NVC Needs

Strategies are the ways we try to get what we want - needs are what we want it.  For example we may find that we become moody and recognise that we use this as a strategy to get others to support us or another example maybe that we suggest that friends go out to have dinner together as a strategy to get our need for connection and friendship met. If friends do not want to go out to cinema and turn us down we may feel abandoned and hurt, rejected and become resentful. If we understand that actually we are simply wanting to connect then we are more open to a variety of solutions that could possibly be suitable to others.

We want to try and get to a point that we understand our needs and can express them in the way that allows all parties to honour their own needs and act out of empathy and deep relationship to our needs. This is really important and impacts our relationships from the moment we are born and are in relationship with our parents and care givers.

Rather than having strategies to get what we want, which is not a bad thing, what else can be done and this is the quest of NVC.

Sharing our needs and not blaming others for them. Recognising that our our needs are our own connection so we we may want someone to do their room but they don’t want to. With NVC we recognise that our need is that the mice don’t eat the carpets harvesting the plates of food under the piles of clothes. That is our need and with NVC we learn how to share this need in a way that does not criminalise the other and supports us move into a position of recognising their needs too.

The room still needs doing but we find that letting go of outcome and being in touch with both sets of needs brings a connection from which a solution is more likely to meet both parties needs.

Miki Kashtan of NGL community says ‘If you want to have a simple way of knowing whether your want is a strategy or a need, you can use the acronym

PLATO: Person, Location, Action, Time, and Object.

If what you want includes any one of these, then you can be pretty sure you are still talking about a strategy and not the need.

The benefit of understanding our need and not needing to strategise to get the need met is the connection we have in being heard, considered, being met with empathy for ourselves and from others. Having the need met requires empathy and mutual respect in relationship.

If a need is not met then seek ways to have our needs met.

Sarah Peyton has been curious about needs and in her work has discovered how neuroscience has revealed how deeply our emotions and needs are connected. It is incredible work and very exciting to understand that as we connect to emotions and needs we are able to support ourselves and others in compassionate healing and living.

What an amazing world it would be if we all deepened our understanding of both of ourselves and of the relationships we are in, the needs of each other and connecting to our empathy.