奇创岛

From «Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life»

Build My Needs Portrait

You'll use the book's emotion-needs inventory to map the core needs most often overlooked in three areas of your life — family, work, and intimate relationships — and create your own needs checklist and emotional trigger map.

Final work

A "My Needs Portrait" document

Estimated time

1–2 hr

Submitted

…

Your final work

Purpose:By reading your emotional signals, you'll uncover the real needs hiding behind conflicts and hurt, build a full panoramic map of your own needs, and make it the starting point of genuine self-empathy.

Parts:

  • An emotion log for each of the three scenes (at least 2 entries each for family / work / intimate relationships)
  • The corresponding needs vocabulary from the book for each emotion (matched from the universal needs list: connection, autonomy, safety, meaning, celebration, etc.)
  • Your 5 most core needs and how they show up in your real life
  • Your habitual response patterns when needs go unmet (criticizing yourself / lashing out / silence and suppression, etc.)
  • A complete three-step self-empathy practice to help you reconnect with your needs

Use cases:

  • · Daily self-dialogue: quickly consult your needs map when emotions arise
  • · Relational communication: express needs — not judgments — to a partner, family member, or colleague
  • · Conflict debriefing: understand which unmet needs were at play for both yourself and the other person
  • · Personal growth: identify chronically suppressed core needs and reclaim the power to choose for yourself

Pick a topic

Pick the topic closest to you, or write a custom one when you submit.

Personal Life

Family / Parenting

Work / Projects

Communication & Relationships

Tools you'll use from the book

Feelings Vocabulary List

A word list for distinguishing 'feelings' (I feel sad) from 'thoughts disguised as feelings' (I feel ignored).

How to use it here:

Use the feelings vocabulary list to check what you've written about your emotions. Replace phrases like 'I feel like he...' or 'I feel treated...' with genuine body-based feeling words (e.g., tight, hollow, heavy) — this lays the groundwork for finding your needs.

Boundaries:

The feelings vocabulary list is only for identifying internal states. Don't use it to judge whether your emotions are 'correct' or 'appropriate.'

Universal Needs List

Rosenberg's compiled list of universal human needs, covering core categories such as connection, autonomy, safety, meaning, celebration, and creativity.

How to use it here:

Once you've identified a strong emotion, find the needs words in the universal needs list that fit best (you can choose more than one), then decide which one is the most core and most suppressed.

Boundaries:

Needs vocabulary is a tool, not a diagnostic label. Finding a need is the starting point, not the destination.

Feeling ↔ Need Bridge

The core tool from Chapter 5: the 'I feel X because I need Y' sentence structure, which directly connects an emotion to its underlying need.

How to use it here:

For each emotion entry, try completing 'I feel ___, because I need ___' until saying the sentence out loud gives you a chest-deep sense of 'yes, that's it.'

Boundaries:

The bridge sentence must not include 'because you...' — the moment 'you' appears, you've slipped from needs back into judgment.

Three-Step Self-Empathy

The core practice from Chapter 9, 'Loving Yourself': (1) observe what you're judging → (2) identify the feeling behind the judgment → (3) find the need behind the feeling, and offer yourself empathy instead of punishment.

How to use it here:

For each 'habitual response pattern' you've written (e.g., self-criticism, lashing out at others), run it through the three-step self-empathy practice and produce a gentler version of your internal dialogue.

Boundaries:

Self-empathy is not about justifying your behavior or avoiding responsibility. It means first connecting with your feelings and needs, then deciding what to do next.

Emotional Trigger Map

A personalized diagram tracing the chain: 'what situation → what emotion → what need → my usual response.'

How to use it here:

Collect at least 3 complete chains from different scenes, compare them to find core needs that recur across scenes, and mark which needs are 'most easily ignored' and which give you 'the most energy when met.'

Boundaries:

The map is a tool for self-understanding, not a label system that fixes you as 'just the way I am.'

Work rules

Your work MUST include

  • Cover at least 2 of the 3 scenes: family / work / intimate relationships
  • At least 5 specific emotion entries (written with real situational context, not vague statements like 'I'm often tired')
  • Each emotion must be linked to at least 1 needs word from the book
  • Identify at least 3 core needs that recur across multiple scenes
  • Include one complete three-step self-empathy practice example
  • Describe your habitual response pattern when needs go unmet (specific behaviors, not personality descriptions)
  • End with at least 1 sentence you can say to yourself the next time an emotion is triggered

Your work CANNOT just be

  • Don't just list needs vocabulary without linking it to real situations
  • Don't write 'I need others to be more considerate' — needs should be internal (e.g., 'connection,' 'being seen'), not demands placed on other people's behavior
  • Don't let the portrait become a critique or analysis of others (you are the main subject)
  • Don't let AI invent emotional experiences you have never actually had
  • Don't describe yourself with personality labels or pathological terms (e.g., 'I'm just too sensitive')

AI can help you here

Round 1: Help me choose a topic

When to use: You're unsure which scene or role to start from, or you don't know which topic is closest to your real struggles.

I'm working on the '{{route name}}' project using *{{book title}}*. Based on my situation, please help me choose the 1 most suitable topic from the list below and explain why.

My situation:
[Describe which relationship or scene triggers your emotions most often, or which aspect of your own needs you most want to explore.]

Available topics:
[Paste the topic list from the page.]

Please provide:
1. The most recommended topic
2. Why this topic fits my situation
3. What specific takeaways I'll get from completing it
4. What information I should prepare or recall before I begin

Yellow placeholders need you to fill in before using the AI.

AI can help you organize ideas, but cannot make final judgments for you. Don't let AI fabricate experiences, cases, or misleading content.

Round 2: Help me extract tools from the book

When to use: You've chosen a topic but aren't sure how to translate emotions into needs, or how to use the book's needs vocabulary to describe your feelings.

I'm working on '{{route name}}' from *{{book title}}*.

My chosen topic is:
{{topic}}

The emotional scene I've written so far is:
[Write the real situation and feeling you recalled — even if incomplete, that's fine.]

Please help me with the following:
1. Using the book's 'feeling ↔ need bridging' structure, check whether what I described is a feeling or a thought disguised as a feeling.
2. From *Nonviolent Communication*'s universal needs list, identify 3–5 needs most likely connected to my situation.
3. Help me complete the fill-in 'I feel ___, because I need ___,' as a reference for me to revise.
4. Tell me the most common pitfall when identifying needs (e.g., stating a need as a demand on someone else).

Note: Only help me clarify how to use the tools. I must supply my own real emotional experiences — please do not invent them for me.

Yellow placeholders need you to fill in before using the AI.

AI can help you organize ideas, but cannot make final judgments for you. Don't let AI fabricate experiences, cases, or misleading content.

Round 3: Help me review my work

When to use: You've finished a first draft and want to confirm it meets the requirements, or you want to know where you could go deeper.

I'm submitting my work for a Shufang Island project.

Book: *{{book title}}*
Route: {{route name}}
My topic: {{topic}}

My first draft:
{{first draft}}

Please review my work against the following criteria:
1. Are the emotional scenes specific and real (with situational context, not just vague feelings)?
2. Is the emotion → need bridging accurate (does any phrasing like 'I need him/you to...' appear)?
3. Are the core needs internal to me, rather than demands on others' behavior?
4. Is the three-step self-empathy practice complete (judgment → feeling → need → a word to myself)?
5. Am I consistently the main subject of the portrait (not analyzing others)?
6. Does any pathological label or personality descriptor replace a genuine needs description?
7. Is the work ready to submit?

Please provide:
- Overall assessment
- What's already working well
- What must be revised (if anything)
- Where I could go deeper
- Specific revision suggestions

Yellow placeholders need you to fill in before using the AI.

AI can help you organize ideas, but cannot make final judgments for you. Don't let AI fabricate experiences, cases, or misleading content.

Submit my work