Art Journal with the Moon for July 8-14, 2024

Before I go into more details about all this though, don’t forget, if you want to stay updated on how to work with the magic of the moon in your art journal, sign up to my mailing list. Every Monday, you’ll get reminders of the moon’s energy for the upcoming week and how you can work with it in your art journal to practice magic, tend to your soul or do your deep inner work. You can sign up here.

Now back tending to your beautiful, shining spirit and the emotional nutrition you might be lacking.

Unmet emotional needs refer to the essential feelings of love, safety, understanding, and support that weren’t sufficiently provided during your formative years or even later in life. Everyone has basic emotional requirements that need to be fulfilled to develop healthily and feel whole. When these needs are not met, particularly during childhood, it can lead to feelings of insecurity, low self-esteem, and difficulty trusting others. How can you believe in yourself, your art or your dreams when you suffer with low self-esteem or you have trouble trusting yourself or life?

Emotional neglect is common. Way too common. As a child, emotional neglect is where caregivers or significant others fail to respond adequately to your emotional expressions and needs and so your emotional needs needs go unmet. It’s not always about outright neglect or abuse; sometimes, it’s simply a lack of understanding or ability of those around you to provide the emotional support you needed. I’ve seen many loving parents, including myself, completely miss the mark on meeting their child’s emotional needs not because they didn’t care or didn’t want to but because they had no idea how to do it. They continue to walk around themselves with gaping emotional voids. How can they understand how to meet their child’s emotional needs if they can’t even meet their own or if they are completely oblivious to their own inner child’s unmet emotional needs that they still carry? Your inner child is key to understanding your child’s needs by the way.

Love, unfortunately, isn’t enough. Emotional education and doing your inner work is necessary if you want to make a difference to yourself and the future generations that are in your care. And it’s especially important if you want to shine your light in this world because there is no way the inner child within you is going to feel safe enough to let you shine your light in this world if you still carry big, gaping voids in your heart.

And I know this is frustrating to hear if you’ve been doing your inner work for a long time. I get it. But it doesn’t change the fact that your inner parts need what they need until they finally don’t need it anymore and you can’t force that process to be done when you want it done. I don’t care if it’s taken decades. You’re not doing anything wrong. It’s not that you haven’t found the right modality or the perfect solution. It’s a process. It will take as long as it takes and it may take decades or lifetimes. Are you ready for that? Do you love yourself and your expansive, brilliant spirit enough to say, “Yes! I’ll keep going. I’ll keep doing the work. I’m dedicated to freeing myself and my spirit. I will continue to tend to my heart and my soul for as long as I need to.”

Good.

Then let’s talk some more about your unmet emotional needs and how trauma contributes to them.

Trauma and Unmet Emotional Needs

Trauma, whether from a single event or ongoing stressful situations, can exacerbate the problem of unmet emotional needs. Traumatic experiences can overshadow your emotional landscape, making it difficult for you to express or even recognize your needs. I know for me, because my trauma happened when I was so young and I disassociated from my body when it happened, I kept doing that over and over again which caused me to be in a chronic state of disconnection from myself, my body and my emotions. Emotional neglect amplified this because if no one is there to emotionally attune to your needs and help you learn how to attune to yourself and your needs then you keep focusing on how other people are feeling and what they are needing. Especially because your hypervigilance makes you ultra-aware of how others are being or feeling since your subconscious is constantly scanning for danger.

Trauma can create a survival mode mentality, where your energy and focus are directed towards coping with immediate threats or pain, pushing your emotional needs to the background. You’re always on the lookout for danger without even realizing that’s what you’re doing. This often leads to your emotional needs not being addressed or acknowledged. Plus, you probably learned to suppress your emotions as a way to cope. I know I definitely did.

Carrying unmet emotional needs into adulthood is common because emotional habits and patterns formed early in life tend to persist. If you learned to ignore or suppress your needs to survive emotionally during childhood, you might continue to do so as an adult, often subconsciously. This can result in a cycle where you might not fully recognize or understand what you need emotionally, making it hard to seek or create relationships and environments that fulfill those needs.

Acknowledging and addressing these unmet needs can be a significant step toward healing and emotional fulfillment, allowing you to form healthier relationships and a more satisfying life.

How Unmet Emotional Needs Stop You From Following Your Dreams and Shining Your Light

Imagine someone who has always dreamt of exploring their artistic talents and diving into their creativity, yet they constantly find themselves unable to carve out the time for these pursuits. This person is always busy, not with their own projects, but with helping others achieve their goals and manage their crises. This pattern isn’t just about being generous or kind; it stems from an unmet emotional need—specifically, the need for approval and acceptance. Growing up, they might have learned that their value was tied to how much they did for others, leading them to neglect their own desires and boundaries.

As an adult, this behavior continues as they struggle to say no or prioritize themselves, fearing rejection or feeling selfish. Their time and energy are perpetually allocated to others, leaving little for personal passions or dreams. This scenario is a classic example of how unmet emotional needs can overshadow one’s life, stifling their true potential and creative expression. Instead of shining their light into the world through art and personal expression, they remain in the shadows, supporting roles in the lives of others. They never get to be the main character in their own life.

The impact of living this way is profound. It not only deprives them of personal fulfillment and happiness but also diminishes the unique contributions they could make to the world through their creativity. It leads to resentment and depletion. Their light— the creativity and joy they could share—is dimmed, and the world misses out on the beauty they have within them. Addressing the deep-seated emotional needs of safety, belonging and acceptance and learning to set healthy boundaries could liberate them to finally pursue their own dreams and allow their light to shine brightly.

When you don’t meet your emotional needs or aren’t even aware of them, it can create significant barriers to expressing your true self and shining your light in the world. Unmet emotional needs often lead to low self-esteem, because when your fundamental needs for love, safety, validation, and acceptance are not fulfilled, you may start to believe that you don’t deserve these things. This belief can manifest as a persistent feeling of not being good enough, which in turn fosters fears and self-doubt that can paralyze you from taking steps towards your dreams and aspirations.

For example, if you grew up in an environment where your achievements were never acknowledged or your efforts were constantly criticized, you might carry an unmet need for validation. This can lead to a fear of failure or a fear of trying new things because you’re subconsciously convinced that your efforts won’t be appreciated or that they’ll be deemed inadequate. Similarly, if you were frequently dismissed or ignored as a child, you might struggle with the unmet need for attention and acceptance. This can make you overly reliant on others’ approval, stifling your own creativity and individuality because you’re too focused on pleasing others rather than expressing your true self.

To truly step into your potential and shine your light, it’s helpful to become aware of and address your unmet emotional needs.

Look out for signs of needing validation, acceptance, safety, and love. By recognizing and fulfilling these needs yourself, or seeking environments and relationships that support them, you can build self-esteem and diminish the fears that hold you back. This empowerment allows you to live more authentically, embracing and sharing your unique talents and gifts with the world.

How to Meet Your Unmet Emotional Needs

There are many ways to meet your unmet emotional needs but I want to share the ways that I found most effective and most spiritually nourishing.

The first crucial step in addressing your unmet emotional needs is to identify exactly what they are. This process can be particularly challenging if you are a highly sensitive person with a history of trauma or emotional neglect. Often, such experiences condition you to disconnect from your emotions or to prioritize the needs and feelings of others over your own, making it difficult to recognize what you truly need for yourself.

For those who find this task daunting, I share several creative practices in my free guidebook designed to help unearth these hidden needs (I talk about how you can get your hands on that guidebook down below). However, one of the most effective ways to identify your unmet emotional needs is by paying attention to your emotional triggers. Emotional triggers are intense, uncomfortable or undesirable reactions you have to certain people, situations, words, or actions. For example, you might find yourself feeling suddenly angry, sad, or anxious in response to something or someone.

These emotional triggers are not random; they are powerful indicators that something deeper is at play —typically, an unmet emotional need. For instance, if criticism from others always makes you feel extremely upset, it could indicate a deep-seated need for approval or acceptance that wasn’t met in your past. By examining these triggers and understanding the feelings and needs behind them, you can begin to directly address and fulfill these long-neglected parts of yourself.

Imagine you find yourself feeling extremely upset every time someone interrupts you while you’re speaking. Something inside you knows your emotional reaction isn’t just about this particular situation. You can tell something deeper is going on. This emotional trigger—feeling disrespected or overlooked—can be a clue to an unmet emotional need. Perhaps as a child, you often felt unheard or that your opinions were dismissed, leading to an unmet need for validation and to be listened to attentively.

To neutralize this trigger and meet this unmet need, you start by recognizing the feeling it brings up in you. You acknowledge that this intense reaction is not just about the present moment but also about echoing feelings from your past. You get curious and ask yourself, “What do I need right now that I didn’t receive in the past?” The answer might be as simple as needing to feel valued and heard.

To meet this need, you can engage in a practice of reparenting yourself. This involves being the nurturing and attentive parent to your inner child that you wished you had. You can do this by setting aside time to listen to your own thoughts without judgment, perhaps through painting in your journal or writing a letter to yourself. You affirm your feelings and remind yourself that your thoughts and feelings are important and deserve space. This act of self-validation is profoundly healing.

You start seeking out relationships and environments where your voice is respected and your contributions are valued. You speak up the next time you’re interrupted because you learned to value yourself and your voice. Over time, these actions reinforce the feeling of being heard and respected, gradually reducing the intensity of your emotional trigger.

By consistently meeting this once-unmet need, you can heal old wounds and become more resilient in handling similar situations in the future.

As you can see, after you’ve identified your unmet emotional need, the next step is to give yourself what you never received.

Waxing Crescent Moon

I learned to meet my unmet emotional needs by nurturing a profound connection with my inner mother. Before I could grow a strong inner mother who knew how to meet my needs, I had to learn how to be a better parent to my inner child. That’s where my spiritual guidance came in. I, like my grandmother before me, have a deep and personal relationship with a presence I understand and cherish as the Divine Mother or the Great Mother. Through spiritual conversations and guidance in my everyday life, Divine Mother taught me how to reparent myself. She was the unconditionally loving, forever patient and kind presence I modeled my own inner parent around. Because I could feel and be with Divine Mother and the unlimited capacity She has to hold my pain and my fears, I learned how to do that for myself. She taught me an invaluable lesson: leave no inner child part of yourself untended. She emphasized the importance of approaching every part of my inner self with compassion and curiosity, enabling me to truly understand and connect with my inner child parts.

I deepened her teachings by working with the MAP Method which allowed me to tend to inner parts of myself that I could not reach consciously. I also finally found words and language to describe what Divine Mother was teaching me when I learned Dick Shwartz’s model for Internal Family Systems. He clearly and brilliantly articulated what Divine Mother had been teaching me for years.

By engaging with the inner parts of myself, I learned to recognize their specific needs—needs that had gone unmet for too long. The Great Mother showed me how to provide what these inner children parts of myself were missing, whether it was validation, safety, love, or acceptance and the MAP Method rooted this healing even deeper into my subconscious realm by reaching so many more hidden inner parts than I could have ever consciously addressed in one lifetime.

This process of meeting the needs of my inner parts both consciously with my inner mother and subconsciously with the MAP Method has been transformative, fundamentally changing how I relate to myself and enhancing my ability to pursue my creative dreams.

Now, whenever I encounter inner resistance, feel insecure, or face fear, I know what to do to get unstuck. I understand that any resistance, lack of motivation, self-sabotage, overthinking or fear stems from parts of me that are still holding on to unmet needs. By addressing these directly and compassionately, I resolve the resistance at its root. The moment those needs are met, the barriers dissolve, and I no longer find myself sabotaging my efforts or procrastinating. Sometimes this process takes longer than others. That’s where patience comes in, especially when I think I’ve found the root need but I come to realize I was just tending to one layer of it and there’s more to see and tend to. But that’s the beautifully unpredictable healing journey, isn’t it? It is naturally winding, twisting and bumpy but oh so rewarding!

Dive a Little Deeper

This Friday at 1:00 PM MT, I’m excited to host a FREE WORKSHOP titled 3 Witchy Ways to Tend to the Emotional Roots of Chronic 

Illness and Reclaim Your Authentic Self. For those who join me live, I have a special bonus to offer: a free copy of my guidebook, THE NOURISHED HEART: How to Meet Your Unmet Emotional Needs So You Can Live In Alignment with Your True Self. This guidebook is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to begin the journey toward emotional healing. It will help you identify the emotional needs that have gone unmet in your life, guiding you through a detailed process to understand and finally fulfill these needs on your own.

During the webinar, we’ll explore the emotional factors that often underlie chronic illnesses. You’ll learn how chronic stress and emotional neglect contribute to physical symptoms and how addressing these emotional roots can lead to profound healing. The webinar is designed to empower you with knowledge and practical strategies to start handling these challenges effectively. You’ll also experience a MAP session where we work with you subconscious mind to neutralize painful memories and reduce chronic stress so your inflammatory response and immune system can be balanced and improve your quality of life.

By attending, you’ll gain not just the guidebook but also the insights and tools necessary to start reclaiming your authentic self. We’ll discuss how to nurture your inner world and foster a healthier, more vibrant life by aligning more closely with who you truly are. This is a chance to not just manage symptoms, but transform your life by healing from the inside out. Join me on Friday at 1:00 pm MT and let’s start living with a lot less symptoms and a lot more energy, health and vitality.

Sign Up for the FREE Workshop Here

The Moon This Week

If you want to work with the moon to manifest, do your emotional work or deepen your creativity, here’s a summary of the moon’s energy from Monday – Sunday with daily prompts you can explore in your art journal.