Movenber Part 2. - Male Suicide - Abraham Maslow Hieraechy of Needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 

May 2024, The Crows Nest Sherborne Dorset

Lambo's hip pain was unbearable. His family shit the same. The Tramadol, Co-codamol (500/30) and Ibuprofen could only scratch the surface. The alcohol and weed was the tipping point.  He dragged two 50kg LPG gas bottles (how I will never know) to his 2 x 1m, empty, grow tent inside another - Machine Mart 10 x 4m - tent, full of tools, paint and accumulated stuff, at the bottom of the garden. Four weeks earlier his hip surgery did not go to plan, £18,000 down the drain.  As usual, a woman was involved.  The rest is for later.

Movember 2025 Bridlington East Yorkshire

2024 saw the highest ever rate of male suicide with 6,190 recorded deaths, which is a staggering 17 men every day. The highest rates being men in their early 50's and the highest concentration, the North East of England, where I sit typing.

In Movember part 1 - click here if you missed it - I talked about the Chakra system and its function in providing a balanced mind and body. Chakras are dippy hippy stuff for many of you. I did receive a lovely message following my chakra post, ‘Hi Colin, I thought your explanation of the chakras was really clear. even for a cynic like me’. I was also a cynic for many years, I wanted further proof such energy existed. I then discovered Abraham Maslow.

‘Maslow was an American psychologist who was best known for creating his Hierarchy of Needs, ‘a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization’.  (Wikipedia)

His thesis states that there are five layers to our needs as human beings. It also tells us that the order cannot be circumvented i.e. It is a progression and can only take place in the prescribed order as we ascend the pyramid.

See the pyramid above.. Now imagine a game of snakes and ladders covering it. Our life purpose is to reach the pinnacle. In times of stress and uncertainty there are snakes everywhere. Many lead all the way down.

Let us look at each layer in turn:

 1: Biological or Somatic Needs

• Breathing • Drinking • Eating • Excreting • Sleeping • Sex

Our somatic needs are pure energy over which we have no control. If these basic needs are not met, the body is unable to function sufficiently to consider any other needs. We will kill to meet these needs.

Mans somatic need for sex creates frustration, anger, violence, death and destruction on a worldwide scale. Domestic violence and sexual abuse by men have reached pandemic levels.  Using Maslow’s theory, men need help, not condemning, as they have no control over their somatic needs.

Returning to the chakra system, this is all base chakra stuff; shit, pee, sex and survival.

2: Safety Needs

With our biological needs met (or we perceive they have been?) safety needs will then take over to dominate our behaviour. While historically safety needs meant shelter and protection from danger, nowadays these needs have more to do with yearning for an orderly and predictable world. Before we forget it, we live in a western society where relatively speaking our safety needs are adequately met and we are not primarily concerned with survival. Anything that makes us feel unsafe, money worries, job insecurity, family shit, will activate our primal safety needs.

This is the second chakra stuff. Our gut feelings, emotions and inner most fears.

Maslow describes these first two levels as our Survival Needs. We return to these needs at moments of uncertainty and stress. Many men live in a constant survival state behind the façade of ‘happy families’

The first two chakras are our life force energy. Stop reading for a moment, close your eyes and sense your body. Forget the aches and pains, how does your bowels and gut feel?  That's your survival chakras talking to you.

Rectal and prostate cancer, combined, kill more men each year than any other cause, bar heart disease and suicide.  Hey ho.

3: Social Needs

Assuming our survival needs are met then we can start to focus on our social needs. At this point we become social beings; friendship, intimacy, marriage, and the role of a supportive and communicative family come to the forefront.  Social beings have a need to love and be loved.  When our social needs are not met, we become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety and even clinical depression.   Men do not talk about their emotions, we store them in our survival chakras..

Social beings need our third and fourth,  solar plexus and  heart chakras, to be in balance. We need the confidence and courage to become loved and sociable. Its also the controller of our ‘fight or flight’ response.  Lockdown has removed men’s ability to fight or indeed for flight. This frustration is internalised, and we slide back down the snakes to our primal functions.

 4: Esteem Needs

Once safe, secure and loved we need esteem and this is where most of us, me included, fuck it up!  We believe our esteem come from others. It does not, it comes from within.

 We all have a need to be respected and to respect others. We all engage ourselves to gain self-esteem and self-respect and will involve ourselves in activities that give us a sense of contribution and a feeling of acceptance and self-value. This can be a profession, a sport or hobby. If we have an imbalance at this level, we will lose our self-esteem and may even develop inferiority complexes. If we have low self-esteem (I have plenty), we search out respect from others through seeking fame, glory or even notoriety. Writing a blog ticks that box? Imbalances in this area can manifest itself in everything from depression to self-destruction, drugs and the like.  I can resonate with many of the above, can you?

The solar plexus and throat chakras dominate men’s ego’s, not their hearts. Self-esteem comes from the heart; unfortunately, we all, me included, seek esteem from others. Do you get that?

 5: Growth Needs

It is at this point we can start to look inside ourselves and ask; what is it all about?  The sixth chakra, the third eye. The wisdom of eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and Chinese medicine have addressed this problem for many centuries. It is only the last hundred years that we have in western society taken notice of our needs for personal growth.

Moments of bliss are rare. Maslow called them peak moments or moments of self-actualisation. The seventh chakra is where we find enlightenment. I’m still looking. You?.

And the point I am making is.

Look after your needs before they look after you.

Have a good day.

Colin

Ps. Four  men will have committed suicide in the three hours spent working on this this blog.