The Core Needs Triad

a video series with Heather Plett

In this video series, Heather Plett introduces her new work around the Core Needs Triad, and how we can evolve toward more integrated selves. When we each do our personal work, she believes, we’ll contribute to healthier systems and evolve our relationship with the world.

Hi friends! I’m Heather Plett and I’ve been working hard in recent months to develop a video series around some new work that feels really important to me.

Here’s the first video in the series. To access the remaining ten videos, become a paid subscriber at atenderspace.substack.com (for $10/month). Down below the introductory video, you’ll see more information about the series and why it matters, including an outline of the remaining videos.

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Based on my work with clients, and rooted in the research I’ve done on the topic, I developed a model several years ago, which I included in my first book, The Art of Holding Space. It’s called the Spiral of Authenticity and it’s a way of exploring the inner journey one must make in order to evolve into a more authentic, mature life. Using the labyrinth as inspiration, I mapped out a path that has since helped many people understand this liminal period of their lives.

P06 – Spiral of Authenticity – with words

Ever since the book was published, though, I’ve had a niggling feeling that something was missing from the model. What was missing were the parts BEFORE and AFTER the Spiral. Although I made reference to the fact that many of us were living inauthentic lives because we’d learned in our early years to make decisions rooted primarily in our need for safety and belonging and had abandoned ourselves in the process, that didn’t seem like enough of an explanation.

After reflecting on it for awhile and doing more research, I created an early model which I started sharing in workshops and online courses, introducing people to the core needs of safety, belonging and identity. That model continued to evolve as I taught it, and then this past Spring I decided to take it even further to see what else wanted to emerge.

Deepening the inquiry…

I started expanding my questions to things like:

Why do so many of us wake up to our own inauthenticity (and incomplete evolution) somewhere in the middle of our lives?
How do our core needs impact our ability to evolve in our human development?
Why is it so hard to break through this place into the next level of our evolution, and why do some people choose not to evolve?
What do the systems we’re part of (family systems, religious systems, cultural systems, macrosystems) have to do with our evolution (or lack of it)?
How does this relate to human development models, like Spiral Dynamics or the Eco-Soulcentric Development Wheel?
How can we support more people in integrating their core needs so that they can evolve into more mature adults and contribute to healthier systems?

Introducing the Core Needs Triad…

Finally, after much research and contemplation, I’ve developed a model I call the Core Needs Triad, an understanding of which I believe will help us all evolve into what I’m calling our Integrated Selves.I’ve created ten short videos to address the questions I mentioned above (and more). You can access the videos by becoming a subscriber at atenderspace.substack.com.

Why it Matters…

In recent years, it’s become increasingly clear to me that this work that we do at the Centre for Holding Space holds a bigger vision than I first understood. When I wrote my first book, I saw the vision as helping people understand the practice of holding space so that they can deepen their relationships and support other people better. With the second book, I realized that the vision had to include helping people deepen their relationships with themselves so that they can contribute to healthier and more mature communities.

Now, after spending a lot of time outdoors, deepening my relationship with trees, ocean, mycelium, and all of the non-human (and human) beings I encounter, it feels true that the vision must expand to include supporting human development so that we can evolve our systems and be in more transformational (and less transactional) relationships with the world we are part of. It’s both a humble and a grand vision, and I’m excited to see how the work evolves in the coming years.

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Supporting human development so that we can evolve our systems and be in more transformational (and less transactional) relationships with the world we are part of.

Ten Videos to Support Our Healing & Evolution

Video 1 – An Introduction to the Core Needs Triad

What are they?
Which needs emerged first in our infancy?
What’s contained in each of the three needs?

Video 2 – Needs Under Threat

What happens when each of the needs comes under threat?
How does the nervous system respond to a need under threat?
What are the shadow sides of each need?

Video 3 – Fractured Self

What happens when all needs are under simultaneous threat?
Which need do we abandon first?
What happens when we abandon one of our needs?
How does a false or partial identity come to be?
What does it mean to live a fractured life?

Video 4 – A Closer Look at Identity

How does identity evolve with age?
What does individuation involve? Does it only happen once?
What if individuation fails to happen?
Why do some of us become codependent and shape our identities around others?
How does cognitive dissonance factor into the evolution of identity?
What are some models of the ongoing evolution of identity?
Why do some of us fail (or get stuck) in this evolution?

Video 5 – Systemic Impacts

How do the systems we’re part of impact our core needs?
What if our needs are under threat from these systems?
What if there are strings attached to the safety and belonging offered by these systems?
What happens if we don’t comply with the expectations of these systems?
How do we get conscripted into these systems?

Video 6 – The Spiral of Authenticity

What are the stages of the Spiral of Authenticity?
How is it informed by the labyrinth?
What is the outcome of journeying through the Spiral?

Video 7 – Our Velcro Clothing

How does this all relate to The Girl in the Velcro Dress?
What’s the correlation between the Core Needs Triad and the baggage we’ve inherited from our families and systems?
What is the impact when we begin to remove pieces from our Velcro clothing?

Video 8 – Tenderness

What does Tenderness have to do with the Core Needs Triad?
What are the components of a Tenderness practice?
How does Tenderness support us in journeying through the Spiral of Authenticity?
How does Tenderness help us heal our fractured selves?

Video 9 – The Integrated Self

What does it mean to become an Integrated Self?
What do our relationships have to do with it?
How does the healing and integration of our core needs allow us to become contributors and co-creators of more healthy systems?
What’s the relationship between fractured individuals and unhealthy systems?
What does it look like when more of us become integrated?

Video 10 – Holding Space

What does Holding Space have to do with the Core Needs Triad?
How do we Hold Space for the healing and integration of people’s core needs?
How does Holding Space contribute to the emergence of more healthy systems?
How do we Hold Space for the evolution of our species and for the planet?

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The video series will be embedded in our courses here at the Centre for Holding Space. If you want to be in conversations about it, join us for How to Hold Space – Foundation Program.