Even if you haven\u2019t heard of Maslow\u2019s \u201cHierarchy of Needs,\u201d you can feel it in your bones. In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow came up with this handy pyramid to explain when, why, and how we are motivated.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it goes:<\/p>\n

Way down at the bottom, at our most basic level, we have to have our physiological needs met. If you were a baby, innocent and helpless, these are the things you\u2019d need first. Things like eating, breathing, sleeping, and steady temperature. Until you have these things mastered, you cannot thing about anything else.<\/p>\n

But as you travel up the pyramid, you get to be more nuanced in what you seek. You scale the mountain past safety and into love and belonging where hopefully you have family and friends and later a significant other to add to the definition of you. And up at the very top, where the air is thinnest but the view the most breathtaking, you have self-actualization. It\u2019s what everybody wants really\u2014to understand themselves with that complete 360-degree view of their own psyche and life history. What a peaceful place that would be. I picture a jasmine-scented breeze and softly chiming bells.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing\u2026if you\u2019ve got a new infant at home and your sleeping in teeny tiny torturous increments, you\u2019re not thinking about the \u201cdefinition of the real you\u201d. You\u2019re thinking about your bed and the last time you saw it. You\u2019re way down at base camp level.<\/p>\n

Or let\u2019s say you\u2019ve just moved to a new city, started a new job, and are learning how to live on your own for the first time. You\u2019ve probably got a copy of The Tipping Point<\/em> and How to Make Friends and Influence People<\/em> on your nightstand. And you might be tottering on the \u201ccan pay my heating bill only if I cancel my cable this month\u201d which leaves you hovering somewhere on the middle of the mountain\u2014too far up to go back, but still so very far down to feel like you\u2019ve got a grip on the \u201creal you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thing about Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy that slashes through my straight-line, plan-loving, actionable-step following soul, is that it is terribly misleading.<\/p>\n

There is no straight path up that mountain.<\/h1>\n

Maybe you\u2019re up, up and away after high school and into college. Maybe you get married and have kids and buy a bigger house and start to really examine what makes you tick. But then perhaps you lose a job or a spouse or get sick and suddenly, you\u2019re halfway down the mountain again, deep in the woods, waking each day more confused than before.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened to me.<\/h1>\n

It happened halfway up the mountain, just past the joining of the two roads that was marriage, when I decided I wanted a child.<\/p>\n

And then months passed. And then years.<\/p>\n

I was stuck and then slipping farther down, back to the basic physiological need to fix hormones and get the body running.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: I think you CAN have moments of self-actualization in the middle. I think God can show you glimpses of the person He intended you to be even as you hang off the mountainside. There is no magical moment where you reach the top and think, \u201cAha, I\u2019ve finally made it\u201d now let\u2019s set up camp.<\/p>\n

This is why I wrote Unbound<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, to counteract the false impression that getting to the top is a steady line you follow or that self-actualization and satisfaction can only happen at the top.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Life is up and down and all around.<\/h1>\n

And for me, even after fertility treatments and getting to that sacred place of motherhood, it\u2019s not peak perfection. And what I learned in the muck of those years of wanting a child more than anything was that God gives us \u201cmountaintop moments\u201d when we need them, not simply when we reach the top.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even if you haven\u2019t heard of Maslow\u2019s \u201cHierarchy of Needs,\u201d you can feel it in your bones. In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow came up with this handy pyramid to explain when, why, and how we are motivated. Here\u2019s how it goes: Way down at the bottom, at our most basic level, we have to have our physiological needs met. If you were a baby, innocent and helpless, these are the things you\u2019d need first. Things …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,23,26],"tags":[394,28,97,27,46,176,48,74,25,209,55,136,63,54,17,84,15,447],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/woman-hiking-in-the-Smoky-Mountains.jpg?fit=1000%2C711&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-1eS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4766"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4932,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766\/revisions\/4932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}