Marshall proposes an important exercise to build your needs literacy.
See a textual summary below.
Develop Needs Literacy - Bedürfnisbewusstsein entwickeln - Marshall Rosenberg
If you wish to build your needs literacy, stop the automatic flow of your inner life and do this awareness practice:
Step 1: Make three lists of jackals (blame, judgments, criticism, etc)
List 1: The jackals you use most frequently for yourself
List 2: The jackals you use most frequently for others
List 3: The jackals you most fear others might have of you
Step 2: Relate each judgment to a specific situation
Take a real situation.
If you don't have a real situation, take an imaginary situation.
Step 3: Connect to the need behind the jackal by asking yourself with presence, inner emptiness, compassion, curiosity:
Bring a need into your consciousness. Listen to your body - feel. Is their a response from your body? If there is no response from your body, bring another need into your consciousness. Your body will tell you when you found the need that is alive in you.