The Challenge With Having All Our Needs Met

Many years ago I was going through a particularly challenging time financially.  I shared this with my friend John, and he introduced me to the affirmation:  “All my needs are met”.   It worked!  I noticed that “magically”, all my needs were being met – household bills, debt payments, etc.  I would get just enough money, just as I needed it to meet my needs.  The affirmation worked then, and continues to work now.  No matter what, when I declare that all my needs are met, they are.

Recently though I have started to ponder why only my needs, and no more, are met, and why I am not accessing this power to manifest even greater good in my life.  Yes, my needs are met, but just in time and just enough.  So I got to musing about this thing called “need”, and in particular what this word means.

The dictionary (www.dictionary.com) defines “need” as:

• Requirement, duty, obligation
• Lack of something
• Urgent want
• Situation of time of difficulty
• Destitution, extreme poverty

The original meanings of words tell us what they really mean and the power vested within them.  When we understand where the word comes from, we understand the energy within that word.   The etymology (etymonline) of “need” is: “Old English nied (West Saxon), ned (Mercian) ´necessity, compulsion, duty; hardship, distress; errand, business,´ originally ´violence, force,´ from Proto-Germanic”.  This demonstrates a great degree of negativity in the root of the word and brings up the idea of a trap, something that holds you in its clutches.

Is this really what I have been affirming all along?  That all my “requirements, duties, obligations, lacks, destitutions, etc.” have been met?  No wonder that, even as I revel in the magic of needs being met, I still feel a sense of lack!

My lightbulb moment: “All my needs are met” is fundamentally a limiting belief.

Knowing how powerful my beliefs are in how my life manifests, I decided to search for a more positive, empowering word to use in my affirmation.  What is it that I am asking for to be met?  What could I replace “need” with, to be more positive, uplifting and aspirational?

Here are a few options from a list I brainstormed, with the help of the Dictionary and Thesaurus:

1. Want: “Something wanted or needed; necessity: absence or deficiency of something desirable or requisite; lack: a sense of lack or need of something.”  In affirming that all my wants are met, holds within it the same idea of lack.
2. Wish: “To wish is to feel an impulse toward attainment or possession of something.”  On a scale of negativity to positivity, affirming that all my wishes are met does seem to be an improvement over need and want, yet does not make me feel empowered.
3. Desire: “A longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction or enjoyment”.  I like the sentiment of satisfaction and enjoyment resident when I affirm that all my desires are met, but remain a bit perturbed about the “longing or craving” which seems to me to be rooted in a belief in lack.
4. Hope: “The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best”.  Affirming that all my hopes are met is much more positive but still didn’t feel powerful enough for me.
5. Intention: “The end or object intended; purpose.”  Particularly when I checked the etymology: “from Old French entencion ´stretching, intensity, will, thought´ (12c.), from Latin intentionem (nominative intentio) ´a stretching out, straining, exertion, effort; attention,´ noun of action from intendere ´to turn one’s attention,´ literally ´to stretch out´.”  Affirming that all my intentions are met ­resonated deeply with me, as it has the idea of focus, purpose and action and urges me to define what my intentions are.  I like this one, and decided to work with it.

Here are 3 ways to use this affirmation:

1. Every morning, affirm out loud and in your journal: “All my intentions are met”.
2. Write down what your intentions for your day are:  “My intention for today is …”.
3. Give thanks for your intentions being met: “I am grateful that all these intentions have already been met”.

And now go about your day, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that your intentions are always met.