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Trainer tip: When we focus on needs further possibilities are more likely to open up. When we focus on a particular strategy, our world can feel scarce and conflicts can arise. Resolution comes when we value everyone’s needs and seek mutually satisfying solutions. We can ask for support towards this outcome.

In the face of needs that are still hungry to be satisfied, we can expand our view, plus generate ideas and creativity that can find new paths forward.  Try these tips to transform our complaint into commitment for a change in strategy that works with needs...

In this book excerpt, Kathleen and Jared offer a path to reach deeper clarity, distinguishing between universal needs and strategies.

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.

Listen to Miki discuss two strategies for bringing NVC into the workplace in ways most likely to be well received. First Miki explains why it's best to focus more on needs than feelings in business environments. Second, she talks about unpacking needs into phrases as a way of enhancing workplace connection.

Trainer Tip: Mary explains how Nonviolent Communication, a process that distinguishes needs from strategies is also itself, a strategy.

This sheet lists and describes 13 life serving strategies, such as: Time out, disengage, honesty check, and engaging in a working recovery plan. Read on for more.

Trainer Tip: Find your deepest need. Then notice when you do things, or have done things, that keep you from meeting your most important need. And then take conscious action that is in alignment with the need you want to meet.

Trainer Tip: What do you value the most? Take a look at your actions and notice the values that your actions demonstrate (not what you want them to show, but what they do show), and see if they are in alignment.   Where there is a gap take steps to create actions that are in alignment with your values.

Confidence, flexibility, creativity and equanimity may become more possible when you would like someone to meet a particular need, can trust that you can meet that need with someone else, and can accept a “no” to your requests. You can allow grief or disappointment to arise, and naturally turn towards a relationship in which those needs can be met. In some cases this may lead to the dissolution of a partnership or friendship.

Certified CNVC Trainer Roxy Manning, Phd, shares three steps on how to reflect on what needs are being served when deciding to implement a strategy.

Emotional regulation is the consistent capacity to fully experience one’s feelings, particularly when they are intense and/or painful. Here are 36 practices that help with emotional regulation that can be done alone or with others. Read on for more.

Follow worry to the underlying universal need and discern wise action. To get there, we can try out prayer, wishes, savoring the need, or compassionate witnessing. If you notice and name the aspects of worry continuously, the compassionate witnessing practice will interrupt the habitual spinning of worry-filled stories. There are at least six things you can witness with curiosity. Read on for more.

Making decisions from overwhelm can be costly for you and others. Instead, to get distance name overwhelm as it comes. Apply self-compassion. Be suspicious of your impulse to withdraw. Find ways to meet your needs. Tell others about your overwhelm. This may allow more support, connection and trust-building. Plan what to do to meet your needs next time you're overwhelmed. Tweak your plan.

Misunderstandings can be painful. We can easily avoid this by checking what the other person understood from what we said, and ask the other person to do the same. Doing this is especially important when it comes to planning, shared decision-making, and when emotions are strong. Also, the more someone knows you, the more they think they already know what you mean -- which can get in the way of really hearing you. Here are a variety of ways to approach this simple strategy.

One of the premises in NVC is that behind all behavior and expressions are Universal Human Needs as the deeper motivators. And one of the key distinctions in NVC is that between Needs and Strategies. Try Alan Seid's exercise called  "Peeling the Layers of the Onion, " a process for uncovering these needs — the deeper motivations — that underlie words and behaviors we may find disturbing or puzzling.

Eric Bowers explains how needs and strategies correlate to different brain hemispheres, and how relaxing into our needs opens us to greater possibilities.