The Language of Love / Strategies & Needs
🌀 My Journey with NVC (Non Violent Communication) - Part Two
Following “The Language of Love (part one)”
Everything We Do Is a Strategy to Meet a Need
It was the simplest, and the most astounding realization of my life.
And yet, how could it be otherwise?
Who would do anything that isn’t meant to meet a need? That would make no sense. Even the most altruistic gesture serves something deeply personal: the need of contribute, to connect, to love. And strangely, even the destructive habit are still an attempt to meet a need.
Every action, every word, every silence is a strategy.
Because every human, in every moment, is doing the best they can to be happy. Even when it’s clumsy, childish, unconscious, or destructive, we are doing our best. And that I can profoundly relate to.
Criticizing may be an attempt to get more clarity.
Shutting down a reach for safety.
Pride may just want to be seen.
Anger, a form of protection.
What we see is the strategy. And while the strategy may be challenging (especially when imposed on others) it rest on something universal: a need that longs to be honored. Most likely a need we share.
This principle has changed how I see people. And how I see myself.
From a place of empathy, no longer judging, I can ask:
What is this person trying to protect? Trying to achieve?
What are they reaching for?
What longing is underneath that strategy, (even when the strategy is a poor choice)?
And that includes me.
When my inner voice gets loud, what am I needing?
When it disappears, what am I protecting?
When I speak, am I trying to connect or am I afraid to be alone?
Through strategies, the behavior become the shell. But if I pause and listen, I begin to hear the root. I move from surface level to core. I shift from reaction to relation.
When I hold onto strategies, I defend positions. It is contraction.
When search the needs underneath, I open to possibilities. It is expansion.
This is the core magic of NVC: it changes the way we relate with conflict.
I become open, not defensive. Curious instead of controlling.
And behind every strategy, lies something sacred:
A longing to be safe. To be free. To be loved. To belong. To matter.
And when I see that, a new path opens.
Conflict Only Arises From Our Strategies
And here comes the next layer.
Conflict arise between strategies. Needs never conflict.
My need for safety does not threaten your need for safety. While my strategy for safety might, especially if it ignores your needs.
Conflict get stuck when one side believe there is only one way to get their needs met, and that someone else’s strategy is in the way. Now we have opposition. Now we have conflict. And tension (in the body).
Nothing that says both side can’t be safe, loved and free. There is not true opposition. Only mis-understanding. Mis-communication. Because in the noise of our own strategies, we can no longer hear the other.
How many war have been declared by two sides who both wanted to be safe?
How many relationship broken while bth partner longed for love but got trapped in strategies that hurt?
We confuse why we do things with how to do it. When conflict arises, tension builds, options narrows, creativity vanishes. We become reactive, defensive. Not a fertile place for creativity.
When we empathize, listen and let the charge dissolve, something else becomes available: a strategy that meets the needs of both. Not “either/or” but “yes, and…”
Attachments Makes an Abundant World Scarce
The shadow side of strategy is our attachment to it.
Defending strategies become a personal issue, entangled with ego, self worth and identity. I want to be right. I want others to agree my strategy is the best. It is a win-lose scenario. Dualistic and scarce.
The confusion between needs and strategies is the engine of all conflicts, even the inner ones.
Part of me want to relax and have a drink, another part wants to be healthy and stay sober. Both needs are valid, relaxation and health. A shared strategy is possible, if the attachment dissolves.
Without the attachment, there is an infinite ways to meet both needs. That is abundance.
Scarcity is the story we tell ourselves when we forgot the infinite ways our needs can be met.
New strategies arise, collaboratively, without compromise, through connection. Like team work. When we quiet the screaming voice inside, we we have space to listen, something else emerges.
This is the alchemy of NVC.
This is the alchemy of empathy.
What We Really Want
We spend our lives in strategies. Seeking titles, income, partners, homes, cars… Yet what we truly want is recognition. Safety. Connection. Freedom.
These are needs to be met. Not strategies to pursue.
So if I get a job (a strategy for income, hence freedom), but feel trapped working all the time: is my strategy working?
If I seek a partner for connection but stay in a relationship with someone who remains a stranger: is my strategy working?
We don’t want strategies.
We want our needs met.
This changed everything for me.
It softened the way I speak and sharpened the way I listen.
Behind every behavior I can ask:
What is the real longing here?
And when someone is attached to a strategy, I focus on what they actually need.
That’s what brings us together: the desire to be happy. To feel safe, loved, and free. And we can achieve that together, and not against each other.
Even when a flawed strategy is the best someone can come up with, I can help imagine better ones.
Ones that honor what really matters.
Language As the Architecture of Consciousness
Language mirrors consciousness.
But we can reverse engineer and use language to reshape consciousness.
NVC offer two gifts:
For those who’ve already touched the limits of our current language, it is a way to embody a new consciousness more harmoniously. This is Integration.
And for those not yet there, it offers a path. A way to speak as if we are already whole, until we remember that we are.
This is what makes NVC so radical.
It isn’t just a better communication tool. It’s a different operating system.
One that moves us:
from control to collaboration,
from blame to understanding,
from separation to connection.
And as such, I believe NVC is the language of the new conscious paradigm.
Because in a world built on fear, NVC invites us back into trust.
To a life, and a planet, where everyone’s needs matter.
The Magic Of Being Heard
And the most unexpected magic of NVC?
When both parties in a conflict feel heard, something new appears.
A path that wasn’t visible before. A third way. A shared solution.
This is pure tantra.
The transcendence of duality.
Not fixing a problem, but visioning a future together.
Conflict increases charge. Duality. Binary thinking.
Empathic listening dissolves it.
And suddenly, creativity returns.
There are no sides.
Just two expressions of the same consciousness.
When the charge of conflict hides the way,
The energy of empathy reveals a new path.
NVC doesn’t just end conflict.
It alchemizes it, into connection, creativity, collaboration.
And I think this part deserves a part 3 “The Language of Love / A practice”
NVC Transformed Me More Than Any Other Practice
I first read Marshall Rosenberg’s “NVC the language of Life” in 2007 during a yoga training. Like most people, I learned the basics:
Describe the facts,
Express the feeling,
Identify the needs,
Make a request (not a demand).
But it didn’t go much deeper.
Ten years later, someone asked me, "Have you read this book?" - “yes” I answered casually. The same person brought it up again a month later. This time, I paid attention. I read it again, and it was a revelation!
I realized I hadn’t been ready the first time. I had read the book with my mind, but the second time, it touched me differently. Much deeper. It felt like a relief, like the person who had written it could understand me.
Be warned, this is a common scenario. The book is a transmission. And sometimes, transmissions only land when we’re ready to receive them.
My invitation is to do an intensive training offered by the Center for NVC. You ‘ll find them here. It was one of the most profound experience in self-development I have ever experienced.
And NVC, like all transmission, is best taught through example and experience.
🌀 This post is part of the “Change Your Story Companion Workshop” — a 12-week journey to rewrite your inner narrative and transform your life.
PS: “Change Your Story, Change The World” is a storytelling endeavor that looks deeply into the psyche that creates the stories we live by—with the intention to help us shape better stories, both personally and collectively.
Because the stories we tell are not just stories—they are the reality we live.