Panache

According to psychologist, Dr Willard Harley, Emotional Needs are cravings that, when satisfied, leave you with feelings of happiness and contentment, and, when unsatisfied, leave you with unhappiness and frustration.

You know humans need a particular set of emotions to go through their daily lives and tasks. If these emotions are not fulfilled for any reason, it can heavily impact your life.

If you think your emotional needs are not fulfilled either, read below some of the activities can do to feel emotionally fulfilled.

Validate your Emotions.

One of the worst things you can do to your emotions is neglect them until they turn into outrage. You might not understand why you are feeling in a certain way but you do. You can feel numb, depressed, and low all the time even though everything around you and in your life is as good as it can be.

There are high chances that your certain emotional needs are not being met. But you ignore that to be productive and soon you feel like an empty shell who is a resource and not a human.

Therefore, it is necessary to validate any emotions that surface. Take a break, keep your hand on your heart, and feel the feelings. Tell yourself that you are human and it is okay to feel the way you are feeling right now. You matter and so do your feelings.

Even though, those feelings are conventionally negative feelings like jealousy, anxiety, emptiness, and anger. Don’t ignore them, but validate them.

Identify your emotional needs.

Once you validate your feelings, you need to understand why you feel the way you are feeling. Do you lack something in your lifestyle? Were there any emotional needs that were unmet in the past? Or you feel this way because of a trauma that has not been resolved yet.

Answering the above questions is important to identify your emotional needs. Sometimes, they are not your emotional needs that need to be fulfilled. But it is the entanglement of emotions that just needs to be sorted out for better emotional well-being.

Understanding your emotions, the rise and fall of them, and the reason behind it comes under self-awareness. And should be self-aware of your emotions, what triggers them, and why they get triggered in such a way.

Also read: 10 ways to fulfill your emotional needs.

Understand why they are unmet.

When negative emotions like anger surge, you feel and validate it. But that is not enough. You need to dive deep and understand why you feel angry about certain things.

For example, if you feel that your partner does not appreciate you or does not acknowledge your efforts. First, you need to know why you felt this way. What were your expectations from this relationship and your partner? What are the ways you thought that your partner would show their appreciation to you and will recognize you?

You need to look into your past to understand your emotional needs and why they are unmet. If you need validation from external factors, why are you dependent on them for the same? Can this need be sufficed through your own efforts? Or certain emotional needs were not met since your childhood.

You need to understand and answer these questions accordingly.

Also read: How to become stronger than your emotions?

Journal about your feelings.

The best way to acknowledge and understand your feelings is to journal them. You can journal about different things to manage them. Similarly, you should have a separate journal for your feelings too.

When your thoughts and feelings are all tangled, it is hard to know them and write about them on paper. Initially, you may feel puzzled as to what to write about how you feel. And that is where you validating your feelings can help you.

Write how you felt today. For example, “I felt lonely today.”, “I felt not understood today.”, “I am feeling low today.” These prompts can help you make a flow of your thoughts that would eventually channel your emotions.

Also read: How to approach journaling as a newbie?

Prioritize your emotions.

The best thing to fulfill your emotional needs is to prioritize your emotional feelings. Once you start feeling your emotions, you need to avoid the places, companions, or surroundings where your emotions do not feel uplifted.

It can be hard because many people live or work in a toxic environment. In such places, you should create a strict emotional boundary and separate your work life from your personal life.

Similarly, once you realize you have a toxic friend circle, make sure you don’t hang out with them. Do not spend time with people who make you feel bad, low, or under-achieved.

If someone shares their emotions with you, please make sure that knowing that does not negatively affect your emotions. If it does, ask them not to be sure of those feelings with you. Do not watch content that negatively affects you. Hence, prioritizing your emotions before anyone else.

Block self-care time in your calendar.

Our schedules are running our lives all the time. We wake up, do our work, and perform our tasks accordingly. However, we rarely block any time for self-care in our calendar. But if you want to feel emotionally fulfilled, you need to block some time. It is necessary for personal growth.

Your self-care time can look the way you want it to be. You can invest your time in meditation, journaling, skincare routine, reading, or outdoor activities. If you face any difficulty in finding what to do during your self-care time, you can experiment with multiple things.

Walking, naked feet, on the grass can make you feel alive again. While hiking and mountain climbing can fill you with adrenaline have not felt in a long while at your workplace. Light some scented candles, put on some classical music, and color in a coloring book can be counted as self-care hour too.

Also read: 7 types of rests that lead to complete wellness.

Be mindful of your emotions.

What is it that you are feeling right now? Are you anxious? Are you in a hurry? Are you feeling excited? Are you feeling bored? Or are you tired after a long day at work? Maybe, you are thinking about all the work that is pending in your office right now.

These are some questions that you can answer while you read this. However, as soon as you switch to the next thing you will forget about your emotions and how you are feeling. And that is not the healthiest way to feel emotionally fulfilled.

Every time, you feel detached and lost in the world, turn your focus inward and check your emotions. How are you feeling right at the moment? You should learn to be mindful of your emotions. And be attentive towards them. You will be able to manage them effortlessly.

Open up emotionally.

We are living in a world where everything feels dystopian. All the people that you see on the internet seem to be hungry for more likes. Every other person seems selfish and self-centered. Everyone is running towards a goal but not reaching anywhere.

In this environment, it feels easy to lose track of self and our emotions. But you do not need to lose hope. There are people like you who feel the same and are ready to open up emotionally. They are equally empathetic as you are. They are kind and ready to listen to you.

All you need to do is to extend an emotional hand towards these people and you will know that you are not alone in the world who feels the way you are feeling at the moment. Therefore, kindness is considered the best virtue in this world. Maybe, we need it more than anything.

Also read: 8 effective ways to open up in your journal.

Connect socially or through volunteer work.

If you develop the belief system in the previous point, you will approach people with much positivity and hope. Try to understand, that we humans are made of a similar complex set of emotions, and what you lack can be fulfilled by someone else and vice versa.

Therefore, social connection is necessary when trying to feel emotionally fulfilled. You can take the initiative and make a group virtually or locally to connect with like-minded people. Similarly, you can do volunteer work and see how much difference you can make in someone’s life.

The feelings of emptiness and numbness that come when you are not emotionally fulfilled can vanish when your heart gets filled, seeing a cheerful smile on someone’s face. It can create a dramatic difference in your life.

Also read: 8 glaring signs of social anxiety.

Also read: How to cope with social anxiety?

Seek help through therapy.

All of the points mentioned above can be tough. Therefore, you may need a friend, a companion, or someone who can offer you a listening ear. If you have no one else in your life, you can always have a therapist who can help you detangle your emotions and understand them better.

You may think it’s expensive. You may wonder what can happen sitting in an empty room in a chair with a person who is a stranger. But sometimes, you need an outside perspective to understand you from the inside.

This person can help you open up, know where the problem lies, detangle all the emotional threads, and let you know what you are truly made of. So, that you can know what you need to feel emotionally fulfilled as a complex emotional being.

Also read: 9 reasons to de-stigmatize therapy.

Also read: How to support a friend struggling with Mental health?

Conclusion.

In our busy lives, we barely get the time to think about our emotional health. We only pay attention to our feelings when we are doing everything to feel accomplished but life seems empty and unfulfilled.

That is why we need to understand ourselves and our emotions in a better way. It is necessary to feel emotionally fulfilled so that we can live fulfilling lives.

Also read: 10 best ways to romanticize your life.