Thanks to the many stories and legends of a man named St. Valentine, this time of year brings with it a certain tradition we all know and love called Valentine’s Day.
This day is centered around the expression of love towards your significant other and is usually accompanied by the giving of treats such as chocolate or flowers. It’s also customary to take your spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend out on a date and spend time together.
However you may celebrate during this time of year, one thing is for sure – we all have a need to be loved.
No matter who you are or where you’ve come from, there’s a deep-rooted desire in the human heart to have and to give love.
Love is the greatest gift in all the earth.
Because of love, we have life.
Right now, everywhere you go, you’ll find decorations and advertisements centered around the idea that it’s important for you to take time out and ensure your significant other knows they are loved.
The ability for us to love and the need for us to be loved is, I’m sure, why Dr. Gary Chapman wrote his book, The 5 Love Languages.
In his book, he explains that each of us interpret love differently. In fact, we all speak love differently.
The breakdown is in 5 languages –
1- Quality Time
2- Gifts
3- Physical Touch
4- Words of Affirmation
5- Acts of Service
We each fall into one of these categories when it comes to both how we speak and receive love.
To summarize his book, although I highly recommend you read through it, in order for us to properly show love, we need to know what language others speak and to speak their language, not ours.
The book will walk you through explanations on how to determine which language you speak but he’s also created a quiz you can complete which will pinpoint your primary language.
I’ve always contended that the best way to know which way you interpret love is to take note of how you speak love.
Are you one who finds it easy to compliment people? Yours may be words of affirmation.
Are you one who performs kind deeds for others without them asking? Yours may be acts of service.
Maybe you enjoy it most when you are able to be with friends and family. Yours may be quality time.
Whichever one you speak, it’s important to understand that in yourself. It’s equally important for you to understand which language someone such as your spouse speaks.
If we don’t come to this understanding, we are in danger of essentially speaking a foreign language to someone that they don’t understand.
For example, if your love language is that of gifts, have you ever given a gift to someone for no reason and the look on their face doesn’t come close to matching the enthusiasm you have built up inside?
It’s probably because your love language is gifts and theirs isn’t.
See, it’s not only about what language we speak, it’s primarily about what language we interpret as love.
To you, it may just be washing the car because it’s in need of it, but to your spouse whose love language is Acts of Service, your telling her, I love you.
To you, it’s just a casual, “Your hair looks really nice today, I like it like that”, but to her you just said, “I love you.”
Unless both people in a relationship speak the exact same love language, it takes some conditioning for us to get to that place where we’re speaking not our own language, but the one that says “I love you” to them.
Also, I would like to point out that this is vitally important for us to implement in the world of parenting.
Children can form their love language by the age of 8 years old and we need to understand that if we are raising kids.
Scolding a child verbally for wrong behavior whose love language is Words of Affirmation hurts much worse than one whose is Quality Time if it’s not done properly.
As parents, our job is to form our children in many ways and emotionally is right up there with the most important ones.
You know as well as I do, there are too many examples of children who are subjected to horrible situations whether through parenting ignorance, neglect, or just plain evil.
It’s up to us to form their perception of true love correctly and we can start by speaking their language.
By modeling to them the appropriate way to give and receive love, we are forming good habits in them that will translate into healthy emotional adolescents and adults.
If you have not already, I encourage you to take the time to understand and begin practicing the art of speaking the proper love language to your children and your significant other.
If you’re ready to leave the “what if” behind in your relationships and begin speaking the right language in those relationships, you can do it today!
What do you think of the idea of ‘love languages’? Do you know yours?
Comment below and share!
