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Old emotional hurts and pains can easily erupt when you’re in the throes of conflict – even if you’re the mediator. Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could avoid all of that, and instead create more peace and happiness for yourself, your family, your co-workers and your community?

When you attempt to make a request what limiting beliefs come up? See if you recognize any from this list. Then compassionately observe your body sensations, impulses, feelings, needs, memories, energy, and images. In making the request ensure your request is connected to your needs, is doable, what you want, and not attached to them saying yes.

We can see anger as an alarm or signal that can inform us that unmet needs require attention, or that we hold judgements. We can shift our own anger in several healthy ways: get present, identify the stimulus and any judgements or unmet needs, look for ways to meet our needs, make requests that support our needs, express our needs to ourselves and appropriate others, and more.

One way of simplifying decision-making in relationships is clarity about the level of contact and connection you want with the people you interact with. This means knowing what you want and don’t want to share, the kinds of activities you do and don’t do together, how often, etc. This can help you chose how to best support your needs in that context, and help you to remember to set life-serving boundaries when you need them.

Trainer Tip: We feel our freedom when we are willing to look at others’ needs and our own, evaluate all of them and work toward valuing everyone’s needs. Take the time to demonstrate that you value everyone’s needs as much as your own today.

We can ask for what we want but if we repeatedly don’t get it from one source, it's our responsibility to find a new way to get it. We don’t honor our relationships when we insist that people who are unavailable or unwilling to support us meet our needs. Read on for related a parable about a woman persistently asking to get milk from a hardware store.

In this interactive video, Susan Skye helps you unlearn existing, negative associations with the term "needs" to instead build a new association grounded in your natural state of compassion.

Trainer Tip: When they say "no", acknowledge what people are saying "yes" to. From there, you persist towards a resolution that values both party's needs, without demand. Persisting is when we try to meet needs by continuing to connect with another. Demanding is when we insist someone do something, or else face negative repercussions. Showing care and willingness to work with people can help them to want to collaborate and resolve conflict.

Use this exercise to stay in dialogue and connect to needs while facing a “no”. Identify a situation where you have low confidence that you'll get your needs met, and it'll be hard hearing a “no” to your request. Explore your response to the “no” by working with feelings, needs, request and alternate strategies. Thus you can work towards meeting your needs while also releasing the idea that your needs “have to” be met.