I’ve worked with countless powerful women — from executive to artist to athlete — and I can say for certain, we as a group are atrocious at getting our fundamental needs met. Daily needs? No problem. Deep fundamental needs? Not so much. Women—particularly successful, “with-it” women—have an uncanny ability to ignore,
 disable, and deny the needs they are most hungry for.

“But, I know how to delegate!”, you say. Or, “I just do it myself. Gets done better and faster anyway.” Yes, yes. I know. I do! I get it.

Hang in here with me. I think you’re gonna like this. Well, maybe “like” isn’t exactly the right word.

Do you really want what you think you want?
Here’s the thing: at best, we are somewhat blind to what our real needs are. At worst, we are defensive or delusional about our needs. Yep. You heard me. Defensive or delusional. Sometimes both. What we think we need, we may not actually need. And what we really need, we may be blind to.

Exhibit A
We think we need the laundry done.
We think we need our partner to be more involved in the kids life or chores.
We think we need our colleague to pull more of her own weight.
We think we need that person or thing outside of us to just change.
And if we are really enlightened, we even admit that we need to be in control.

And that’s all good. Really. Those things all have a place.

However, ever notice how once those things are done and those needs are met, it’s only an embarrassingly short period of time before the next thing needs doing? And before you have some, let’s say (clears throat), “energy” around it?

Why, pray tell? Because those needs you are asking to get met are not really going to feed you (but your reptilian brain or lower self thinks they will). In fact, you might even be blind to what you are truly hungry for. Kinda like when your body wants good fruits and veggies but you can’t tell because you’ve had so many eggnog lattes that day you wouldn’t know what your body needed if it told you in a neon sign across your forehead? Yeah. Like that.

Here’s the bad news: the more you try to get those daily needs met (the ones you think or hope will make you happy) without knowing what your deeper need really is, the more sunk and lost you feel. I know. Crap.

How did this all start anyway?
As human beings we come out of the womb with incredibly vulnerable needs; unlike most mammals, we rely 100% on our caregivers for our survival. As we grow, many of our needs are met and, as we all know, many are not. Nothing wrong there… it would be impossible for your every need to have been met. Still, being human, there’s an impact.

From a young age, we develop various strategies to get the unmet needs met. Depending on what needs you had met (or didn’t) begins to tell you something about the strategies you developed. Aha moment alert: You are still using those strategies today. Everywhere. With everyone. Knowingly and unknowingly.

And the real kicker is that most of the time your success strategies (Werner Erhard calls this your “Winning Formula”) really works! Great heights. Awards, accolades and pride. Albeit exhausted. Bummer is, where there are deeper needs not being met, it only works temporarily. Which has you go back for more. Try again. It’s like an addiction. And like an addiction, it’s painful.

Exhibit B
I’ll keep asking (nagging).
I’ll stay on top of my employees, kids, spouse.
I’ll make a list. I’ll control it. I’ll manage.
I’ll surrender and let others do it.
I’ll work hard.
I’ll charm them.
I’ll be competitive. I’ll be better.

Whatever your strategy and no matter how smart you were to create it (and I’ll bet it’s a good one) it will never (read: NEVER) satiate your deep hunger to be secure, loved, safe, not left, held, nurtured, lifted up, supported, taken care of.

Unfortunately, our reptilian brain doesn’t know all this and since we are blind to this pattern, It runs the whole damn show. You keep working your strategy. Daily need temporarily met. Deeper need left empty.

Are you pickin’ up what I’m layin’ down?

It’s kinda sticky to explain—and to boot, your ego doesn’t want you to get this so I’ll say it another way: all that strong, alpha energy is a fantastic cover-up for your truest, deepest, most authentic needs getting met. In fact, I will go so far as to say, being a strong, take-charge kind of woman is likely a strategy for covering up how vulnerable, insecure or exposed you may actually feel.

The Brass (Power) Ring
Simply said: Your neediness is your access to your power. It’s your access to your truest, deepest, most authentic self. Cool, right?

So now what? So now nothing. Seriously. There is nothing to do. (Doing, or fixing is just more strategy, by the way). There is just to BE with this new awareness.
Let it work on you.
Be present to your strategies for success.
Notice when you have a need met but you are still left dissatisfied. What’s under that?
Notice when your wanting to have it all together is actually a cover for your feeling vulnerable.

Just notice. Nothing to even do about any of it just yet. Just notice. Notice. Notice. Notice.

And scene.

Piqued? Want to explore your strategies? Unveil your deeper needs?

Join me and about 8-10 other women at the Restoring Power Organic Retreat, February 18th, 2011. Hear what other women have to say about their initial doubts and end results. Get rested and replenished and lots of 1:1 coaching with me.

Also, stay tuned for a new Premium Coaching Package to hit the scene in the coming weeks. Oooh, I’m excited!

You CAN shift this thing- I am living proof. (Inside voice: “Okay, now I sound like that damn hair loss commercial guy). Oy. Whatever. It works. Come play.

I was listening to Dr. Laura the other day (yes, I am the only Democrat lesbian on the face of the planet who appreciates a lot of what she has to say).

Anyway, a nice man was calling in asking a question. She gave him a powerful, simple answer he didn’t like. His response was, “Yeah, it’s just that it’s so hard…“ And it got me thinking. We have things we say all the time that are cop-outs. “It’s hard” is one of them. It’s like it’s the Universal Agreement for letting each other off the hook.

I’m a big fan of compassion (read: BIG FAN), but I think we’ve let compassion get confused with being nice; somewhere along the way compassion has gone off-balance, or misunderstood at the least. In our efforts to be nice we buy into the Universal Agreement that “it’s-hard” is in fact a good, solid reason for not taking the action we think/know/feel is right to be taking. Doing something that seems hard (to us) builds character. Each time we buy into “it’s-hard,” we rob ourselves of the opportunity to build just a bit more character (enter my love of Dr. Laura).

By the way, I say “seems hard (to us)” because much of the time what you think is hard is seemingly only hard for you because of whatever issue or noise you may have about it. Take business development for example: for some it’s torture. Yet for others, like the fabulous Mark Silver, it’s not only easy, it’s fun. Some tasks feel more difficult for the majority of human beings: asking our in-laws to stay out of our child-rearing or asking an over-stressed mom hitting her kids in public if she needs a break would be two good examples. Even though those two situations may be very hard (difficult to navigate linguistically or emotionally) they may need to happen for the greater good of all involved. No matter the case or what our particular flavor of “hard” is, we let ourselves get away with something every time we use it as an excuse.

When we ignore what our gut is telling us is “the right thing to do” (i.e. silently walking by that woman who may need a 5-minute breather with her child or setting boundaries with our in-laws), not only do we do others a disservice, we get ourselves out of alignment by not honoring our inner knowing. And when we get out of alignment everything hurts. Said another way, our integrity gets “out,” like when we have a rib or back “out” and go see the chiropractor. We get off-balance, off center. The irony is, life really DOES feel hard then. And harder, and harder and harder–like running uphill on loose gravel thinking we really will get to the top.

However, when we go for it and take on what seems hard a couple things happen. One, other people get to benefit–-even if it feels uncomfortable at the time. Two, our integrity gets restored. When our integrity is restored, our lives just work–like running on our favorite path with our favorite people when we are in the best shape of our lives.

I invite you to look and listen to how ubiquitous the saying “it’s hard” is in our society. You’ll hear it on others and I promise… you’ll hear it on you. When you do, you are in luck… it’s your shiny call to action and your Big Opportunity to restore a little power… and, maybe make someone’s day.


Stay tuned for a future blogs on Love as a Choice AND sex, leadership and what they have in common.