Are you Ignoring your Needs?

“We focus on the whole child” is the language that is showing up more frequently in marketing materials sharing a school’s approach to learning.

The concept of the whole child embraces the understanding that the way a student learns is impacted by many factors. And in understanding this, the school offers a curriculum that embraces the needs across not just academics but social and emotional support, the need for fresh air, the desire to jump around regularly, to touch and feel things not just view them on the screen etc.

I personally like the “whole child” approach...it signals to my child that every individual part of them matters, makes them unique and acknowledges that these individual needs play a role in their overall wellbeing.

It then made me wonder...how often are we as women establishing our own lives taking into consideration the needs of the “whole woman”.

Many of us live very compartmentalized lives. Ignoring the needs of one area of our lives while trying to overcompensate in others. We try to suppress or ignore challenges in one area of our lives, hoping that they won’t show up in another area as if we are 7 different people at once. And while we may often fool ourselves into thinking it’s working...over time we are negatively impacting our wellbeing. 

Here’s an example...your mom becomes ill. You are deeply saddened by this, you hate to see her suffer and in addition to the mental strain, you are physically exhausted from having to take her to weekly doctor appointments twice a week. This entire experience has taken a toll on you, but “personal life is personal life” so you try to show up for work giving your all, you continue taking on additional roles at your child’s school even though you’re exhausted and oh yeah your friend just got engaged so you agree to plan both a bachelorette and wedding shower with minimal assistance.

And the craziest part is that you still expect yourself to deliver a level of excellence in all of these areas. 

And maybe you do...for a while.

Until, one day you forget to pick your kid up from practice.

Or you completely missed a meeting that popped up on your work calendar.

And you thought you hit send on the email telling your friends about the booking deadline...but you actually got distracted and never did. 

*insert rewind sound*

What’s happening here? 

You are beginning to fall apart because you have failed to recognize that you are in fact just ONE WOMAN. And the employee, business owner, mom and friend in you has tried to suppress the needs of the daughter in you.

You are not acknowledging the impacts that one area of your life has had on your WHOLE life. 

This is what we do as women. We stack our plates as tall as Shaq and oftentimes never slow down and address our own needs until something happens.

So what can we do to recognize the needs of the “whole woman”?

• Acknowledge that you deserve to honor your whole self. Just like a child performs best when all of his needs are considered, the same is true for us.

• Determine your individual needs. What is required to feel whole varies from person to person. I NEED quality sleep in order to be the best version of myself.

• Create boundaries. Once you establish what is necessary for you to feel your best, draw the line when something crosses that threshold. In the example above, because you need more time to help your mom, perhaps you need the late night work emails and assignments to stop. Establish the boundary. 

• Seek or ask for help. Perhaps volunteering with your child’s school or coming up with a creative bachelorette theme is actually what you need as an outlet. This would be an opportunity for you to ask someone to rotate doctor’s visits with you or hire a company that does patient pick up.

• Simplify. Instead of spreading yourself thin, choose what area of your life is the biggest priority in your current season and focus the majority of your attention there.

Determining our needs or what areas of our lives need more attention for us to truly flourish can feel challenging when we are living on autopilot or have suppressed our needs for so long. Use this State of My Life assessment to help bring more awareness to what those areas are for you. Also I’ve included a list of “needs” below to get your wheels turning on what is most important to you in this season.

You are one woman, impacted by many things. Embrace the fullness of every life experience by honoring your whole self. 

Overview of the most common needs.