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Love Languages

 

Lately I have been thinking a lot of about love languages  For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, there was a book written (called The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman) that details 5 different ways that people feel loved. 

 

The 5 ways are:

 Words of Affirmation (hearing support, compliments, etc)

Quality time

Physical Touch

Acts of service (someone doing something for you)

Receiving gifts

 

Now the book itself is rather outdated as far as some of the ideals it talks about, but the 5 love languages are pretty constant.  For me, my top two love languages are Words of Affirmation and Acts of Service.  These are the things that make me feel loved.  The rest are nice too of course. 

I bring this up because even people who know about these languages only tend to apply them to their intimate relationships.  The truth is, they can be applied to ALL relationships.  Now it might be hard to do without knowing what the other person’s language is, but it never hurts to try.  Even though receiving gifts is not one of my top languages, if a friend or family member said Hey, I was thinking about you and picked this up – I would feel loved. I would feel seen. If a friend/family member said You know, it seems like you’ve  been down lately, let’s spend some time together – I would, again, feel loved.  Why do we not put forth that kind of effort in our friendships?  I know I try to, or at least have TRIED to.   

When the pandemic started, I was fresh off of losing my parents. I was feeling pretty raw and just emotionally spent.  To top it off, the pandemic prevented me from being able to lean on my friends as much as I needed to.  I tried to let them know I was thinking about them though, to let them know that we are all suffering from this new lockdown, the new world we were thrown into.  Sometimes it was daily conversations, sometimes it was a gift left on their porch, a thinking-of-you card mailed to their house and even a fruit basket sent to them, a picture sent to them of something I thought they would like, just to let them know I was thinking about them.  I may have missed the mark on what their love languages were, but I wanted to make sure they knew they were important to me. 

So why don’t we think of these in terms of other people?  Friends have a love language. Family has a love language.  Teens and children have love languages too.  The next time you have a free moment, mail (or even email) a card to someone you love, send a text, pick some flowers and leave them on their porch, send them some fruit (or cheese, or jam or whatever foods you can send in the mail), go and help them do a chore or sit and have a socially distanced coffee/drink with them. Sometimes it is the little things that can be felt the most.

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