Communication Basics ~ Universal Human Needs vs. Strategies to Meet Those Needs

One of the most essential pieces of the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) puzzle is having a clear understanding of what needs are and tracking on needs as a key way of communicating with each other and making agreements, large and small.  Also essential is to be able to differentiate the needs from the wide variety of strategies we might choose to have them met.  The capacity to understand and weave this into your communication with others, creates relationships that are abundant with freedom to choose how to contribute to each other’s lives in meaningful ways that are actually, dare I say fun.  Contrasted with the ongoing despair and disappointment of clinging to strategies and demands of each other that are not fun.

One way you might think of relationships is that successful relationships rely on the capacity to compromise and as you can read here.  I think that story is the old story.  It leads us down a path of needs not being met and invites resignation and resentment.  Yet somehow that is the advice that many couples (or families) get when talking with their therapist.  Get good at compromising.  I have a different story, yet it takes a wee bit of learning something new. 

It can take quite a bit of practice to understand the difference between needs and strategies to meet the needs well.  It requires even more practice to remember the difference when conversation and/or life gets challenging.  It requires even more practice to track on needs in every moment (yes, every moment) of every day. 

What are needs?  They are abstract nouns.  An experience of the world that serves your well-being.  Our culture suggests that having needs has the negative connotation of being needy.  We are needy!  Let’s begin to celebrate this with each other, rather than pretend it isn’t true.   Just like the tree needs water and sunshine to not only thrive, but to survive, humans’ needs are the same.  All human needs are universal, meaning you and I have the same needs.  What might be different is to what degree the needs are met well for each individual.

We might all agree that air is a need.  Why?  Because of time.  We can very easily witness a person who is thriving have air taken away.  Almost instantly they begin to suffer, then suffer greatly, then perish.  It’s as simple as that.  It’s the same with all the other needs on this list.  Don’t be tempted to convince yourself or others that your needs and their needs are any less important as air.  The simple difference is the amount of time that one suffers before they perish, so it is challenging to believe that it is, indeed, a need.  Something that our survival (or at least good health) requires.  When a variety of needs are consistently unmet, we begin to suffer, then suffer greatly –emotionally and physically both.

What are strategies to meet needs?  These are the things we want to do to create a situation where are needs are met.  For example:  If I am looking for a sense of connection, I might call a friend or my sister and have a catch-up call, or go to lunch or tea together.  These strategies will lead to more connection in my life.  Perhaps I will ask a fellow gardener to go with me to an arboretum or a garden store which will not only will my connection needs be met, so will I have an experience of shared reality, fun, joy, inspiration, good health, etc. If I choose to take someone who isn’t interested in gardening to a garden center (who wants to hurry up and get out of there), it might be described as a ‘tragic’ strategy to meet my needs for connection and all the others. 

There is where we get confused:  We think that someone doing something for us is a need.  It is not.  It is just one way we might meet that need.  A strategy.  I have a need for kindness or compassion.  I can request (or more often, demand) that someone speak to me in a particular way to meet that need.  It is one way to meet that need, yes.  There are so many more ways.  That is the invitation that Nonviolent Communication (NVC) offers us in the distinction.  Remembering that we can generate the need by offering kindness and compassion in any situation when someone is struggling.  Maybe make an offer to make breakfast, or grab a tea, or simply listen with an empathetic ear, when someone is in distress.  Another way to meet our need for kindness and compassion, is to take a break from the uncomfortable situation and call someone else and ask for support.

The idea that is that we hold on tightly to the needs being met, while remaining or becoming quite creative and even celebrating all the diverse strategies we come up with to meet them.  Of course, remembering that needs and the strategies to meet them are actually quite different even though we regularly confuse them.  I have a need for care and to matter.  I don’t have a need for you to care about me.  Any person doing anything is a strategy.  I may want you to care about me.  Very much.  [In fact, this is true for me.  I want my partner to care about me.  Yet he isn’t required to.  If he doesn’t, then it is up to me to find a better strategy to meet that need.  Possibly he isn’t the best partner for me?  As sad and distraught as I might be about that, it is truly up to me to track on needs and choose wisely, rather than demand over and over that my partner care when he simply doesn’t.  If he doesn’t, my need for care is not diminished in any way.  My job will be to surround myself with people who do care.  This is the gift and challenge of NVC.  Personal responsibility for our own happiness.  This is a bit deeper than the simple lesson on what needs are and what strategies are, yet it is in some ways the whole point of the lesson.]   We get stuck on this person or that person doing this one thing in order for me to be happy.  This is a recipe for resignation and resentment.  A relationship filled with demands and shoulds, giving our power away to have our needs met –or more likely never having our needs met.

Because this way of considering our happiness is wildly different than most of us have been taught, it takes quite a bit of practice to track on needs rather than getting stuck in and focused on one and only one strategy for me to be happy.  It puts the burden of my happiness onto someone else’s shoulders which is quite unpleasant for them.

The work here, after we become crystal clear that needs are quite different than strategies to meet those needs is twofold:  1.  Remembering to track on needs, over and over, moment by moment.  2.  That everyone’s needs matter equally.  Not just yours.  Remember to consider what the needs are someone else are as you navigate your relationship with one another.  This is essential for happy and healthy relationships.  It makes negotiating time together and agreements easy.  Releasing our certainty that we can’t be happy unless my partner does this or that, or my mom does this or that requires commitment to the work at hand.

All this might finally make sense.  My experience is that in real life it takes quite a bit of practice to remember these things and implement tracking on needs and creative requests and offers to meet them.  So please do it. 

Try this practice:  Consider a situation that you are in where you are feeling a bit distressed or unhappy.  Write down the needs that you are longing for.  Then for each need, write a list of 5 or 6 strategies you think might meet the needs (whether or not you think you would choose them).  This will help you experience the abundance of life when you are connected to all the strategies that are available to meet needs.  If you want more support in this practice, send me an email and I will send you a worksheet to practice with.