Have you ever been told that you’re overly needy? I ask this question because one of my friends has been going through this very thing recently with their partner who never seems to be content with what love my friend offers them.
Unfortunately, I have to admit I relate more to my friend’s significant other, given how many times I’ve been told in past relationships how needy I can be. And for the longest time, I blamed each of those who told me this and always thought I was just picking the wrong people to grow close to. But the reality I eventually learned was one that was quite difficult to face.
I was needy because I never received much unconditional love growing up, especially from my mother. The fact is, I tried so hard as a kid to receive her love and never really felt like I got it. So, I constantly searched for that in subsequent relationships with every person I tried to grow close to, hoping to somehow fix the problem that originated in my relationship with her. But in all reality, the only thing that ever happened was me super-imposing the energy of my mother on each of them. And sadly, none of them were ever able to satisfy that void she left behind within me.
I drove a lot of people away from my life because of this behavior, but thankfully, after hearing enough of them tell me how needy I was, I found the desire to work on healing this part of me. To do so, I had to come to a place where I learned to love spending more time with myself, where it was ok to be alone. And that’s a hard thing to do when one spends most of their life pining for someone else’s love all in the hopes that it will fix the love they never received as a kid.
While I’m still working on this in my current relationship, I’ve definitely gotten much better. I do enjoy spending a lot more time alone nowadays, often in the solace of writing in my blog, doing puzzles, reading books, going to the movies, or simply just sitting in nature. In each of those situations, I’ve learned to love and nurture the parts of me that my mother never could.
Because the bottom line is that no person, place, or thing in this world will ever be able to give me enough love to replace that which was mostly absent from my past. It is only through learning to love myself and filing my emptiness with God have I ever felt that void disappear.
So, if by some chance, you are someone like me who been told more than once over the years that you’re needy, try working on figuring out who it was that was first in your life to never give you the unconditional love you truly deserved. Next, work on forgiving them once you’ve figure that out and finally, and most importantly, start spending more time alone. As in doing so, you’ll realize that loveless void can and will be filled by you and your Higher Power like no one else ever could.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
