Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Why fulfilling your needs for connection are critical to achieving higher levels of consciousness.
I’ve recently been reflecting on the idea of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” in particular how it pertains to relationships.
Every once in a while, my girlfriend and I sit down to discuss how we feel about life, and we sometimes reference the hierarchy as a way to communicate how we feel about different aspect’s of life/our relationship.
Recently, when we held this discussion, we made a particular note that if sex/intimacy is missing in a person’s life, it prevents someone from achieving higher levels of consciousness.
Thus arose the inspiration for this post.
In a departure from some of our typical content, today we look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a guidebook for how to approach life, and in particular “the Game.”
I invite all of you to reflect upon your own growth journeys, and to ask yourselves what your “needs” are as a human being.
What is the “Hierarchy of Needs”?
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, created by Abraham Maslow in the 1940s is a framework for understanding human psychology that focuses on how human behavior changes based on individual fulfillment.
In common english, Maslow developed a way of describing our road to personal fulfillment based on the needs that we experience in life.
These needs range from your typical/predictable things like food, water, shelter, to more abstract ideas, such as learning, mental challenge, creativity.
Each person has individual thresholds for each “need,” but in general, all of us exhibit the same needs throughout life.
Why is this important?
Through this framework, you can understand that on your own journey to personal development, you can only achieve higher levels of “consciousness” or growth by addressing lower level needs.
In practice, this may not always be the case, but if you really think about it, you’re not going to give a shit about things like “financial freedom” if you can’t even put food on the table. Hence, this mental model works for most cases.
An Aside
For those of you with a little bit of education in Eastern Mysticism, you’ll realize there’s some parallels between this framework and the Chakras from Hinduism. While not entirely the same, you can think about the process of self-actualization as one of aligning the Chakras to allow the flow of conscious energy in your life.
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