Living in Peace with Unmet Needs

    Srila Prabhupada writes in his Purport to Sri Isopanishad's Invocation Mantra:

All forms of incompleteness are experienced due to incomplete knowledge of the complete whole. 

    So, our feeling of incompleteness due to unmet needs can be fully satisfied with the strength of our relationship with Krishna. There is no alternative to cultivating strong sadhna! In His loving embrace, we can rest in peace with all our unmet needs. 

    Srila Prabhupada explains that this material world is a hospital, not a hotel. So, by default, it is not a place where all our needs are meant to be met. This world has been created to reform our tendency to have desires independent of a relationship with Krishna. We can change our expectation to one of being unsatisfied here! By recalibrating our expectations, we might find some peace with unmet needs. 

    I can give an example from today! My husband and I live busy lives, yet we made the choice today to go biking. I was so excited about the possibility of spending some connecting time with the whole family! When my children were young, I spent much time with them. However, as they've grown, and I've chosen to dive into some other interests besides mothering, I am longing for a deeper connection and more time with them. They prefer to hang out with friends on weekends, rather than their parents. Our older son declined to go biking, for he wanted to finish his homework due tomorrow for his homeschool coop, and our younger son was not interested in biking. He preferred to go to play soccer with friends, and when all his friends declined, he preferred to play soccer alone in our yard, rather than go biking with his parents. There went my dream for family time! 

    I chose to shift internally to get in touch with the unmet need. Then, I imagined what it would be like to have more connection. That helped me come to terms with the unmet need. 

    Some options NVC offers for shifting our relationship to unmet needs:

• Stay present with the experience of the need.
• Mourning that it is unmet via writing in a journal about it. 
• Sharing our mourning by talking to a friend, who can provide a safe space and give us empathy, not advice. We can share our feelings, perhaps of disappointment or being disheartened.
• Imagine the need being met or connect with the memory of that experience in the past.

    NVC is not a process of focusing our energy on trying to meet our needs to experience peace. It is a process that gives us choice to live in peace internally whether or not our needs are met. 

    Please share how this is landing for you, by commenting below.