I read Ashleigh Warner’s quote, “Beneath every behavior, there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need, rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, not the symptom.”
So many times, we address the symptoms of an issue, not the root cause. For example, you can go to the doctor with back pain, and they will address the pain with pills but not do tests to figure out why you are in pain in the first place. Another example is the anger iceberg. On the surface, the expressed emotion is anger, but there are many different causes for the expression of anger below the surface.
A behavior I can connect with is hyper-independence. I have been pretty independent since I was 12. My mother instilled in us to be self-reliant. I joined the military at 17 and have lived independently from there. I bought my first and current house alone and rarely needed to rely on anyone. But under this behavior, I feel exhausted from taking care of everything on my own. I think I must do everything, or it won’t get done.
Through self-reflection, I discovered this behavior is from a lack of trust and abandonment issues. I need to feel secure, so I depend on myself because somewhere in my past, there were people I couldn’t trust because they abandoned me; they left me to fend for myself in my time of need. As a result, I had to learn to care for myself, so I became dependent only on myself. Now, I try to ask for help when I need it and accept help when offered if appropriate. I now recognize that I can provide for my own needs, but sometimes I require the assistance of others.
This is just a reminder to do your self-reflection so that you can recognize the cause and treat it instead of the symptom.
Look Within 