You’re Only Human
There’s been a recurring theme in my coaching conversations lately. People are showing up struggling with identifying their needs as simply that: needs.
We’ve worked together using this formula:
Name the feeling.
Connect the feeling to a need — met or unmet.
And then communicate the need clearly.
It sounds simple and it is. But it’s not easy.
I first picked this up years ago in Marshall Rosenberg’s classic, Nonviolent Communication. I’ve recently rediscovered it in The Next Conversation by Jefferson Fisher. This 3 step framework has been circling back around in my work in really impactful ways.
I recently walked through this process with a clergywoman experiencing leadership challenges. And then again with a teacher drowning in burnout. With both clients, something shifted. Their circumstances hadn’t changed but they remembered something essential: they are human.
Not machines. Not endlessly available sources of strength. Human.
When we slowed down enough to identify what they were actually feeling, not just “overwhelmed” - but discouraged, resentful, exhausted, unappreciated - we could begin asking the next question: what need is that feeling communicating?
Fatigue often reveals an unmet need for rest.
Irritability uncovers a need for support.
Resentment points toward a need for shared responsibility.
Numbness whispers about a need for connection.
Feelings are signals. Not flaws.
And here’s the part we don’t say out loud enough: if your life is structured in such a way that you cannot get adequate sleep, move your body regularly, experience meaningful connection, or spend time alone with your own thoughts, you are functioning outside the design of being human.
Of course you’re burning out. Of course your body is protesting. Of course your patience is thin.
You are not weak. You are under-resourced.
Burnout isn’t a character issue. It’s a needs issue.
And many of us have been trained to override our needs in service of the work.
But when we ignore our humanity long enough, it shows up somewhere:
- In our health.
- In our relationships.
- In our cynicism.
- In our resentment.
Take some time and try this out…
1. Notice: What am I actually feeling?
2. Ask: What need is underneath this?
3. And then, the bravest part: Communicate that need clearly and without apology. Not as a demand. Not as an accusation. But as a human telling the truth about what it takes to stay well.
This framework changed my life. It gave me language for my own limits. I’m watching it change lives again, one clergywoman, one teacher, one honest conversation at a time.
If you’re deep in the throes of burnout right now, I want you to hear this clearly:
Needing rest does not make you fragile.
Needing support does not make you incompetent.
Needing space does not make you selfish.
It makes you human.
And building a life that honors that humanity? That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.
