What's Love Got To Do With It?
Since our need for connection (love and belonging) is the primary drive for humans,
I think that knowing about love languages is highly beneficial.
Gary Chapman discovered that humans have 5 Love Languages.
- Acts of Service
- Physical Touch
- Quality Time
- Dialect 1 - Quality Conversation
- Dialect 2 - Quality Activities
- Words of Affirmation
- Dialect 1 - Words of Praise (and Appreciation and Affection)
- Dialect 2 - Words of Encouragement (and Guidance)
- Gifts
Our primary love language is our native tongue.
It is how we naturally and most easily give and receive love.
We are born with it, and it may be different from the native (primary) love language of our parents, caregivers
and others around us.
When people speak different love languages to each other, it is like a person, who only knows Japanese,
is trying to speak to someone, who only knows Spanish.
If someone is speaking in a different love language than ours,
we likely will not even realize that they are expressing love.
Even if we do intellectually know that someone loves us,
we will not genuinely feel their love (on the deepest levels),
unless it is spoken in our love language.
A common hidden trauma from childhood, is that a child's caregivers did not speak their love language
because they had a different one.
In The 5 Love Languages of Children, written by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell, Gary says that
the focus of his love language books is on the kind of love that is essential for emotional health.
Every child has certain Basic Emotional Needs that must be met if the child is to be emotionally stable.
Among those emotional needs, the most basic is the need for love and affection,
the need to sense that the child belongs and is wanted.
Without the love that is essential to emotional health, the child will not develop normally
and will be emotionally and socially challenged.
Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty love tank.
The behavior is a misguided search for the love they did not feel -
seeking love in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.
Gary's Dream is that children will grow up filled with love so their energy can be channeled into learning
instead of into seeking love.
I believe that many children with empty love tanks grow up to be emotionally and socially challenged adults,
whose love tanks remain empty and who channel a lot of energy into seeking love, often in the wrong places and in unhealthy ways.
I like to think of the 5 Love Languages as 7 Love Dialects due to the different dialects within two of the love languages.
Quite often, if one of the dialects within these two love languages is strong for a person,
then the other one will be, too, just to a lesser extent.
But this is not true for everybody. Some people only feel love in one of the two dialects and not the other.
7 Love Dialects
- Service
(Assistance - what is truly helpful varies by individual and depends on what is needed most in the moment) - Touch
(varies by individual) - Conversation
(one-on-one Quality Time talking with someone - includes nonverbal communication - eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice, and body language) - Activities
(one-on-one Quality Time doing a fun activity that we enjoy with someone else, who is also enjoying it - the activity itself can include other people) - Praise, Appreciation & Verbal Affection
(Words - both written and spoken)
(E.G. Greeting Cards, Love Notes, Verbal Politeness/Good Manners) - Encouragement & Guidance
(Words - both written and spoken)
(a little goes a long way) - Presents & Presence
(Meaningful Gifts and Presence at Significant Life Events)
(The gift must display thoughtfulness, showing that the person was thinking about us, knows us, sees us, hears us, and understand us.)
(Both the packaging and the manner in which it is presented are as important as the gift itself.)
Discovering Our Love Dialect
Our primary love dialect is how we feel love the strongest.
(It is very common to have a close second and sometimes third.)
It is also where lack of love - any negativity or disconnection - hurts us the most.
That makes pain a huge clue as to what our primary love dialect is.
What feels the most painful or triggering to you?
- Someone not noticing that you need help, saying no to your request for help, or only begrudgingly helping you when asked?
- Negative physical touch?
- Lack of one-on-one quality time speaking with someone, who is listening attentively to you?
- Lack of quality time doing fun activities that you enjoy with someone special, who is also enjoying the activities?
- Criticism, put-downs, shaming, angry, or unloving words?
- Discouraging words or lack of guidance?
- Inappropriate gifts? (Ones that do not show that the person really knows and understands you)
Thoughtless gifts? (Ones that do not show that the person was giving you much thought)
Poorly wrapped or presented gifts? (The person did not take much care in wrapping or presenting the gift)
Losing a cherished gift?
Someone taking a gift back?
Someone showing up very late or not at all to an important/significant life event (or leaving too early)?
Speaking Other Love Dialects
There is no more powerful tool for repairing relationships, that I know of, than the 7 Love Dialects.
We can repair a damaged relationship by filling the love tank of the affected person.
We fill their love tank by using their primary love dialect.
We can discover the primary love dialect of another person by paying attention to how they show love.
Do they give lots of gifts, hugs or high fives, encouragement, praise or service?
Or notice what hurts or upsets them.
That is a big clue as to what their primary love dialect might be.
A good place to start making repairs is by trying to speak the primary love dialect of the other person for 3 days in a row each week.
Children need all the love dialects spoken to them on a regular basis, with extra doses of their primary dialect sprinkled in.
It is a good idea for each parent to have a date with each of their children once a week,
where they spend one-on-one time with each child separately, speaking the child's primary love dialect.
Adults generally feel loved if their top 1 or 2 love dialects are spoken on a regular basis.
Although it is very natural and easy to express love in our own primary love dialect, with practice,
we can become fluent in every love dialect.
Some of the other love dialects may be easy for us to use, and we may enjoy them, but we could take them or leave them.
Some of the other love dialects may not be difficult for us to use, but we just do not give them much, if any, thought.
We may find it extremely difficult, at first, to use our weakest love dialect.
If we want someone else to speak our love dialect, it is a good practice to fill their love tank first
(especially if we are the ones on a healing path, and they are not).
Once their love tank is full, they will naturally start to wonder what they can do for us.
Then we can start making some very specific requests to help them learn our love dialect.
The healing power of love dialects is immense, and the turnaround time can be amazingly quick.
The positive impacts often start to become visible within as little as 3 days (of consistent usage).
In very tough cases, it may take 6 months or more to begin to see any difference.