Cultivating Self Love through the Languages of Love
Have you ever wondered what your love language is?
You might think love languages are only important when it comes to your romantic partnering but this extends to how you interact with other people and treat yourself.
So what if I told you, you could also fill your love tank by knowing what your love language is. The five love languages by Dr. Gary Chapman are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch, when these are acknowledged and nurtured explains the way we receive, express and give love.
Oh but how do you figure out what your love language is? What exactly will knowing this do for you? The simple answer is knowing what your love language is allows for a great relationship with yourself and better communication in relationships with others.
Knowing what lights you up and being able to express this makes it easy for your love tank to be filled from time to time. You cannot expect someone’s actions to fill your love tank or rather speak your love language when you do not know it yourself. In the next few newsletters, I will be sharing more on these and how we can practice filling our own love tanks.
So what is you love language? Find out here.
For now let’s explore one of my dominant love languages - Words of Affirmation - yes you can have more than one dominant and sometimes also as time goes on, your dominant love language might change.
Words of Affirmation:
Do you light up receiving compliments and unexpected praise?
Have you wondered why something someone told you before either made or broke your spirit? Why you go out of your way to encourage and acknowledge people with your words?
For you words are powerful and when spoken and heard repetitively turn to become beliefs. If your love language is Words of Affirmation then you feel love when it is expressed through spoken affection, praise, acknowledgement or appreciation. You might also be very sensitive to words that are used about you or about other people in general. Having Words of Affirmation as a dominant language doesn’t mean fishing for compliments but just that appreciation of your worth shown by others is much felt when spoken out.
Heck sometimes the brief moment a boss stops to congratulate you at the water fountain or drops an email with your other colleagues on to congratulate you is even more than the pay rise that comes without any acknowledgement. In the same way if you are chastised you might take it harder than someone whose love language isn’t Words of Affirmation.
If you grew up in an environment where your caretakers were generous with and mindful of their words and acknowledged you whenever seen fit then you will have a good relationship with accepting compliments that fill your love tank or know how to affirm your own self. However, if you grew up in an environment where your love language wasn’t very much expressed by caretakers and relations you might struggle to easily accept these “affirmations” and recognition from others now.
Even though this is how you feel valued, seen and heard you might still deflect when praised. This is quite normal in our society but as you and I thrive on Words of Affirmation we will need to find a way of getting our love tank filled and especially by ourselves. I have found some good exercises that have helped me over the years and now incorporated into my self-care routines. Here are a few of my favourites:
Affirming yourself through mirror work.
This is one of the hardest but impactful exercise, to look yourself straight in the eye in the mirror and affirm to you what you would love to hear. This practice is also one suggested by many coaches and therapist when working on your self image and self love. Maybe, at first you will struggle to say these affirmations to yourself as you look yourself in the mirror. A trick I use when doing this is even though I am looking at my adult self in the mirror I imagine I am saying those words to my younger self about 6-10 years, this feels so much easier and natural.
Journaling on your strengths and efforts.
When we feel undervalued in some cases, another way I have found is journaling on the things, areas that I am really good at or what I have accomplished. I noticed that this brings me not only to the present moment but also to the gifts and abilities that I am endowed with. Another way to empower yourself and also reflect on your progress as well.
Practicing self-compassion exercises.
This is a big one and was a challenge for me for a good number of years. I used to be so hard on myself if things didn’t go as expected, was criticised or even missed an opportunity. I felt it was my fault all these things happening but until I leant that I can’t control others actions, perceptions and attitude but only control mine I became more aware and started accepting of things being out my control or the timing not being right. This gave me reason to be kinder and patient with myself. Now when I meet those encounters, I study the situation and and ask, was there anything I could do? Was this opportunity really what I wanted? Will taking this course of action make me stay true to my values? By the time I get through these questions most of my frustration would have subsided. Don’t get me wrong though, I still get frustrated and affected in the moment but I have learnt to be more gentle with myself by going through these reflective questions. It gets me to see things from a calmer perspective and so become more understanding of the situation at hand and my role in it. That brings us to my all time favourite.
Keeping a gratitude journal.
I cannot tell you enough how much this practice has shifted so many things - perspectives for me. When I am down and cannot find the slightest thing to be grateful for, I pick my journal and begin to go through a list of my current state, health, environment and when it comes to the love language, I focus mostly on what I love about myself. Not being a narcissist but genuine appreciation for the person, characteristics and abilities that I am and have. Just like the second practice above on journaling here I go deeper and give thanks for what that ability helps me do, how my body carries me perfectly around or whatever you love about your body, personality or character, because remember what you appreciate will increase and what you complain about will remain. Keeping a gratitude journal comes in many ways and if you would like to know how I implement some of these different forms do have a read of my previous newsletter here.
These are not exhaustive for the love language of Words of Affirmation but a few that I know when incorporated into your self-care routine will be truly beneficial. For Words of Affirmation one of my favourites affirmation is: I AM ENOUGH.
I’ll be interested to know what your love language is and what your thoughts are on them so feel free to share in the comments or leave a comment to get my list of exercises. What are some of your affirmations?