When we understand the needs that motivate our own and others behavior, we have no enemies.

We're not taught to think in terms of needs. We don't make nice dead people when we're in touch with needs. Domination structures cannot maintain themselves when citizens are educated to be alive.

When we are depressed, our thinking blocks us from being aware of our needs, and then being able to take action to meet our needs.

Not getting our needs fulfilled is painful - but it's a sweet pain, not suffering, which is what comes from life-alienated thinking and interpretation.

We never really know what we want until after we get it. If after we get it, it makes life more miserable, we know that isn't what we wanted. If it makes our life wonderful, we know this is a strategy which will meet out need. That's why Paul Tillich, the theologian says we need to sin courageously. You ask for what you want, hoping to meet your needs. If you get it and it makes life worse, you learn that this isn't what I want.

Interpretations, criticisms, diagnoses, and judgments of others are actually alienated expressions of our unmet needs.

Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.