Communicating and Our Needs

On last month's teleclass, one of the things we discussed was ways to recognize the needs behind communication. We said that when there is negative communication or negative feelings around a conversation, we can first look to 2 major areas to try and make improvements. The first is unmet basic needs and the other is long held beliefs or issues that we have that creates a negative filter.
Unmet basic needs would be not enough sleep, hungry, etc. The other major area I think an example might be helpful. Maybe I believe that people who have lots of money are "jerks". Let's say I was at a class and speaking to someone I believed had lots of money. I might automatically assume he or she is not going to be nice to me. I might go into the conversation on the defense and angry without a word even being said.
Both of these episodes have occurred in my life recently (and oddly enough in the same building on different days). The later episode did happen to my husband. A conversation did not go well because of his beliefs and assumptions about the other person, who he did not even know. We did discuss later how his assumption may have created unnecessary negative feelings for both he and the other person.
The former episode happened to me just yesterday. I was tired from having taken care of my sick daughter for several days. A stranger made a request of me and I got very irritated. It was quite an innocuous comment but because I was tired I really reacted strongly to it, in a negative way. I did recognize that I wasn't behaving as I normally would, had I felt rested, and at least at the awareness enough to remove myself until I could calm down.
The lesson in both cases is that when you find yourself in those icky feelings in a conversation, you do have the power to stop it and ask yourself, "Do I have needs that can be met in order to help myself feel better?" or "What belief do I have that may be creating a negative filter?". Either one can cause us to not fully hear the other person.