All you need is love

Love is important...duh.

Every person shows love and receives  love in a way unique to them. It is called your love language, things that you value and let you know you matter. There are 5 love languages  and everyone has them.

Love Languages
Gifts
Acts of Service
Quality Time
Words of Affirmation
Physical Touch

Everyone needs all 5 types of love, but we need some more than others. My love languages, on a scale of 1-12 are; quality time (10), touch and words tie for second (8). Acts of service is next (2)  and dead last is gifts (1).  I need time, touch, and words on a daily basis. I'm not saying I have to have hour long intense conversations every single day while holding someones hand. But small things like coffee with a friend, a hug, being excited for me (when I do something like get into Div school!), or tell me I've done a good job. That stuff makes me happy. When someone does affirm my gifts and talents, spends real quality time with me, or plays with my hair, I hold on to those things!  On the other hand, if someone blows me off or says something hurtful, that sticks with me too! In a powerful way.

The way you show love can be different from how you receive it. I can't find a test for that, you just have to know yourself. For me, the biggest way I show someone love is through service. I want to help, to take the stress off someone, to fix things. (This also makes me really protective of my friends and family.) The way I show love also varies depending on the person. I have a  friend who's love languages are the exact opposite of mine! So I make more of an effort to do gifts for her.

So where is all this coming from? Did I just decide to educate the world on love languages? no. All this came from a conversation I had yesterday with a friend. We were talking about love languages and how it effects a person emotionally and psychologically. There is so much material out there about how to show love and what happens when you receive your love language.   During our conversation, we came to the question "what happens when you don't get your love language?" "when you feel like you are being denied your love language?"

When you are lacking your love language, things start to fall apart. Plain and simple. It can throw your whole day off. If your love language is lacking for a long period of time, you can start to question who are you as a person! I can testify to that personally. A few years ago I was at a job that I felt like I just sucked at. I was already questioning my abilities. At first, I wasn't getting words of affirmation at all. So all I had were my own negative thoughts. Then as the job went on, I started to get a lot of negative comments, blame, and criticism. I think everyone goes through a period when they aren't receiving their love language and they have to seek it out. That is extremely hard to do! In that situation, I didn't seek it out. I just suffered through. And the negative effects it had lasted long after the job was over.

There isn't really much of a point to this. I have just been thinking about some other situations, and the conversation about love languages I had yesterday tied nicely into the other issues. (I know that's vague.) It has just been on my mind all day. I guess I have just been more aware of how love languages effect so many different situations. Take time to figure out what your love languages are. Figure out the love languages of those close to you. And if you are lacking your love language, know that it is okay to seek it out!