The basic needs of feeling wanted and being valued...

 I was on a date with Heidi last night and over dinner I asked her a question.

"Do you feel valued?"

That idea had been on my mind for several days and I wanted to talk to her about it.  It's easy to begin to coast through life and not really feel seen, known, cared for, affirmed, considered, or wanted.

That's another one: "Do you feel wanted?"

My friend just had one of his pastor friends message him two days ago telling him that he was having an affair.  It started out emotional and moved to the physical.  The thing that jumped out at me was his anger at himself for not feeling like he was able to control the urge he had to be "wanted" by someone.  To be desired and thought of and pursued.  It's like a drug.  When you don't feel like that longing to be wanted is satiated by much of anything, you become vulnerable to attack.  That is one unmet need that rarely goes unmet for very long without deviant behavior filling in the gaps.

These basic needs of feeling valued and wanted aren't to be trifled with or overlooked.  The consequences of being dismissive of warning signals are perilous.  A first there is a sadness and then it leads to insecurity. It isn't long before it creates a hunger to connect to something or someone that will provide that feeling.  When you brush up against anything offering encouragement or affirmation, it means so much that you are willing to dance with the devil in order to feed that thirst for meaning.

And meaning is, I believe, at the heart of the longing.

You don't want to just exist or succeed, you want to belong and sense your life is one of consequence and substance, intimacy.  When you perceive that who you are and what you do doesn't matter to anyone, a search for significance begins.  You go out looking for connection, particularly connection that satiates the desire to feeling valued and wanted and respected.  If yo aren't receiving that from the people or places it should be coming from, that's where a danger zone emerges.  Because you can't live without these basic needs very long before you put yourself in harm's way.  Temptations to find fulfillment will surface in seedy places and lead to choices that ruin your life.  In the short term, they scratch the itch, but in the long term they hollow you out and erode all sense of trust and truth.

That's why it's so important to have someone trusted that you can sit and talk to about these basic longings and how they are or aren't being met in your life.  The longer you wait, the more at risk you are to falling prey to some impropriety.  I believe you can even say, "Well, that would never happen to me." and be more in danger than the person that says, "If I don't take this seriously, that could happen to me."  It's that powerful.

Anyway, the conversation with Heidi was deep and needed.  There were areas in both of our lives where we felt indifferent and invisible.  Just getting that out in the open chases away that encroaching darkness and the dementors whispering lies into your spirit.  This conversation is salvific.