The Human
Givens.
We are all born with essential physical and emotional
needs and, if we are born healthy, the innate resources (tools, or
'guidance systems') to help us fulfil them. It is
because these needs and resources are incorporated into our very
biology that they have become known as the human 'givens'.
When our innate emotional needs are not being met, or when our
resources are misuses, or not used at all, we sufffer considerable
distress, and so can those around
us.
Our fundamental emotional needs
are:
Security - safe territory and an environment which
allows us to develop fully
Attention (to give and receive it) - a form of
nutrition
Sense of autonomy and control - having volition to make
responsible choices
Being emotionally connected to others
Feeling part of a wider community
Friendship, intimacy - to know that at least one other
person accepts us totally for who we are, "warts and
all"
Privacy - opportunity to reflect and consolidate
experience
Sense of status within social groupings
Sense of competence and achievement (from which comes
self-esteem)
Meaning and purpose - which come from being stretched in
what we do and think
The resouces nature gave us to help us meet our needs
include:
The ability to develop complex, long-term memory, which
enables us to add to our innate knowledge and learn
The ability to build rapport, empathise and connect with
others
Emotions and instinct
Imagination, which enables us to focus our attention
away from our emotions, use language and solve more creatively and
objectively
A conscious, rational mind that can check out emotions,
question, analyse and plan
The ability to 'know' - that is, understand the world
unconsciously thorugh metaphorical pattern matching
An observing self - that part of us that can step back,
be more objective and be aware of itself as a unique entres of
awareness, apart form intellect, emotion and
conditioning
A dreaming brain that preserves the integrity of our
genetic inheritance every night by metaphorically defusing
expectations held in the autonomic arousal system because they are
not acted out the previous day.
FROM: The Human Givens by Joe Griffin & Ivan Tyrrell.
www.HumanGivens.com
