Picture the minutes after a small rupture: a message that goes unanswered, a colleague's tone that lands a little wrong, and the mind already drafting a verdict on what the other person must think of you. In a two-and-a-half-minute preview from The Krame Center's Mindfulness PLUS+ program, Module 3, "Community & Connection," the speaker Itzel Hayward offers a different place to stand in that moment. Drawing on the principles of nonviolent communication, she argues that every action, our own and other people's, is an attempt to meet a need; that those needs are what we all share; and that feeling connected to others begins with a practice she calls self-empathy, staying in contact with your own needs before you try to reach anyone else. The clip is short and does not walk through exercises, so what follows works through the ideas she lays out, why they hold together, and how a reader might test them in an ordinary day.
The preview opens with a claim that sounds almost too simple to carry a whole module: the foundation of nonviolent communication rests on the understanding that actions are attempts to meet needs. Hayward does not present this as a psychological theory to memorize. She presents it as a shared basis, a way that people can find common ground even when their behavior looks opposed. The phrase she uses is precise. Needs, she says, "create a shared basis for connection with others and with all of Life."
That sentence contains the whole arc of the clip. It moves from a principle (actions meet needs), to a precondition (you have to cultivate connection with yourself), to a practice (self-empathy), to a result (a richer sense of interconnectedness). Once you see that sequence, the rest of the preview reads as a single argument rather than a list of loosely related remarks.
Start with the reframe. Most of us evaluate other people's behavior by its surface: he interrupted me, she cancelled, they didn't invite me. The principle Hayward describes asks a different question. Behind the interruption, the cancellation, the exclusion, is an attempt to meet something, whether that is to be heard, to rest, to feel safe, or to be included. The behavior may be a poor strategy for meeting that need, and the need may be in conflict with someone else's, but the underlying movement is still an effort at care for life.
This matters because it changes the emotional temperature of the moment. If every action is an attempt to meet a need, then no one is simply an enemy. The question shifts from "what is wrong with this person?" to "what is this person reaching for?" The same logic applies to our own actions, which is where the clip turns next.
Hayward is specific about where connection starts. "Creating this connection requires cultivating a deep sense of internal connection to ourselves," she says, and within nonviolent communication, "this sense of connection with ourselves is known as self-empathy."
"This sense of connection with ourselves is known as self-empathy so we practice cultivating self empathy through maintaining connection with our own needs and this serves as a powerful foundation for interconnectedness and connecting with others."
Itzel Hayward, Mindfulness PLUS+ Module 3 clip, Community & Connection (at 0:41)
The word "practice" is doing real work here. Self-empathy is not a feeling that arrives on its own. It is a repeated act of turning attention inward and asking what needs are present now. In practice this often looks like pausing before reacting, naming the need that is active (rest, clarity, respect, support), and letting that naming soften the urge to blame. The sequence matters: you cannot reliably meet another person's needs, or perceive them accurately, while your own are unacknowledged and quietly steering the conversation.
There is a useful difference between self-empathy and self-criticism here. Criticism looks at what you did wrong. Self-empathy looks at what you were trying to get, which is a question that tends to produce more honesty and less shame. Hayward's framing suggests that this inward orientation is not a retreat from community. It is the groundwork for it.
Hayward gives a definition worth slowing down for. In nonviolent communication, she says, needs are "what's most alive in us in any given moment," which she glosses as "our core values our deepest human longings."
"What we mean by needs in non-violent communication is what's most alive in us in any given moment our core values our deepest human longings and because they are referring to these deep human longings they're needs that we all share we share all the same needs."
Itzel Hayward, Mindfulness PLUS+ Module 3 clip, Community & Connection (at 1:10)
The definition does two things at once. It makes needs personal and present, a live signal rather than an abstract checklist. And it makes them universal. The argument is that the things we most deeply long for are not the private property of any one person. This is the logical hinge of the whole clip: if needs are shared, then they are the most reliable place to find connection, because they are the one layer of experience that does not divide people into us and them.
Hayward distinguishes two groups of needs. The first is survival: "things like shelter nourishment connection." The second is less obvious and, in her telling, just as universal: "authenticity to be seen to be known to matter to be heard." That second list is where many people recognize themselves. Plenty of conflicts that look like arguments about dishes, schedules, or money are, underneath, struggles to be heard or to matter.
She also makes a careful qualification. We share these needs, she says, "to different degrees with different people," and even within ourselves the intensity shifts "from moment by moment." The sharing is not uniform, and it is not fixed. But the fact that it varies does not undermine the point. It is the variation that makes attention to needs useful, because it tells you where to look again.
The final segment of the preview brings the argument full circle. Shared needs, Hayward explains, "can be seen as an expression of our interconnectedness an expression of the deeply shared humanity and understanding." And then the practical claim: "naming and connecting with them helps to improve the relationship with the self along with our sense of interconnection with others."
"Naming and connecting with them helps to improve the relationship with the self along with our sense of interconnection with others."
Itzel Hayward, Mindfulness PLUS+ Module 3 clip, Community & Connection (at 2:07)
Notice that the sentence joins two improvements into one: the relationship with yourself and the sense of connection with others. Hayward is not describing a trade-off in which you must sacrifice your needs to be part of a community, nor one in which you must hold your own needs so tightly that others become obstacles. Naming a need is the act that serves both at once. It clarifies what you want, which makes you more honest with yourself, and it reveals that the same longing exists in the person across from you, which makes you less likely to treat them as opposed.
For readers who work in teams, live with family, or simply spend much of their week in conflict, this has concrete consequences. A request framed as a need ("I need some quiet after work to feel like myself") gives others something to connect with, where a demand or a complaint gives them something to defend against. The clip does not spell that contrast out, but it is the logic that runs underneath.
The preview is a starting point, and the full module is where the course presumably builds exercises and deeper material; the clip itself refers to "a list of some needs" that appears in the course section. Without relying on anything beyond what Hayward says, a reader can test the core idea in three steps.
- Notice the action without the verdict. When someone's behavior provokes you, identify the action plainly, then pause before deciding what it means about them.
- Ask what need the action might be reaching for. Hayward's framing invites curiosity about the longing beneath the behavior, whether yours or theirs.
- Name your own need first. Self-empathy comes before connection in her sequence. Say, silently or aloud, what is most alive in you right now before you try to speak to the other person.
None of this requires agreeing with every part of nonviolent communication, or any particular framework, to notice what it does. It slows the reflex to judge. It replaces accusation with a question. And it keeps your own experience in the room, which is often the first thing that disappears when we feel threatened.
The clip is brief, but its argument is complete: needs are the shared basis of human life; actions are attempts to meet them; self-empathy is the practice of staying in contact with your own needs; and naming those needs deepens both your relationship with yourself and your sense of connection with everyone else. If this resonates, the most useful next step is to bring it into one specific relationship this week and watch what changes when you pause to name the need before you respond. The full Mindfulness PLUS+ Module 3, "Community & Connection," from The Krame Center, is where Hayward's ideas are developed beyond the preview, including the list of needs she refers to in the clip.
