On Love and Emotional Needs

We deserve to be recognized as we are, and dignified in the ways we display the purity of our love for each other.

Dear Soul,

Loving yourself passionately, with fervent compassion and thoughtfulness, is medicine for your wounds. When they heal, your previous emotional needs lose power, and the most beautiful love flourishes—free, at last, from unhealthy expectations and demands.

But let’s examine the concept of emotional needs to ensure that we are framing it correctly within the context of this message:

An emotional need is a requirement we bring into our relationships, built upon insecurity and a feeling of self-insufficiency.

I am aware that certain academic disciplines advocate for setting emotional needs as a healthy practice that demonstrates self-knowledge and the capacity to communicate clearly in a relationship.

I agree that it is natural to desire and even anticipate positive conditions in any kind of dynamic, such as harmony, empathy, and understanding; however, I wouldn’t refer to these as “emotional needs” but as consequences of one’s identity and corresponding choices.