Needs. Needs. It's the Needs.

At 38, I returned to school for a master’s in psychological research. I planned to study oxytocin, the ever-so-fascinating neurochemical involved in bonding, trust, and connection. And released by touch! Touch! I was so excited.

And then it was 2020.

No labs.

No contact.

No touching.

Fucking COVID.

On a personal level, it was miserable. On a research level, it forced a pivot. If I couldn’t study oxytocin directly, I had to choose the next most important question to dedicate two years of my life to.

I landed on this:

If humans are wired for connection, what gets in the way of feeling truly connected? Why are so many people feeling alone? Some even in the presence of others?

Research makes an important distinction:

Social loneliness is about physical absence. Not seeing people, not sharing space, feeling lonely because of actually being by oneself. Think early COVID. Emotional loneliness is different. You can have close friends, family, coworkers, even a partner, and still feel completely alone. Emotional loneliness is about not being truly known, sometimes by the people you long for most, and sometimes by anyone at all.

That distinction led me to look more closely at what actually makes emotional connection possible, and what breaks it down.

My research focused on the interrelatedness of three concepts:

• Emotional loneliness — feeling alone or unknown even in the presence of others

• Insecure attachment — difficulty feeling safe, stable, or trusting in close relationships

• Alexithymia — difficulty identifying and expressing one’s own feelings and needs

I found that we barely know our own feelings, let alone our needs.

Depending on the framework, researchers identify six to eight core emotions and roughly thirty emotional categories, but there are hundreds of distinct feelings reported in lived experience (Emotions are automatic biological responses; feelings are how we consciously experience and interpret them).

Research featured in Atlas of the Heart  found that when people are asked to name their feelings in real time, the average person could only name 3:

Mad. Glad. Sad.

Alexithymia is often cited as affecting about 20% of the population. But my research, perhaps representing more modern times, suggested something very different. In my sample, nearly 67% met criteria for alexithymia, with another 13% showing partial difficulty.

In other words: most of us don’t actually know what we’re feeling.

And if that’s true about feelings, then needs are an even bigger mystery.

We are driven by needs — whether we know them or not

This is the part I care about most.

Needs don’t disappear just because we can’t name them.

They drive us anyway. Sometimes consciously, but often subconsiously.

Our brains are constantly adapting to get needs met. Through love and work, whether they work or not. Sometimes through control, collapse, intensity, avoidance, or self-erasure.

The list goes on and on. The mechanisms are as creative as we are.

Have you ever said to yourself, "I have no idea why I did that"?

My best educated guess?

A need is pulling the strings.

This helps explain why people stay in relationship, jobs, or situations that are causing more pain than joy, because some needs are being met, even if many aren’t. It also helps explain why some people avoid relationships altogether: if certain needs feel impossible to meet, why try?

Somewhere along the way, we quietly adopted an impossible model of relationships. One person is supposed to be your lover, best friend, adventure buddy, emotional processor, therapist, and primary support system. That model doesn’t work, we know it.

As our social circles have shrunk, our unmet needs have grown.

In my research, emotional loneliness was strongly correlated with both alexithymia (difficulty identifying and expressing one’s own feelings and needs) and insecure attachment. That made sense.

How can you feel securely attached if:

• you don’t know what you’re feeling

• you don’t know what you need

• and the people around you can’t respond to what isn’t named

When needs aren’t recognized, they’re far harder to meet intentionally. They may be met accidentally or indirectly, but not reliably. And when the relationships or circumstances that quietly met them disappear, the fallout can be profound.

Unmet needs don’t just hurt, they destabilize.

As fascinated as I am by oxytocin, I’ve become just as focused on understanding human needs.

Oxytocin Bathing exists not just for touch, but for what touch can open.

You might arrive thinking you just need to be held and nurtured. And then, as you’re held, other needs may begin to surface.

A need to be deeply listened to.

To feel prioritized and validated.

To feel more alive and playful.

To hear “you’re okay.”

You may notice a longing to rest from being the strong one. To be reassured without shame. To be seen without performing. To slow down. To be talked to like an old friend. To be allowed to be imperfect.

Touch often speaks first, but it’s rarely the only thing being asked for.

This is a space to explore, express, and discover your needs. Whether this is the first time you’ve ever named them or the millionth. You can arrive with an exact list of what you need or you can arrive not knowing at all. Either way or anything in between, here you'll be reminded, again and again, that having needs is more than okay.

Because getting your needs met is foundational to secure connection. It starts with knowing what they are, then learning how to communicate them. Understanding your needs won’t solve everything. But without that understanding, we’ll continue being pulled by forces we don’t recognize.

So come on over! Tell me what you need, I'm listening.