We humans, we are needy as fuck.

It’s how we’re made.

But somewhere along the way, we buy into the idea that we shouldn’t need so much. Shouldn’t want so hard.

Put on the armor.
Place another brick on the wall.
Practice your poker face.
Never let ’em see you sweat.

You’ve probably seen that post that got shared everywhere. The one about how ultra independence is a trauma response. And yo, last I checked, not many of us get through this ride called life without at least a dash of trauma.

It makes so much sense. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, amiright?

We live in a culture of individualism.
Batten down the hatches.
Every human for themselves.
Don’t worry, I got this.

Right. Except we don’t got this. Not alone. Not really. It just isn’t how we’re made.

And when we start wanting and needing as we inevitably will (as perfectly designed as we are for the collective and communal experience of living) the voices in our heads can get awfully loud.

You know the voices.

The voice that says we are asking/wanting/needing/seeking too much.
The voice that says we ARE too much.

And at that pivotal point of extension into whatever lies on the other side of safety. At the outreach. At the possibility. At the space where we are asked to leave the safe harbor and venture into unknowing waters where we absolutely cannot go it all alone, even if we wanted to (and let’s be honest, we really don’t ) those voices can get terribly loud.

They say that this much needing is not safe. Way too vulnerable.

Our alarm systems start blaring and the self-destruct warning flashes a yellow-orange-red threat of incoming DANGER.

This happens to me as much as it happens to anyone. I feel so deep and want so much, so often, that it takes my breath away. Inside of the strong and confident and sovereign woman is a tender girl who burns with needs and hopes and the wildest of wishes.

And much of what I want and need I may never get to have. I know this.

This is what it is to be human, of course. Not a single guarantee and a hell of a lot of wild unknowns and some crashing heartbreaks along the way. None of us get out of this clean.

But the story of being here, alive and human, is more than just that. So much more. To allow the truth of wanting is to allow the possibility of having.

This human thing? It’s also full of stories of the sort of magic that can happen when we trust our knowing, wanting, craving selves.

When we remove the stigma of being ‘needy’ and instead acknowledge that for any of these dreams to come true we HAVE to know and name our own needs.

We have to be so intimate with our wants that we trust them to live outside the safe confines of our tender hearts. Even when we might be judged or fear we won’t be met. Even when the crash and burn seems inevitable.

And you know what – we do that. Again and again and again.

Holy hell, how can that not be an act of bravery, of sovereignty, of solidarity of self?

So amen to your perfectly needy heart.
Amen to your grasping hands and your tender longing and the way your body spills over with desire.
Amen to the wishing well pennies and the shooting stars and the crossed fingers and the wood you can’t seem to stop knocking in spite of yourself.
Amen to the want and the crave and the burn.
And hallelujah to the having, when it comes, to the wholeness when it arrives, to the spaces where it all comes together, if only for a moment.

To be human is to have needs.
To speak them is a wild reclamation.
To be met inside of them is a holy miracle.

Every. single. time.