Communication is at the heart of any good relationship. Sharing our thoughts and needs and listening to those of others is critical for forming close relationships and for making us feel valued and understood. Good communication is of course two-way - it involves one person expressing what they have to say and the other person listening. It sounds simple but relationship difficulties are often caused by poor communication. Either we find it hard to share clearly what our needs are or we fail to hear those of the person we are communicating with.

We all share some common needs, for example to be treated respectfully, to belong, to experience joy and to feel safe. If we can get a clearer understanding of the needs driving our own and other people's behaviour, we have a much better chance of being able to have richer, deeper and more positive relationships.

This sort of understanding is important whether we are communicating good things, making a request or explaining why something is bothering us. If we're angry with someone, our anger is because we have some important underlying needs that have not been met. If we don't explain our needs that person may misinterpret why we are angry and is more likely to get angry or upset in return. This can lead to a spiral of misunderstanding.

If instead we recognise our needs and those of others, we have the opportunity to connect with what is underneath the ways people act. We also have the best chance of having our own needs met if we are able to express clearly what these are. It's about giving and inviting empathy and about being open and honest.

Where to start?

An effective approach to help communicate needs is using Nonviolent Communication (NVC). The technique was created by psychologist Dr. Marshall Rosenberg and it helps deepen our connections with others by building respect, empathy and understanding. The NVC approach is based on the principles of nonviolence and compassion. It has been used to build relationships and resolve conflicts across the world. Why not give it a try?

The starting point for NVC is that we are compassionate by nature. It assumes we all share the same, basic human needs and that each of our actions or behaviours is a strategy to meet one or more of these needs.

Many of the difficulties in relationships come from us not explaining clearly what our needs are or from someone feeling that their needs are not being met. NVC provides a simple framework to enable us to identify and communicate what our needs are in each of these situations.

Feelings and emotions are triggered in response to our underlying needs. To help us understand our feelings we look underneath them to our needs or values. A key point in NVC is that as individuals we take responsibility for our own feelings. Other people can trigger our feelings, but the choice is ours about how we respond. Just being more aware that needs underlie emotional reactions in others and ourselves can help us to communicate better.

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