MY LOVE LANGUAGE IS NOT AMONG THE FIVE BASIC LOVE LANGUAGES AS TAUGHT BY GARY CHAPMAN THE AUTHOR OF THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES
It is almost impossible for me to
just go ahead and say my love language without first saying other things
knowing that things are not just that black and white. Here is what I have to
say, I hope you find it worthwhile.
While growing up as a child, I was made to believe by things and people around me that most things in life are referenced by their seeming opposite; like black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, up or down, etc. name it, the list goes on and on. In primary school, I was taught that 2 divides by 1 is 2 and 1 divided by 2 cannot.
With the level of acquired knowledge I have some years back up until now, things in life are not just quiet as black or white but they all depend on the approach and HOW the particular procedure of the outcome was carried out. At this level now, 1 divided by 2 is now 0.5 and not cannot.
Gary Chapman’s book on the five love languages opened my eyes for the first time I read that love could actually have languages. It never came to my mind that love could have languages until a friend brought that book to me from Russia back in 2010.
As expected, my thought about the subject kept increasing all the way through the different pages of the book. After finishing the book in a few hours, I realized that what would really appeal to me as per love wasn’t mentioned and I had to go through the book for the second time. It was when I was going through the book for the second time that I came to notice that Gary Chapman says the five languages he mentioned are basic. It was then that it donned on me that my language may probably not be basic.
Gary Chapman’s five basic love languages as taught in his book “The five love languages” is as shown below:
- 1. Words of Affirmation
- 2. Gifts
- 3. Acts of Service
- 4. Quality Time
- 5. Physical Touch
The above basic love languages as
stipulated by Gary Chapman are great and I appreciate him for opening my eyes to
my love language even though it wasn’t mentioned in his book. Without me seeing his book, I’m sure my language wouldn’t have been so glaring to me.
I’ll like to use this opportunity to share with you a short story of myself a few years back.
Several years back like in the year 2005, I use to have a group of friends that we used to come together once in a while to share striking things we’ve learnt from movies, books and the like.
When I read the book, “The 5 Love Languages”, I made sure I gave every member of my group to study so we could come together and talk about it and that was what I did.
When we came together to talk about the book, everyone chose their love language but for me. In that forum, we were all expected to defend our opinion as per the choice of our love language we feel is the one for us for others to learn. The idea was not to let others believe you out of sentiment but to sell your idea so others can learn. If in the end, everyone views yours as the most articulated, they can decide to imbibe it.
On this day I was to talk last since it was requested for the whole love language discussion. I started by talking about the individual love languages and what I think for mine to probably not be among the basic languages. The five basic languages are as necessary to me, that I must add.
1. Words of Affirmation
This is an Expression of affection
through speech, praise or appreciation and possibly gesture.
2. Gifts or Receiving Gifts
This one means that these people
with this language are love triggered when they receive gifts.
3. Acts of Service
This set of people prefer Actions
of service like opening the car door, helping with the laundry and so forth for
them to be love triggered, rather than words or tangible gifts.
4. Quality Time
This is giving someone your
undivided attention. This means sitting or lying or even taking a walk together,
looking at each other and talking, and giving each other your undivided
attention. Not talking to other people or watching TV in the process probably.
5. Physical Touch
This love language is more about
intimacy. It could be holding hands, laying your head on your partner's
shoulder, hugging, rubbing him or her in places that please and so forth.
Now, this is what I think about the above summary:
Those of us who are Christians have learnt
and believed that HEAVEN is the most beautiful and serene place in all of the
universe filled with unimaginable bliss and goodness and we all hope to be there
someday. And likewise, we have equally learnt HELL to be a place of
unimaginable horrors and worse.
The thing here is, there is how someone will talk to you about HEAVEN and you will tell the person to get out with his or her heaven irrespective of what you have learnt and known heaven to be because of the way he or she talked to you about it.
And there is a way someone will talk to you about HELL and you would be gloriously and joyfully whistling yourself through its gates not really minding the horror therein.
I cannot appreciate Gary Chapman enough for this book. It really opened my eyes to some aspects of myself that were rather not very tangible.
I’m this sort of man that does not
necessarily believe so much in what someone does more than how he or she does
it. How someone does what he or she does to an extent appeals to me much more
than the actual thing that is done.
On this ground, if I had my love language to be Words of affirmation, it would not have really flown because what appeals to me is how those words would come out and the gesture with which the words came.
If I had my love language to be Gifts or Receiving of Gifts, my focus would be more on how those gifts were rendered. Someone can give you a gift and get you upset with the choice of words or gestures he or she uses to give the gift.
The same thing goes with The Act of Service, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. A car door can be opened for someone aggressively. Quality Time can be ruined with a bad choice of words. Physical Touch can be unacceptable to partners when done in a certain way.
I strongly believe that my love language is GOOD COMMUNICATION. THE ART OF GOOD COMMUNICATION cannot be overemphasized if we wish to be good at the above five love languages.
Without good communication skills, I think that every chance with the above five love languages would be ruined.
Let us not forget that 60% of all human communication is Nonverbal, meaning body language. 30% comes from the Tone of our voice and just 10% comes from the choice of words we use.
I am Costly Oma and my love language is Good Communication.
Knowing what to do and how to do what to do appeals to me much more than just what is done.
Knowing what to say and how to say what to say appeals to me much more than just what is said.
Comments
Post a Comment