Navigating 6 Yearnings
Understanding our fundamental yearnings may offer a pathway to greater emotional well-being and fulfillment. Raising awareness about ourselves, such as a search for external validation or avoiding discomfort, can help us to focus on cultivating inner peace, authenticity, and purpose. By embracing our true selves, staying present, and honoring the full range of our emotions, we can experience deeper connections, and richer life experiences.
Drivers of Behavior: Aspects of our lives may be shaped by deep needs and desires that we often aren't aware of. These desires may impact our choices, emotions, and overall happiness.
Negative Effects of Misguided Fulfillment: We may try to meet these needs in unhelpful ways.
The Power of Awareness and Redirection: By understanding these needs and how we currently address them, we can focus our efforts on healthier, more fulfilling options.
Focus on Internal Fulfillment: Building inner satisfaction can enhance capacity and well-being.
Six Fundamental Yearnings and Key Ideas:
1. Yearning for Belonging | Letting Go of the False Self:
Core Idea: Humans have a deep need to feel seen, accepted, and connected with others.
Misguided Attempt: To achieve this, we often create a "persona" or "social mask" to gain approval and avoid rejection, suppressing our true selves to fit others' expectations. This may lead to stress, anxiety, and self-deception.
Negative Consequences: A fixed self-image may keep us apart instead of bringing us together, as the distance between our true selves and our false personas increases.
Constructive Alternative: True belonging comes from embracing our whole selves, including vulnerabilities, allowing for genuine connection with ourselves and others, without a mask.
2. Yearning for Orientation | Paying Attention to What’s Present:
Core Idea: Humans seek to understand their place and find certainty in the world.
Misguided Attempt: When faced with uncertainty, the mind tends to dwell on the past or worry about the future. Although this may be protective, based onpast experiences, it may lead to loops of anxiety and regret.
Negative Consequences: This constant mental scanning prevents us from being grounded in the present moment. We may feel lost or uncertain. This may lead to excessive feelings of worry and anxiety.
Constructive Alternative: Mindfulness, defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn as "paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally," offers a way to engage with the current reality rather than being fixated on the past or future.
3. Yearning to Feel | Opening Up to Emotions Without Resistance:
Core Idea: Humans are inherently drawn to experiencing emotions.
Misguided Attempt: We often try to avoid "negative" or intense emotions. We may attempt to filter out discomfort and attempt to experience only positive feelings.
Negative Consequences: Resistance requires energy and avoidance may numb us to our full human experience. This prolonged energy drain may hold us back and may prevent us from learning from our emotions, as pathways to wisdom.
Constructive Alternative: Acknowledging and embracing emotions without resistance and learning from them allows for a richer and more meaningful life. When we stop fighting our emotions and start living alongside them, we can more fully experience our lives.
4. Yearning for Coherence | Embracing Complexity in a Messy World:
Core Idea: Humans seek patterns, clarity, and logical narratives.
Misguided Attempt: We often try to force order and clarity onto a messy and contradictory reality, clinging to rigid narratives and viewing life’s contradictions as problems.
Negative Consequences: This pursuit of forced order distorts reality and creates unnecessary mental noise.
Constructive Alternative: Coherence comes from embracing complexity, observing without judgment, and recognizing thoughts as experiences rather than absolute truths. This may lead to a freer and more peaceful mind.
5. Yearning for Meaning | Breaking Free from External Validation:
Core Idea: Humans have a deep need to feel that their lives have purpose and significance.
Misguided Attempt: We often seek meaning through external validation, measuring success by constructed benchmarks like wealth and social status.
Negative Consequences: These external pursuits provide only short-term gratification and leave a "nagging void" because meaning is cultivated and felt from within.
Constructive Alternative: True fulfillment arises from aligning our actions with our deepest values and finding our own unique path, rather than adhering to societal "shoulds."
6. Yearning for Competence | Learning to Love the Process:
Core Idea: Humans are driven to learn, explore, and master new skills.
Misguided Attempt: We often focus solely on achievement and proving our competence, wanting quick or even immediate results and becoming bothered and discouraged by the slow, incremental process of learning.
Negative Consequences: This impatience leads to frustration and giving up on new skills, mistaking a lack of immediate mastery for a lack of talent.
Constructive Alternative: True competence comes from embracing the process of learning, being willing to struggle, and finding satisfaction in the effort itself. The secret to competence is not about innate ability alone, but includes the process, being willing to struggle, and finding satisfaction in the process.
This may be a reminder to embrace progress over perfection and aligning our actions with what truly matters to us. When we recognize and nurture our authentic selves, we can empower our minds and pave the way for a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
For more, you are warmly invited to the audio provided below.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), developed by Dr. Steven Hayes, offers a transformative approach to mental health by encouraging individuals to accept their thoughts and feelings while committing to personal values and meaningful actions. This evidence-based approach empowers people to embrace their experiences and cultivate a deeper sense of well-being.
References:
Hayes, S. C. (2019). A liberated mind: How to pivot toward what matters. New York: Penguin/Avery. (the six yearnings framework)
Huang, F., & Fishbach, A. (2021). Feeling lonely increases interest in previously owned products. Journal of Marketing Research, 58(5), 002224372110306.
