The inner life of a hunter-type can get pretty complex. Intense emotions can often be the norm. Confusion, frustration, overwhelm, depression, anger, and sometimes even rage, can often go hand-in-hand with classic ADD / ADHD symptoms.
Navigating this inner realm of emotions requires effective tools, as well as a general lay of the land. By having a clear map to work from, challenging emotions can be far more manageable. Even though hunter-types tend to experience emotions a bit more intensely than others, the basic principles that govern emotions are universal.
You may have heard the expression, emotions are “energy in motion.” This gets pretty close to the truth. Emotions contain energy. When you experience a moment of intense joy, it’s often felt as a buzzing inside all of your cells. The same holds true with anger. We’re all familiar with that “fire in the belly” experience that occurs when our ire gets kicked up — that churning of energy in our solar plexus.
However, there’s actually a force underneath our emotions that most people aren’t aware of, that drives all of our decisions, whether we’re aware of it or not.
From the dawn of time, all humans have been motivated by the same basic needs. Needs, in fact, are the life force itself — brushing up against us, moving us to take action in the world.
Needs are both primal and universal — they are every human’s baseline operating system. No matter your race, belief system, or what language you speak, all humans share the same needs.
In relation to our emotional life, needs are the least common denominator. In a sense, they can be considered atomic (a Greek word meaning, “that which can not be divided into smaller pieces.”)
Needs are the interface point between our emotions and the life force. And there’s only a finite number of them. For example, the needs required for our basic survival are: water, shelter, food, and air. However, to live any kind of satisfying life, we also require a whole host of other needs, such as: peace, clarity, meaning, understanding, privacy, respect — to name just a few.
Our brains are hard-wired to meet needs. Unlike most other animals, who attempt to meet their basic needs (food, shelter, protection, etc.) in the moment, us humans have evolved the unique ability to plan ahead — strategizing ways to meet our needs sometime in the future. This ability to abstract our needs can be both a blessing and a curse.
When we were living in an environment where our survival absolutely depended on this strategy — it was a tremendous boon. We were able to predict when the herd would be in our area, and when the berries would be ripe enough to pick.
However, in our modern society, this same mechanism can turn non life-threatening situations — relationship issues, financial worries, or even the unintended slight by the guy at the grocery store into an endless cascade of obsessive thoughts that bring stress to our bodies, and keep us in a constant low-level state of unrest.
Therefore, it can be extremely useful to understand the process by which our emotions are tied to needs so that we can get to the root of what may be causing our current mental and emotional suffering.
