Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Refining concerns / needs

[Cheryl Charis-Graves (ccharis]

On 7/20/03 8:17 AM, "Sharon Villines" <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> wrote:
 
> Many people don¹t know their basic needs/concerns until they get into a
> process. It's the back and forth that brings them out and helps us define
> how we feel. Unless someone has already dealt with a particular situation
> before, they won't have worked this out yet. And as the situation changes,
> their needs/concerns/feelings will change.
> 
> Needs/concerns/feelings are fluid. They don't distill.

Actually, I find that feelings and concerns may be fluid, but core needs are
pretty consistent. For me, a core need is an issue or category of concern
that shows up in an individual's life again and again. Here is where I find
NVC to be most helpful.

Feelings and concerns usually arise out of core needs. So it is helpful to
an individual to identify their core needs. Often, what feels like raging
emotion is a reaction to a core need that is not being met. Addressing the
core need ? not necessarily the feeling ? resolves the concern more
effectively than trying to understand and assuage the feeling.

I am not that concerned with safety. It is not a core issue in my life. My
core needs are more in the realm of autonomy, integrity, and spiritual
communion. These are the same needs I have been working with my entire life.
How I understand them has changed. Resolving my core family issues has
helped tremendously. For example, I no longer experience depression. It
wasn't a chemical imbalance or an inherited familial pattern (for me). It
was a chronic pattern of unmet needs.

Since safety is not a core issue for me, I don't even notice that the lights
in the parking area are out until someone expresses their need for safety. I
used to try to resolve conflict at the feeling level, but I don't anymore.
It's too temporary as a solution. I try to understand the underlying need,
and I find it works out much better for all concerned. There are so many
more creative solutions available when one is addressing needs as compared
to feelings.

So I don't get worked up over an "urgent" demand on behalf of "everyone's
concern" for an overhead light on the street parking that will cost
thousands of dollars. I start asking questions that will help me understand
the need. Then we brainstorm ideas about how to address the need.

By the way, I believe that our present government acts primarily out of
their core need for "safety and security" ? which does not intersect well
with the core need of most Arabic countries for "honor and respect."

All just my point of view ...

Cheryl

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