NVC Resources on Needs

Ask the Trainer: "I've been feeling frustrated and angry quite a bit lately over very simple things. Can you help me get to the root of my hidden needs?"

Ask the Trainer: Can all needs be met when illness limits the capacity of one person to meet the needs of her partner?

Trainer Tip: Sometimes the best way to get our need me is to first connect with the needs of another.

This exercise will help you resolve situations in which you have two needs which seem to be in conflict with each other, transforming inner conflict into peace.

Listen to this audio to learn the value of focusing on needs in an NVC model, either for the first time or as a refresher course. Living from a needs-consciousness creates abundance, clarity and choice. Using three examples from participants, Mary guides the group towards identifying and then connecting with the needs of both parties involved in each situation. It becomes clear very quickly...

In this interactive video, Susan Skye helps you unlearn existing, negative associations with the term "needs" to instead build a new association grounded in your natural state of compassion.

Listen to John answer an NVC Library member's question about what we can do when we habitually place other's needs ahead our own. Healing and change can be reached through compassionate self-connection, needs awareness, mourning and mindfulness.

Using her own and participants' examples, Inbal illuminates parents on where they might be struggling with connecting to their children's needs, especially in situations where the children are responding to the parent's request.

Inbal clarifies the difference between needs and strategies, and why the distinction is important in our parenting role. She offers two questions to ask yourself if you're not certain whether something is a need or strategy.

What are the qualities you value in your relationships? Mary teaches the NVC concept of needs to a group of people new to NVC, using a clever method she learned from Holly Eckert, a CNVC Certified Trainer in Seattle, Washington, USA.

NVC practice is based on several key assumptions and intentions. When we live based on these assumptions and intentions, self-connection and connection with others become increasingly possible and easy, helping us contribute to a world where everyone’s needs are attended to peacefully.

There's the real need. And then there's the privilege that’s offered as a substitute for it. Privilege substitutes support the existing structure of society. It can look to us as if giving up the privilege would amount to giving up everything -- if we don't believe the real needs can even be experienced. If we connected directly to the needs, we could become subversive, agents of change.

Trainer Tip: Knowing the difference between what we need and what we want someone else to do about that need can have a profound impact on our relationships and our happiness.

Mary explains the value of expressing ourselves honestly. Watch as Mary uses the 4-step Nonviolent Communication process to express needs clearly, honestly and compassionately. She follows with concrete examples to help you anchor your learning process to deepen your authenticity and honest expression skills.

Print-and-cut these 71 needs cards for one-on-one, partner or group activities, to help support the pratice of empathy. Includes nine blank cards for you to customize.

What is self-empathy? Mary Mackenzie leads you on an exploration of self-empathy through an exercise that will show you how you can easily connect more deeply with your needs.

Often when someone else does something we don't like, it's easy to blame the other person. After all, we have all been trained to focus on fault when needs are not met. What can we do to shift that pattern?

Have you been nice? Well then you must be enjoying the reward: depression, intermittent explosiveness, job meaninglessness, ambiguous anxiety, low resentment and subtle self hate. The antidotes: honesty, passion and compassion.

Ask the Trainer: “I would love some clarity about the NVC perspective on the cause of our feelings. It seems to me that my needs may be met or not, but the cause of my painful feelings is my story around the situation.”

John Cunningham provides support to deepen your understanding and practice of NVC, including a sketch of the participatory and onlooker modes of consciousness, lists of feelings, needs and sample dialogues.