Thus anger can be valuable if we use it as an alarm clock to wake us up—to realize we have a need that isn’t being met and that we are thinking in a way that makes it unlikely to be met. To fully express anger requires full consciousness of our need. In addition, energy is required to get the need met.

Despite that, as soon as I express empathy toward one side, it is not unusual for the other side to immediately accuse me of favoritism. At this time, what’s called for is emergency first-aid empathy. This might sound like “So you’re really annoyed, and you need some assurance that you’re going to get your side on the table?”

to simply say what people are doing that we either like or don’t like. Next, we state how we feel when we observe this action: are we hurt, scared, joyful, amused, irritated? And thirdly, we say what needs of ours are connected to the feelings we have identified.

Sometimes we’d like to know the feelings that are stimulated by what we said, and the reasons for those feelings. We might request this by asking, “I would like you to tell me how you feel about what I just said, and your reasons for feeling as you do.”

I’d like change to be stimulated by a clear desire to enrich life for ourselves or for others rather than by destructive energies such as shame or guilt.

Equally problematic is the reverse situation—when people state their requests without first communicating the feelings and needs behind them.

Ernest Becker attributes depression to “cognitively arrested alternatives.”

It is the word should, as in “I should have known better” or “I shouldn’t have done that.” Most of the time when we use this word with ourselves, we resist learning, because should implies that there is no choice.

When people are upset, they often need empathy before they can hear what is being said to them.