for others without personally relating to their emotionally charged needs. Legalism incentives you to rationalize. Relief -generalizing . We keep laws intentionally vague to be broadly applicable. And the law generally emphasizes harm reduction. Legalism incentivizes overgeneralizing for relief from the pain of your unmet needs, often to the point of neglecting such needs. Those unmet needs Legalism perpetuates pain you feel you must repeatedly avoid. Avoidance . We keep laws intentionally impersonal to curtail their biased enforcement. The more personally the enforcer knows you, the higher the chance they’ll overlook your infractions. And that’s just not fair. Legalism turns such careful detachment into careless alienation. It normalizes disengagement. It expects the law to be enough to address almost any situation. This incentivizes you to hold unrealistic expectations towards others, who likewise hold unrealistic expectations of you. Legalism avoids personally engaging each other’s ongoing needs. Adversarialism . We keep laws intentionally adversarial toward lawbreakers. Laws incentivize public respect for your exposed needs by promising to punish any noncompliance. Legalism normalizes such hostilities to the point of hindering cooperation and mutual understanding of each other. It has you continually viewing others as acting in bad faith when they actually could have good intentions toward you. You squash their good intentions when adversarialism prods you to distrust them and oppose them on a whim. Legalism prematurely pits us against each other in ways that promote mutual defensiveness. The more we mindless assert the supremacy of law, the more we objectify and dehumanize each other. Often to the benefit of law-based elites. And grave costs to our wellbeing. Responsive Solution Need-response doesn’t disregard law, but goes beyond mere impersonal laws. Need-response fulfills the purpose of law by directly engaging the needs laws exist to serve. Need-response answers the problem of toxic legalism by countering each of its five excesses. Replaces hyper-individualism with psychosocial balance . Need-response respects every individual within the context of impactful social systems and impactful environments beyond one’s personal control. Need-response balances an internal focus with an external focus to identify all contributors to a problem. Instead of objectifying you as an island, you’re treated holistically. Replaces hyper -rationality with respected vulnerability . Need-response encourages us all to acknowledge and affirm the less rational objective needs. We separate out how their expressed subjectively in our emotions. We make it safe for each other to drop their guard and honestly admit their challenging experiences. Instead of hiding behind reasoned arguments, you openly relate vulnerably to each other’s inflexible needs. Replaces relief -generalizing with relevant specifics . Need-response inspires you to let go of distracting generalizations to appreciate more of the nuance affecting your needs. It cultivates your relational orientation from outmoded generalizations toward relevant specifics affecting your needs. Instead of legalism’s overextended vagueness, you drill down to the specifics necessary to resolve needs, remove pain and restore wellness. Replaces avoidance with engagement . Need-response inspires you to benefit from the purpose of your pain, to resolve more needs that can remove cause for pain. It cultivates your easement orientation from relieving your pain toward embracing your natural pain as an essential process for resolving your needs. Instead of legalism’s overblown avoidance, you get to know each other’s overlooked needs so you can resolve them, remove their pain and restore each other’s wellness. Replaces adversarialism with mutuality . Need-response inspires you to switch from reflexively opposing your foes to intuitively distinguishing their unchosen needs from their chosen responses to them. It cultivates your conflict orientation away from mutual defensiveness toward mutual understanding, mutual engagement, and potential for mutual support. Instead of legalism’s overreach sparking perpetual mistrust, you develop the mutuality essential to more fully resolve each other’s needs, remove cause for each other’s pain and mutually restore each other’s wellness. After all, laws by themselves do not resolve needs; we do . Laws can be as arbitrary as much as the subjective ways you behave toward your needs. The needs themselves start as objective fact. And that sets our inflexible needs above flexible law. Need-response upends the norms expecting compliance to laws by asserting the higher standard of properly resolving each other’s needs. Legalism’s harm reduction standard too easily perpetuates pain by neglecting the underlying needs prompting our pain. Need-response serves the needs for which laws exist. No one’s impactful behavior sits above the law. But then no law sits above one’s objective needs behind that behavior. Accountability is less about compliance to manipulable law, and more to the bottom line of our measurable wellness outcomes. The better we can resolve our own needs without hindering others—or by supporting each other’s needs—the more the issues of law can naturally take care of themselves. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: You try disobeying a law and see what happens! Following laws seems so much easier than trying to figure out each other’s fickle needs. I doubt if Teddy Roosevelt meant the law itself must sit above human existence. The law sits above rhetorical needs; laws can govern if trusting water from a bottle or faucet. Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

Reacting to your pain tends to leave you in more pain. < Back D05 Pain Principle List of all principles Reacting to your pain tends to leave you in more pain. Image: Pixabay – jplenio (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you try to avoid your pain, the more you end up ignoring the threats causing such pain. The more ignored, the more such threats persist to cause you more pain. The quicker you get to the source of your pain and remove the underlying threat causing you intense discomfort, the less pain you ultimately must suffer. There is no such thing as pain apart from unresolved needs. Description Which do you think is more likely? The more you can get rid of your pain with meds or others means, the better your life will be. OR Unless you get to the source of your pain and remove the underlying threats, you will always suffer some form of pain. Anankelogy Since there is no such thing as pain apart from unresolved needs , reacting to the pain instead of responding to the underlying need tends to leave you in pain. The more you react to your pain, the more you tend to ignore the message of threat fueling that pain. Every painful emotion poses some threat for you to process. Reacting to the pain of such threats more than responding to the threats themselves promises to leave you in more of such painful emotions you perhaps would prefer to avoid. 1. Anger : Outside of some need to reject some apparent threat, you feel no anger. Suppressing your anger easily leaves in place what you perceive as unacceptable. 2. Fear : Outside of some need to handle something menacing, you feel no fear. Repressing your fear tends to allow what you cannot seem to handle to menace you even more. 3. Depression : Outside of some need to redirect your energies, you feel no depression. Ignoring the root of your depression can leave you with even less energy or focus. 4. Grief : Outside of some need to adjust your life to a deep loss, you feel no grief. Failing to make the meaningful adjustment can prolong your painful grief. 5. Jealousy : Outside of some need to enjoy what others enjoy, you feel no jealousy. Missing this opportunity to realize your impactful expectations can trap you in more jealousy. You can find a list of twenty such emotional pain conditions in the NR101 program . This program aims to help you to better respond to the needs behind each painful emotion. Too many of us find ourselves trapped in our emotional pain. The more you can resolve your need to remove the associated threat, the more your painful emotions naturally clear up. You can remove a lot of cause for pain by simply relating to the need that pain seeks to convey. Yes, some pain may persist in some situations. Especially those situations beyond your control. That’s where need-response steps in. It seeks to root out causes of pain at multiple human levels . Need-response One of the most overlooked ways to reduce pain is to stop causing others to feel pain. As Brené Brown put in The Call to Courage , “It’s easier to cause pain than to feel pain.” Popular norms model this approach of shifting your pain onto others. Our legal professions of politics and the courts encourages us to push our hurt onto others, instead of reaching our higher potential to endure discomfort to resolve all the underlying needs. Even counseling falls short by encouraging the individual to change to fit into an unhealthy society. Need-response upends this intolerable norm for making others feel our own hurt. Instead of spreading pain or hate, it brings out more of our potential for peace and love. Reactive Problem Institutions of law (judiciary and politics especially) tends to react to pain. Instead of identifying and resolving each need prompting the pain, you get categorized as opposing the other side ostensibly causing you emotional pain. Both a court battle and election battle offer pain-relief to the winning side. The losing side gets to keep their pain. Neither side fully removes their pain, since legal processes rarely address all of the needs involved in such conflicts. These legal institutions serve as poor models for how to address our emotional pain. You could even say the provide a disastrous guide for how to resolve needs, reduce pain, and raise our potential. Counseling can only take us so far at the individual level. We need something like need-response to unpack and remove all that emotional pain. Responsive Solution Need-response starts with the affected needs. You may find it much easier to respond to the need when stepping outside of the reactive norms avoiding your pain. Need-response raises the standard unfortunately built into the design of our legal systems. There is no greater human authority than resolved needs . The more need-response enables you to resolve your needs along with the needs of others involved in a conflict, the less pain each side must suffer. Instead of avoiding discomfort , you collectively remove the cause of discomfort with the power of love. The NR201 program digs deeper into this underutilized love-centered approach. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: How can I be sure I am responding to the need and not merely reacting to the pain. If you only knew how much pain I suffer, you would realize why I must react to it like I do. I once responded to the other’s need, instead of reacting to my pain, and had mixed results. What if I stop reacting to the pain but others in the conflict take advantage of me? Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

Natural pain is inherently good. < Back D02 Pain Principle List of all principles Natural pain is inherently good. Image: Pixabay – jplenio (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more you moralize any pain as bad, the more likely you will miss its warning of some threat. Ignoring your anger leaves you painfully vulnerable to what you likely cannot accept. Ignoring your fear leaves you painfully vulnerable to what you cannot confidently handle. Embracing such uncomfortable emotions allows you to deal with these threats. You benefit from their painful alarms. Description Which do you think is more likely? Any pain is bad and must be relieved as soon as possible. OR Pain is merely a messenger to warn of threats, and those threats are worse than the unpleasant warnings themself. Anankelogy Accessible anankelogy distinguishes between “natural pain” and “unnatural pain”. You can thrive in life when experiencing natural pain. You cannot thrive when loaded down by unnatural pain. Natural pain is what you feel when you’re suddenly alerted to a threat. The burning sensation you feel when too close to the stove. The disappointment you feel with unfulfilled expectations. The rejection you feel when denied entry. Natural pain typically prompts you to react to some situation, to some incident. Any reaction resolving the needs is good. Any reaction not resolving the needs or creating other painful needs is not good. These poor reactions often result in unnatural pain. Unnatural pain is when natural pain gets avoided, repressed, suppressed or ignored. Then your life’s warning system pops up elsewhere to insist you attend to the perceived threat. You feel a gnawing grind in your gut. You suffer an inexplicable headache. You grow self-absorbed from too much pain to bear. Unnatural pain typically starts out as a dull and manageable level of discomfort. But this level builds over time. Dysfunctions set in. Eventually it could put your very survival at stake. Academic anankelogy digs a little deeper. It identifies four types of pain. You likely encountered all four in your life at some point. 1. Organic pain . I.e., natural pain . That abrupt discomfort you feel when you must deal with some emerging threat. Until removed, the treat lowers your capacity to fully function in life. 2. Residual pain . That persisting alert that a partially eased need still requires your attention. Subtle at first and steadily rising. 3. Biostructural pain . That bodily ache that uses physical discomfort to insist you attend to that ignored threat. Often experienced as unexplainable stomach ache or headache. 4. Metapain . That alarm screaming through your body to warn you of excessive pain. This pain warns you of the threat of pain itself, of too much lingering pain. When saying your immediate pain is bad , that best refer to the underlying threat to be removed. Your initial pain is merely a messenger of some threat. Try not to shoot the messenger. Or you risk ignoring a threat that likely will get worse. Your pain is not the problem as much as the threats your pain tries to report . The longer you ignore that “good” message trying to alert you to some threat, the more your good pain slides into the less than good residual pain . The longer your residual pain persists, the greater the likelihood it will find another route in your body to scream for attention. Your inexplicable headache could be characterized as bad, but not as bad as the underlying threat being overlooked. At some point, your body signals its suffering from too much unresolved pain. How? Ironically, with more pain. Bad? It is always good to face the pain, to improve awareness of threats. It is better to remove the threats to remove the cause for pain than to remove the messengers warning you of these threats. It is better to appreciate natural pain as nature’s least appreciated gift than allow these threats get beyond your control. Painful indeed. Need-response Need-response wants to reacquaint you to your lost friend of pain. If getting too much of it, you understandably treat it as some unwelcomed foe. But the longer you ignore these unpleasant messengers, the more of them you get. If reacting to your pain tends to leave you in more pain , then let’s get to the source of your pain. Let’s confront the sources of your pain, to remove their cause. But first, let’s improve your ability to endure natural discomfort. Reactive Problem The more you’ve bought into the modernity myths suggesting all pain is bad, the more likely you are trapped in your unprocessed pain. If you moralize the pain as bad, you easily miss heeding the warning about threats crashing in on you. If your pain reports a threat and you regard that report as bad more than the threat itself, you tend to leave the threat in place. That easily leaves you in persisting pain, as your body persists in reporting the ignored threat. Responsive Solution The more you can welcome your natural feelings of pain or discomfort, the more equipped to more fully resolve your needs. The more you can appreciate your natural pain as good, the better you can process your pain to realize the exact threat to remove. Or to remove yourself from it. We can learn from Wim Hof and his Wim Hof Method , and from others, to shift from reacting to extreme cold to learning we are innately capable of enduring far more cold than we give ourselves credit. I learned this as a Native American participating in an outdoor talking circle when the temps dropped far below freezing, and the breeze nipping with its wind chill factor. When that biting breeze first hit, my first instinct was to shiver and pull back. Then I put into practice what I learned in a correspondence course. I relaxed and let the cold air pass through me. I thanked my body for keeping me alert to any potential threat of frostbite, while recognizing I was nowhere near that extreme. I had to use my bare hands to hold the smudge bowl. As I held that turtle shell with burning herbs inside, I could feel the extremes of cold on my knuckles simultaneously as the extremes of heat on my fingertips. I learned to accept the warnings as good and not react. I learned to relax and let the unpleasant warnings pass through me. I learned by not reacting that I minimized the risk of being burnt or frostbit. All while appreciating my natural pain as something good and not something to avoid. Need-response encourages you to shift from moralizing all pain as bad to appreciating your natural pain as good. It then encourages you to work through any residual and other types of pain so you can learn to have your feeling serve you, rather than you serve your feelings . Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: I might be in the habit of ignoring my natural pain as bad, so how can I know? What if most of my pain is actually residual? Isn’t that type of pain bad? Isn’t biostructural pain the same as psychosomatic illnesses? Should I see a medical doctor if I am suffering from biostructural pain? Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

Authority proves less necessary where needs freely resolve. < Back F06 Authority Principle List of all principles Authority proves less necessary where needs freely resolve. Image: Pixabay – FrankBeckerDE (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more internally motivated and enabled to honor the needs of others, the less you have to be externally motivated by pressures from impersonal authority. But where needs persist unresolved, some authority typically emerges to address the gap. When becoming routine, such authority risks disincentivizing our mutual motivations. That risks diminishing our mutual respect and our love. Description Which do you think is more likely? Authority proves necessary in our lives to avoid slipping into chaotic anarchy. OR The more we can resolve needs on our own, the less we rely on authority. Anankelogy When was the last time you relied upon authority to enforce your need to eat something? Probably never. When was the last time you relied upon authority to enforce your need to access food safe to eat? Probably all of the time. Your requirement for food that you cannot grow yourself triggers your social needs . And that goes for anything you require to function that involves others. Unresponsive authorities can have the most painful impacts on your vulnerable social needs. The more you rely on others you do not personally know, like produce suppliers, the more authority creeps in to have a word about it. Laws exist to ensure your groceries will not kill you. Authorities exist to enforce such laws. But all of this occurs on an impersonal level. The more vulnerable to the demands of authority to get what your life requires, the more authority can get in the way of what you actually need. Modernity comes with the creeping normality of increasing vulnerability to authorities for everyday requirements. The less you can fully resolve your needs because of such impersonal authorities, the more your pain naturally increases. Authorities often step in to manage your pain, with little if any incentive to remove cause for that pain. Anankelogy recognizes the current trend of growing disillusionment with the rule-based order . Much of the cynicism stems from the problem of avoidant adversarialism . Authorities likely coerced you to oppose what seems to be your immediate sources of pain. Yet the pain persists. Authorities then encroach into areas where you could be free to resolve more needs, if only they were more supportive. Authorities rarely realize how their complicit in keeping you trapped in ongoing pain. Need-response can help you break free and find liberation. Need-response Need-response answers the problem of avoidant adversarialism with engaging mutuality . Authorities hold power over you in certain social situations. They tend to take an adversarial stance toward you, because they can. They tend to avoid the discomfort they cause you, because they can. Need-response identifies the two sides in these power relations for analysis. It recognizes powerful authorities as “ascribed impactors ” (AI ). They impact the relationship more than impacted by it. If under that authority figure, you are recognized as a “reporting impactee ” (RI ). You tend to be impacted by the relation more than impacting it. Need-response equalizes such power relations with its Impact Parity Model . It uniquely opens the eyes of each side to the affected needs of the other side. Needs are objective facts , so it pays to identify and address the needs of others you impact. The more the RI affirms the inflexible needs of the AI , we anticipate less reaction from such impactful authorities. The more the AI then respects the affected needs of the RI . It’s a win-win relationship after that. Reactive Problem The more we settle for easing needs over resolving them, the more we stay in some level of pain . And the less we can fully function. The longer we cannot fully function, the closer we slip into painful dysfunction . The less we can remain pain free by resolving all or most of our needs, the more we attach to ways to cope with the mounting pain. We may slip into outbursts to try to desperately get rid of the pain. We may even wander into behaviors infringing on others. We can become emotionally abusive, or perhaps even covertly if not overtly violent toward others. Authorities then step in. The less your needs can freely resolve, the more authority seems absolutely necessary to pick up the pieces. The more you feel helpless to control your reactions, the more you likely acquiesce to authorities getting more involved. In our culture of hyper-individualism, you feel utterly powerless. You likely see authority is unquestionably necessary to keep in check each other’s irresponsible reactions. You scarcely realize how these impulsive overreactions exist largely as a fiction of our own modernist creation. We wouldn’t suffer such malaise if our leaders encouraged more responsiveness to each other’s needs. The more we suffer in pain, the more we overreact and infringe upon others. The more we overreact, the more we defer to authorities. The more we defer to authorities, the less our needs resolve. The less our needs resolve, the more we suffer in pain. Rince and repeat. Responsive Solution We can safely assume authorities typically remain unaware of their coercive influences. They will likely show how they mean well, but lack sufficient discipline to support resolving your objective needs . Need-response facilitates a process to equalize this power relation. RI speak truth to power in ways that incentivize AI to listen to those impacted . Instead of relying on adversarialism , both sides apply character refunctions to convey mutual regard for each other’s inflexible needs . As you likely respond better to humility , you humbly relate to authority figures. As you likely respond better to empathy , you empathize with the needs of authority. As you likely respond better to grace , you’re gracious toward the shortcomings of authority. As you likely respond better to fair treatment , you fairly treat authority. As you likely respond better to honesty , you remain honest and open to authority. Each RI assess the AI ’s responsiveness to such demonstrated traits. Then rates the AI ’s demonstrated reciprocity. Or demarks the AI ’s reputation if reacting poorly. This translates into earned legitimacy . Legitimacy favors the AI whose authority leads to the most resolved needs among the RI . AI earn more legitimacy the more they relate to the actual needs of those under their social influence. This process incentivizes authorities to cocreate measurable wellness outcomes. That includes esteeming authorities more highly when they effectively transform social structures tobe more responsive to every one’s needs. Bonus points for enabling RI to freely and fully resolving their exposed needs . We vouch for their earned legitimacy the more the demonstrably help those impacted to more fully resolve their needs, remove their pain, and restore their wellness. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: I cannot envision any authority figure that I know to ever go along with something like this. If power corrupts, isn’t the problem simply having too much authority? But what if I am truly helpless to authorities because of a disability? I need to see this work effectively for someone like me before I trust it could work for me. Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

< Back 4. Balancing masculine independence with feminine dependence Do you prioritize one gender side over another? Or do you integrate both? Masculine focused If you're more rational than emotional, your needs best met with a more emotional emphasis naturally seeks some balance. One way nature prompts you to fill this void is through sexual energy, to compel you to pursue the complementary emotionality you currently lack. Whether stereotypically in a woman or perhaps in an emotionally attuned man. The less you integrate your rational qualities with emotional maturity, the more prone to swing between extremes of irrationality and unemotionality. For example, _________ The more you blend your rational qualities with emotional maturity, the more needs you can resolve and remove cause for pain. For example, becoming both reasonable and intuitive enables you to _________ Feminine focused If you're more emotional than rational, your needs best met with a more rational emphasis naturally seeks some balance. One way nature prompts you to fill this void is through sexual energy, to compel you to pursue the complementary rationality you currently lack. Whether stereotypically in a man or perhaps in a rationally minded woman. toward balance Cyclic balancing of these gender-associated traits Vacillating between opposing extremes Balancing complementary sides Oscillating toward a balanced center Encountering the holistic center Transspiritually compelled holism Conventional reaction to transspirituality The more attached to conventional norms, the more one tends to guard the comforting familiarity of pragmatism creep . text text Saturday, November 1, 2025 at 8:58:14 PM UTC Previous Next

Emotions personally convey needs. < Back B02 Basic Principle List of all principles Emotions personally convey needs. Image: Pixabay – Pexels (click on meme to see source image) Summary The less you can function because of some lack or some threat, the more your body will emote you do something to replenish that lack or remove that threat. Such responses are automatic. Your body conveys your needs to maintain function. You don’t even have to feel it, though you often do on some level. Where there is no need to convey, there is no emotion. Description Which do you think is more likely? Since emotions are highly subjective, they must be controlled with reason. OR The sooner you resolve a need, the sooner its emotion naturally goes away. Anankelogy Your emotions convey to your body whatever your life requires to function in that moment. If your ability to maintain function requires you to do something, such emotions compel you to act. The further your underlying needs remains unresolved, the more intense the emotion. The urgency to safeguard your capacity to function, to exist, could provoke you to react in some way. Such an alarming reaction often creates other painful needs. Each emotion conveys a specific need. Each addresses a particular area of your ability to function. And each comes packed with your sense’s perceived intensity of that need. Anger conveys to you that you’re facing something you cannot accept. The more you perceive it as unacceptable, the more intense the anger. From mild irritation to violent outrage. Fear conveys that you’re facing something you sense you cannot adequately handle. The more you perceive it as beyond your ability to handle, the more intense the fear. From mild anxiety to overwhelming terror. Guilt conveys your self-serving actions unacceptably contrast with your social commitments. The more your behavior violated social norms, the more intense the guilt. From mild embarrassment to devastating shame. Disappointment conveys that your rightful expectations have not been met. The more dependent upon what fell through, the more intense your disappointment. From casually resigned to the outcome to full disruption to your life. Depression conveys, in large part, a drop in energy to continue pursuing commitments at odds with your other neglected needs. The greater the contrast between your habitual neglect of these other needs, the more serious the depression. From a mild case of gloominess to major depression. In each case, your emotion conveys something lacking in your ability to fully function. You may not even be aware of such emotions. The more aware of your emotion, the more you feel it. You could be experiencing one emotion while feeling another. For example, you say you feel upset when your colleague failed to show up for a one-on-one meeting you drove across town just to attend. Before emoted that this is something you cannot accept, your body likely emoted disappointment. You may feel too angry to be aware of your emotion of disappointment. Prior to emoting disappointment, your body likely emoted shock, at that moment when you were trying to be sure your colleague was there or not. The greater the impact on your ability to function, the more intense the emotion. Wisdom warns us not to react to our emotions. Need-response addresses irritants that needlessly provoke your more intense emotions. Need-response Need-response addresses the needs conveyed by your emotions, instead of trying to ease your painful feelings. That’s a basic fault of our failing institutions. If they do not respond to the needs your emotions report, you tend to get stuck in those painful feelings. The more you can resolve the needs your emotions convey, the less pain you must endure. Simple enough, but not easy. Need-response offers tools to reconnect us all to the needs our emotions exist to convey. Reactive Problem Doctors and lawyers mean well by offering you options to relieve your pain. But if you ever become dependent on such pain-relieving options, you risk missing the point. The very point of your pain is to alert you to something you must do, or not do, to continue functioning. The more you slide down the rabbit hole of pain-relief or suppression, the fewer of your needs can fully resolve. You end up in more pain. Then you seek more ways to relieve that pain. This creates a vicious downward spiral, debilitating your life. Responsive Solution Short-term pain relief may prove necessary to restore your focus. But let your tolerance for discomfort build up enough to never become dependent on pain-relieving options. Long-term relief from uncomfortable emotions risk trapping you in more pain. Need-response offers tools to cultivate and improve your relationship with your own emotions. You learn to appreciate the pain you likely prefer to avoid. You also learn to reflect on desires before indulging them too soon. You grow the capacity to process your feelings to promptly resolve your needs, to remove cause for pain or for obsessive cravings, to restore you to holistic wellness. All emotions compel attention to unresolved needs. To get you to do something so you can keep on functioning. Without a need to convey directly or vicariously, you experience no emotion . Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: I know I shouldn’t act on every emotion right away, but that’s not exactly suppression. Sometimes I must curb my emotion’s intensity before I do something stupid. Too often, it’s next to impossible to fully resolve a need and I feel stuck feeling bad. What kind of tool could help me improve how I relate to my own emotions? Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

All your behaviors serve your needs. < Back B09 Basic Principle List of all principles All your behaviors serve your needs. Image: Pixabay – bertvthul (click on meme to see source image) Summary The less some action contributes to your wellbeing, the more open you are to change them. The more an action enables you to function, the more likely to repeat that action. Even the most trivial of behaviors must align with what you need to function, or you will likely change it. If you keep giving cash to that homeless guy and then run out of cash, you inevitably change your behavior. Description Which do you think is more likely? All your behaviors result from rationally chosen decisions you make. OR All your behaviors ensure you continue to function and minimize pain. Anankelogy Everything you do aligns with your continuing existence. Otherwise you would cease to exist. Or would not exist well. If you jump off a high cliff to certain death, you won’t be serving your needs anymore. Everything you do aligns with what your life requires to continue. You eat to continue existing. You avoid harmful accidents to continue existing. You seek necessary help from others to continue existing. All your behaviors relate to what will help you continue functioning. You don’t even have to think about it. Your feelings tap into the memory of your experiences for how to ease each familiar need. Newer needs create new emotionally charged memories. Your beliefs inform your feelings on how you experience each need. Your behaviors attempting to ease your needs shape your beliefs, as you note what helps or doesn’t help to ease your discomfort. For example, as you get defensive in an argument (behavior) to feeling threatened (belief), you unlikely empathize with the affected unchosen needs of those with whom you disagree. The more you feel threatened, the more you feel you must act to protect yourself from harm or from pain. Any of your actions at odds with your wellbeing will likely result in pain. All your actions go along with what you believe is good for your wellbeing. Need-response Need-response appreciates how your wellbeing can be no better than your behaviors serving your needs. If everything you require to function remains consistently accessible, you will do fine. Most of us are not that fortunate. We all must act to ease our needs when resources are not readily available. Fair enough when what is needed soon becomes available. Unfortunately, we all too often become accustomed to situations where we cannot fully resolve our needs. We develop behaviors that help us get by. We behave the best we can with what is at hand. We often form bad habits. We cope with the pain of our declining capacity to function. Reactive Problem The less you can access the means to resolve your needs, the more drawn to alternatives that can at least ease the discomfort. If too busy to sit down for a healthy meal, for example, you settle for some processed food. Or you feel accepted by social media “friends” for something you posted when you cannot find someone to talk to in person. When such alternatives seem elusive, you likely opt for something that only eases the pain. You settle for a substitute that cannot resolve your need. For example, when you try to satisfy your hunger with junk food. Or you talk endlessly to yourself when desperate for conversation and feeling no one will listen to you. Such experiences normalize your behavior away from fully resolving your needs. You get used to the idea of coping with the pain. Your addictive routines become so familiar that you cannot imagine your life without them. The less you can fully function because the fewer of your needs resolve, the more you react to the steady flow of pain. Responsive Solution Need-response incentivizes greater responsiveness to each other’s needs. Alienation gets replaced by engagement. Mutual defensiveness by mutual supports. Outrage by understanding. We address the elephant in the room, which is avoidant adversarialism . We shift from the norms of avoiding the discomforts of vulnerably relating to each other to a new norm of engaging each other’s unchosen needs. We shift from the norms of adversarially trying to win over others to a new norm of mutuality that affirms each other’s unchosen needs. Much of the ills plaguing society can be stripped down to this problem of avoidant adversarialism . We now accept as normal how isolated we’ve become from each other. Need-response cuts through this alienation to forge new connections with the power of love. The more we can regrow our social connections, the easier to connect generosity with neediness. The better we can serve each other’s needs, the more our own needs can resolve. The more our needs can fully resolve, the more our behaviors will naturally take care of themselves. That’s how powerful love can truly be. Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: What about rude behaviors, destructive behaviors, sadistic behaviors, even violent behaviors? What role can and does the law play in guiding our need-shaping behaviors? What if I violated someone’s presumed privacy to ask them what they specifically need of me? Sometimes not behaving as expected can be a problem, such as a sin of omission. Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next

Placeholder Image mass avoidance mass avoidance < Back 2 mass avoidance Mass avoidance is the widespread norm of not personally engaging with others or in something that seems uncomfortable or threatening. Need experience Where vulnerability avoidance occurs on a personal level, mass avoidance occurs on a collective level. If few of us can feel safely vulnerable to be totally honest with others, or with ourselves, more of us will assume avoidance is common. Other reasons emerge to avoid the avoidable. Avoiding all that seems or is unpleasant crystallizes into a shared norm. We admit our fears to no one. We keep our guard up all the time. We provoke each other’s defensiveness, blaming each other. Fewer of our needs ever fully resolve. We suffer more and more. We function less and less. Defunctionalizing Refunctionalizing Examples The widespread evasion of our natural tendency to first estimate the trustworthiness of others by their most visible features, lest we get publicly labeled as a bigot. Relational knowing The fewer others are dropping their guard to expose their full authenticity, the less likely you will risk dropping your guard to expose your authentic self to raw rejection. The more others avoid, the more you avoid. The more we all avoid, and socially punish those who expose their authentic full being, the more normatively we all avoid matters we would otherwise face more courageously. Sign up or sign in to view the full entry Complementary refunctions Impact engagement 6/16/23 Previous Next

Self-righteousness is a weak savior. Arrogance is no savior at all. < Back E12 Conflict Principle List of all principles Self-righteousness is a weak savior. Arrogance is no savior at all. Image: Pixabay – Pexels (click on meme to see source image) Summary The more aggressively opposed by others, the easier to get self-righteous, to defend your beliefs or actions as just. The less this wins your arguments, the more inclined to become arrogant, to assert your rights and ignore their needs. The more you try to save yourself, the more you lose. The more you drop your guard and invite them in to see your vulnerable side, the closer you can save the day. Description Which do you think is more likely? There is no excuse to defend yourself with self-serving rationalizations. OR It is better to test how responsive they are to your needs with some defensive remarks you’re ready to drop as soon as they show themselves trustworthy to your vulnerabilities. Anankelogy The less we engage each other, the quicker we insist we’re right about something. Our inflexible needs refuse to fit their rebuttals. So we double down and insist we’re rationally right. Even in some of the most irrational ways. Self-righteousness easily shuts down dialogue. It closes down conversations. It avoids the stuff deep down that really matters. Author John Powell put it well in his book Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? “To understand people, I must try to hear what they are not saying, what they perhaps will never be able to say.” The self-righteous become poor listeners. They burn bridges. They trigger distrust. They miss opportunities for deeper connections. Consider this response by Job (Job 6:24-26): “Teach me and I will be silent. And show me where I have erred. How painful are honest words. But what does your argument prove? Do you intend to dispute my words when the words of one in despair belongs to the wind?” We can either keep the conversation going, or shut it down by overdefensive reactions to even the slightest charge. Resolving needs requires an ongoing interaction of shared understandings. Need-response An accusation could be an awkward attempt to go deeper. Reacting to the first emotionally charged words could miss the point. They belong to the “wind” and not yet on point. They’re likely thrown out to test the waters, to check if it’s safe to disclose more. A self-righteous response warns it is not safe. Self-righteousness traps you into a shallow understanding. You get stuck with your blind spots. Others recognize your ignorance, your unresponsiveness. They’re less likely to share much with you in the future. By denying any merit in the speaker’s assertion, you lose their trust. They likely could go deeper and share something much more vulnerable and relevant. But your refusal to engage leaves them in the cold. No connection here. Reactive Problem Consider this exchange. “You misunderstood what I meant.” “No, I didn’t! I understand you fully.” The reaction is harshly self-righteous and defensive. “You’re wrong, I do understand!” No further exploration necessary. In short, “Shut the hell up!” See how that feel-reactive denial avoids deeper awareness? See how it tries to avoid anything uncomfortable? See how it effectively avoids addressing any affected needs? Such defensiveness rarely leads to resolving the needs behind the conflict. Especially when followed by the arrogance of might-makes-right. Trustworthiness is easily lost when imposing one’s interpretation . Responsive Solution Let’s revisit that exchange, but with a different response. “You misunderstood what I meant.” “Why do you say I misunderstood what you meant?” The response is neither self-righteous nor admitting the charge. “You may have something there. Let’s keep talking so we both share an understanding.” See how that need-responsive query invites deeper awareness? See how it faces the risk of something uncomfortable? See how it can help address any affected needs on both sides? Such mutual respect can resolve more needs than self-righteous defensiveness . Especially when both sides find it safe to explore all the affected needs. No one requires anyone’s permission to breathe . Responding to your needs How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these: Sometimes my first objection gets misinterpreted as self-righteousness. How can I challenge a hurtful accusation without being self-righteous? I prefer to ask what they’ve done than jump to an accusation. I think it works much better. Self-righteous denial could be a step in the grieving process, later admitted when ready. Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below. Engage this principle in our forum Engagement guide Any visitor to the Engagement forum can view all posts. So do keep that in mind when posting. Sign up or sign in to comment on these posts and to create your own posts. Using this platform assumes you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Remember to keep the following in mind: Quote the principle you are responding to, and its identifier letter & number. Let’s be specific. Demonstrate need-responsiveness in your interactions here. Let’s respect each other. Engage supportive feedback from others on this platform. Let’s grow together. Together, let’s improve our need-responsiveness . Together, let’s spread some love . See other principles in this category - Foundational - Basic - General - Pain - Conflict - Authority - Law - Love - Previous Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Next