Tuning into your needs to clearly ask, affirm and state them
Are you a master of clarity or a master of compliance?
Have you been raised in an environment where expressing your needs or opinions was seen as disrespectful, selfish, or outright unacceptable? It’s more common than you think, in fact these are the very things that can prevent you from making the right choices, asking for help, being your own advocate and seeing results that you deserve.
How to tune in
Sometimes the first part is the hardest. If you’ve lived your life ‘getting by’ or putting others first, you may find it more challenging than most. If it’s not something you’ve practiced or are comfortable with, then not doing it, may have led to other problems and can show up as:
Emotional Volatility: Small triggers cause disproportionate anger, frustration, or sadness because your emotional reserves are already completely depleted.
Withdrawal and Isolation: You may pull away from friends and family, either because you lack the energy to engage or because you feel a deep sense of disconnection.
Physical Symptoms: Chronic stress often shows up as unexplained fatigue, tension headaches, digestive issues, or a weakened immune system.
Resentment and Cynicism: You may develop a negative outlook, frequently feeling unappreciated or harboring quiet bitterness toward the people around you.
Compensatory Behaviors: To self-soothe, you might lean into unhealthy coping mechanisms like doom-scrolling, emotional eating, or over-relying on substances.
Procrastination and Apathy: A lack of fulfillment can lead to burnout, making even simple tasks feel completely overwhelming or pointless.
Start by pulling your whole focus and attention inwards
Take a few breaths, set the intention to be fully present and listen. Ask yourself quietly, what do I need? Give yourself permission to speak up. However it comes out, allow it and embrace it. If you feel angry, be angry, sad, be sad. It’s about the listening and the releasing initially. Try to write or capture what came up for you. Some people find it easier to tune in through writing so this can help. Remind yourself that no need is unimportant. It’s so crucial to validate yourself as you do this work. At the very least you must be present for yourself.
Communicate clearly
When expressing your needs to others, don’t approach it through an apologetic lens or try to drop hints as to what you need. Try this instead:
The Observation: State the situation objectively without blame. If you can speak from your own perspective, and try not to point the finger or make it about the other person, you’ll have a better result. So you’re basically focusing on how the situation affects you. So an example might be “I feel dismissed like I'm not heard during our conversations sometimes” rather than “You always interrupt me and talk over me” shifts the issue from a questionable assertion to an indisputable observation.
The Feeling: Express how it impacts you using "I" statements. So I feel…I need…This helps to reduce defensiveness by removing the accusation from the conversation and placing the focus on what you’re saying. It can also encourage teamwork by inviting the other person into a collaborative conversation rather than an attack-and-defend cycle.
The Need: State exactly what you require moving forward. It helps you focus on what you can control—your own experience and boundaries. When you express your needs clearly and confidently, you are able to be direct, respectful, and unapologetic about what you require. It transforms communication from a guessing game into a productive collaboration.
The energetics working behind the scenes
So if we look at it firstly through the lens of chakras, here’s a few things to consider:
When the throat chakra is underactive or blocked, translating your internal feelings and authentic needs into clear words can be incredibly difficult. This could lead to saying yes when you mean no, not saying anything at all to avoid potential conflict, all whilst experiencing a tightness or constriction in the throat area.
Potential blocks to consider:
do you feel you are burdening others?
do you feel you are being judged?
do you fear you will be rejected?
do you fear you will be laughed at or mocked?
do you fear you will be dismissed outright?
do you fear critisism?
do you fear confrontation?
These fears can get recycled through the mind and we begin to overthink it, which just pours more energy into the fear itself. This is where the 3rd eye comes into play. The 3rd eye is known for it’s connection to intuition but if it’s not blocked it can also bring clarity. So if we work to clear and connect both your throat chakra and 3rd eye, you become able to communicate with clarity. Now we have to consider the crown chakra, an overactive crown chakra can lean you towards an over-reliance on logic and excessive dwelling on worries that come from logic - trying to pre-empt everything. So if you clear and connect the throat, 3rd eye and crown chakra you become able to communicate with clarity and awareness of both logic and intuition as valuable resources in equal measure. Lastly the heart chakra! This provides the emotion and can purify the intent shifting you out of fear and into love. So when we align, clear and rebalance all 4 of these chakras, you are able to speak from a place of love, communicate clearly through intuition and logic, have clarity and apply wisdom. Wisdom is simply the awareness of how to use knowledge.
Trauma trapped in the throat
Sometimes the block may be more complicated. Trauma can show up when you’ve been repeatedly gossiped about behind your back. Been involved with many arguments with loved ones that has left you unheard, unfairly judged and/or dismissed. If you’ve had childhood experiences where you ended up pulling back, shutting down, not speaking up.
Understanding your psychological and energetic blocks is the first step towards clearer communication
In the work that I do and teach others, I lean a little bit more deeply into interactions and exchanges than most. I look beyond the words, even the tone and gestures to see what is really going on. It’s useful to note for this blog, something that I see time and time again that keeps cropping up in conversations with others. And that’s something I call a feedback loop.
What is a feedback loop?
A feedback loop is an energetic exchange that has built up overtime in relationships with others and creates a patterning energetically. This means that unconscious expectations have been woven into the communication, usually unconsciously, to push it towards an outcome that has been delivered before.
Why is this important?
Well, if you’ve historically been an over-giver, the person you’re in communication with, will continue to expect that outcome. You over-give, over-compensate, smooth things over, sort it out. Their whole communication style will be focused on producing that outcome as it works better for them. For you, of course, it’s not so great. This is where you have to consciously start to work with your energy through awareness to direct it towards another outcome. This is what I help my clients with and what I teach. Hopefully sharing this insight is beneficial to you.
If this topic is something you feel you need more help with, please fill out the contact form and we can arrange a free consult call to see how I can help you.