My own weekly silent protest of the war in Afghanistan was cancelled last Friday due to rain. Instead of standing on my downtown Santa Barbara street corner, I went to a conflict management workshop based on the principles of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).

NVC postulates that all attacks, complaints, and criticisms stem from an unmet need. All humans share common needs. Therefore, when we are criticized or attacked, if we can identify and articulate the underlying need in our attacker, we have an opportunity to help him or her to feel heard and understood—which is a version of feeling valued—which can defuse the conflict. Recognizing that we share common needs can also build empathy between us.

Simple as it sounds, it takes practice to develop skill as a nonviolent communicator. When we’re criticized or attacked—especially if the attack seems unfair—the automatic response is to defend ourselves. It takes practice not to react to the content of the criticism, but to listen instead for the unmet need underneath. And the more emotionally tied we are to the issue that seems to be the subject of the attack, the more difficult it is.

For example, in the hypothetical case of a woman complaining to her partner that he forgot to put down the toilet seat, it’s relatively easy for me to speculate that the woman might have an underlying need for order, or beauty, or cleanliness, or to keep the dog from drinking out of the toilet bowl. It’s easy because this issue has no emotional charge for me. I don’t care what position the toilet seat is in when I enter a bathroom. If it’s not to my liking I’ll change it.

Let’s say I’m the one who leaves the seat up, however, and it bothers my partner. If he criticizes or attacks me over it, I’m probably going to attack back. Defending ourselves is the habitual response.

But why should I attack? I already said I’m not that attached to the position of the toilet seat. Why don’t I just say “Sorry,” and put the toilet seat down

Ahh, but I am attached to being treated fairly by my partner. If I feel that he is criticizing me unfairly, or over something petty, I’ll feel the need to defend myself. Suddenly a conflict over toilet seats has escalated to a battle over unmet needs for order, beauty, cleanliness, dog welfare, and JUSTICE! How can we ever hope for peace in the Middle East?

In a word: Practice.

It turns out that the early identification and articulation of our own unmet needs is the first step in preventing, or reducing, future conflicts. Obviously, people prefer to hear requests over character assassinations. By making requests, rather than attacking someone’s character, we not only have a much better chance of getting our needs met, we’ll also do so with less conflict.

But I discovered at the workshop that I’m not very good at identifying my own underlying needs. Admitting a need implies vulnerability, and who wants to admit that? If I’ve got a need, I’ll take care of it myself, thank you. You don’t need to concern yourself with it, or even know about it.

But what’s wrong with articulating needs for fairness, justice, harmony, peace, or environmental sustainability? If I don’t, all I can do is get into an argument when I encounter people who think we should “kill all Muslims,” or “eradicate wolves,” or that “global warming is a hoax.” Worse, even if I argue, my heart shuts down. It closes up around the pain it feels that others don’t care about what I care deeply about. So I avoid having even potentially controversial conversations, because I don’t want to feel estranged from the people I’m in conversation with.

Clearly, the first thing I need to practice is identifying and admitting my own needs. And here’s a not very flattering thing I immediately discovered. Admitting vulnerability equalizes a relationship. If I’m constantly anticipating your needs, yet not even admitting to you that I have any, I’m holding myself superior to you. I’m not letting you in. I’m not admitting human frailty.

Plus, if I’m invulnerable, you can’t hurt me and I don’t have to take your complaints, criticisms, or needs seriously. Isn’t that the stance the United States has taken towards the world? We’re the only remaining Superpower. You can’t hurt us; we’ll obliterate you. We’ll bomb you back to the Stone Age. We’ll reduce you to rubble. We’ll take what we need and grind you to dust.

In the face of that kind of attack—that kind of inequality—can nonviolent communication even work? Imagine the Afghans—who were reduced to rubble even before we got there—saying to us something along the lines of, “I’m guessing that you feel pretty threatened by terrorism and that your needs for security aren’t being met. You’re probably also worried about the fact that you’re running out of oil and don’t know how you’re going to sustain economic growth without it. I imagine the world seems out of control right now, and you don’t know how you’re going to continue to fulfill the expectations of your people.”

Now imagine U.S. policymakers laughing. We consider ourselves above the sympathy of the Afghans. They’re not our equals. We have all the power.

Perhaps that’s why wars have persisted. Wars inflict pain on both sides until they’re ready to come to the table and admit their underlying needs and how they might be met. Isn’t that what 9/11 did? 9/11 made us feel pain; made us feel vulnerable. Before that, we didn’t take the needs of the Arab world very seriously. Now we do—seriously enough to spend 40% of our national budget on defense. But still, no one is getting their underlying needs met. We’re no more secure, just a lot more in debt. Certainly the Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, and Iranians are less secure, and hundreds of thousands of them are dead.

We—the American people—haven’t owned up to our underlying needs, nor the needs of the Afghan people that we share. We haven’t acknowledged the Afghans as equals. We haven’t tried articulating our needs in the form of a request. We haven’t listened to the underlying unmet needs the Afghan people might whisper to us. We’re operating out of, what Nonviolent Communication calls “our jackal minds.” We’re threatened, we attack, people perish, hatreds continue.

We desperately need to practice admitting our shared needs: for peace, security, shared resources, dignity, equality, mutual respect.