Self-Actualisation Blocks
I have been fascinated by Maslow’s Hierarchy since I first learned about it as a child at school. I wanted to be at the top. I wanted to strive towards self-actualisation. Imagine, being your authentic complete self. Living out your dreams and goals. Achieving and leaving a legacy. Discovering something worthwhile & contributing to humanity in some way. It just sounded amazing, and definitely what I wanted to do with my life.
Fast forward to later on in life: a husband, a few kids, a big job, and even though I thought I was juggling it all well (I wasn’t really), I was still on that path. Self-actualisation, here I come!
Fast forward to another couple of years, and I found myself in a situation where I just did not feel safe. I will spare you the details, but the country I was living in had a very high crime rate. We have experienced a number of incidents that affected the whole family. I was living scared every day of my life. I was scared for my own life, I was scared for the lives of my children. I was fed-up with police visits to report stolen items.
At this point I reflected back on Maslow’s Hierarchy & I realised that I am stuck at the second layer! I had air to breathe, food to eat, water to drink. My sleep was not that great, because I kept on listening for any sound of danger, so that was not 100%. But that second layer. The safety layer. I could not get over it!
And I knew that unless I felt safe, I would never get to self-actualisation! So here is the interesting part: I was respected at work, and I felt a sense of belonging and love – the next two layers – but not feeling safe overshadowed everything in my life!
We emigrated & I resolved the safety layer… to a point! Even though I was physically safe from attacks, I started to get health issues! And this is a very common layer two issue that a lot of people struggle with! When you have a health issue, you simply cannot get to the self-actualisation pinnacle! Your energy is being drained by trying to feel safe.
What is the answer to this bleak picture? Well, awareness is always the first step. Realising that this is going on (although you are probably acutely aware of this), and then stepping back to see how you could bypass the safety and still achieve some self-actualisation…? I think this can be done. Of course, the best way forward is to actually resolve the aspect act is syphoning off the energy towards maintaining safety of health.
A huge aspect of feeling fearful is the emotional part. I did not know how to deal with the fear when I lived in my fear. Since my fear was now health-related, I could not simply emigrate from that, and had to find another way. Starting on the emotions that surround the health issue and the emotional contributing factors of the health issue, actually can lead to a resolution of the issue!
In conclusion, I would recommend that if you are stuck at the Safety level of Maslow’s Hierarchy, for whatever reason, start resolving emotions around the issues & you may just have some energy to put towards self-actualisation!
