And How They Apply To You

Now that we’ve discussed verbally saying you love someone, I’m going to touch on the 5 ways someone feels love or shows love. These are called the 5 Love Languages and everybody expresses at least one of these languages. 

Before I get started I want to preface this by saying, love languages are not solely geared toward romantic relationships. They are simply the ways in which people show their love to the important people in their lives and how they receive love. I recently read the book “The 5 Love Languages: The Singles Edition” and the whole book is steered toward single adults discovering their love language.  Which was really eye opening to me.

Something I have learned in my life is that your love language is something that you need to discover about yourself because it allows you to effectively communicate to those around you what you need in order to truly feel loved and valued. And what ways you can truly fill the need to be loved by those around you. Because love is a two way street, not a feeling.

Once you have realized what your love languages are (both giving and receiving) you can then begin to discover how you can most effectively fulfill that need for others. So let’s dive in and discover what they are:

So what are the 5 love languages?

• Words of Affirmation 🗣
• Gifts 🎁
• Acts of Service 🛠
• Quality Time 📵👫
• Physical Touch 🫂🤝

I want to also mention along with that concept of love languages being expressed differently that there is often a difference in giving and receiving. Your giving can change depending on the person you are with. You may have your natural way of expressing love tied to your love language. I’ll use physical touch for example. Someone with the primary love language of physical touch may be more prone to hug or touch someone when they are feeling particularly loving towards them. Because subconsciously that’s how they define the feeling of being loved. Whereas the other person may not desire the physical touch love language as much, but maybe the acts of service love language instead. But because they know that touch is how the other person feels loved, they then feel compelled to give love in the way that fulfills the other person. This doesn’t mean you can’t feel loved through any other love language, they are all ways of passing love so you can absolutely utilize the other love languages to give or receive love.

Another example is when your giving and receiving are different. That means you may show love differently than how you feel loved. I’ll use myself for example, I receive love through quality time but I give love through physical touch. That means I crave time with people and that’s how I feel most loved by them, but when I feel particularly loving towards someone I have the urge to hug them, play with their hair, rub their back or something like that. I need to touch them. But I don’t necessarily love being touched, when I am, it has to be on my terms.

You may also find that the ways in which you self destruct yourself may be directly contrary to your love language, i.e. words of affirmation, you may have trouble with negative self talk. I hope all that makes sense. With that, let’s dive in to each love language individually!

Words of Affirmation 🗣

Just like there are 5 kinds of love languages, there are many dialects of Words of Affirmation including; Words of encouragement, words of praise, and kind words. So what does dialects of a love language mean? It means ways in which the language can be expressed. Let’s take words of encouragement for example. Words of encouragement would be like “You did so well during your concert, I can tell you’ve been practicing, your hard work really shows, keep up the good work.” You are encouraging them with your words, which in turn, shows them affirmation and love. 

So words of praise can be telling them how pretty they look, or how smart they are. Kind words are just that, words that bring a positive outlook on things, like “I like your shirt.” It’s something simple that can make someone’s day. Words of affirmation is a love language that is so very important because often we get the opposite in our society. Many people use their words to tear down one another and belittle them. But to some it hurts much worse than anything anyone could have done, because when they say things that hurt, it cuts them down in the deepest way possible and says they are unloved.

When words of affirmation are your primary love language you often crave verbal acceptance and the words “I’m proud of you.” It makes your day when someone goes out of their way to compliment you or say something nice to you. You feel most loved when someone just simply compliments you or tells you how proud of you they are, or when they say they love and appreciate you. Words of affirmation may be your primary love language if you constantly ask if you are doing something right or if you are constantly asking for or craving  reassurance and encouragement.

That is when words of affirmation are your receiving love language. When it is your giving love language, you may find yourself complimenting people when you see them feeling down. You are constantly expressing your love verbally to those you love. If you find giving compliments and uplifting people verbally to be super easy for you and your first instinct when you see someone you love, it’s very likely that words of affirmation are your giving love language.

I challenge you to start complimenting people you love everyday. It doesn’t have to be anything big, it could simply be “nice shoes” but something that compliments them and lets them know they are seen.

Gifts 🎁 

The next love language I want to touch on is the language of gifts. Giving and receiving gifts. Often when giving gifts is your love language, you find yourself giving little tokens of your love and appreciation to those around you. For example, you give your mother flowers randomly. Or you buy souvenirs for your friends when you’re on vacation. Little things like that can be indicators that gifts may be your love language. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, even the smallest of tokens can be a way to show love and appreciation.

If gifts are your receiving love language, then your birthday and Christmas may be your favorite days of the year because you get gifts. Or it makes your week when someone gives you a gift out of nowhere. If you find that you’ve held on to random trinkets from when you were younger because they symbolize love from the one who gave it to you, gifts may be your love language. 

In the book The 5 Love Languages: The Singles Addition, there was a story of a woman in her 20s who had hoards of teddy bears that she slept with every night. Her boyfriend was very concerned and talked to the author of the book about it. After talking for a bit, they discovered that her love language was gifts, and each teddy bear was a gift from someone important in her life. 

After making a plan to give her a gift every so often for a few weeks, after a while she started to let go of some of the bears and replacing them in her heart with the gifts from her boyfriend. This is just an example of one person discovering their love language and how to discover the love language of those around you. 

My challenge for you this week is to give small tokens of your love to one person this week. It doesn’t have to cost any money, but maybe it’s drawing a heart on a sticky note and giving it to someone you love. Something small and seemingly meaningless, but if gifts is their love language, it can mean the world to them.

Acts of Service 🛠

This one is pretty easy to figure out. If you find yourself constantly doing favors for others or randomly helping them with something, then acts of service may be your love language. Acts of service can be anything small like grabbing something from another room for someone or something big like driving someone to an appointment or fixing their car. 

Acts of service can sometimes get people in trouble when it’s their love language, because they say yes to doing all the small favors for everyone until they are overwhelmed or start double booking themselves. This is a common thing that happens to people with this love language.

If Acts of Service are your receiving love language then you may find yourself feeling most loved when someone steps in to help you with a task or chore, or offers to pick something up for you at the store. Things like that will make your day if that is your love language. Now if people tend to reluctantly help or complain and grumble about helping, it can feel extremely offensive to you if that is your love language.

I challenge you this week to do small random acts of service for someone you love. Just little things out of kindness. If someone asks you to do them a favor, do it willingly without complaint.

Quality Time 📵👫

This is such an important and lost language in our society. Everyone is going a million different directions and when they are together, they’re on their phones or glued to the TV. Quality time is a lost art today. Quality time means time that is set apart and dedicated, distraction free, with another person. That means that if you take your significant other out for dinner you guys are not on your phones the whole time. That’s not quality time. Quality time is also different and much more effective than just any quantity of time. It’s more effective to spend 15 totally devoted minutes together than an hour watching TV together. Quality time over quantity time.

If Quality Time is your love language then you are likely to feel most loved just in the presence of your loved one, spending time with them. You may find your favorite time of the day is the time you spend with those you love. Or you would rather just spend a day with the person than any gift they could give. Don’t be afraid to tell your loved ones that you need time with them, distraction free. Quality time looks the same if it is your giving language. You tend to want to spend time with those you love. You feel like you express your love best when you are just spending quality time with those you love.

Quality time is my love language. I would rather sit in a room with someone I love, we don’t have to talk, as long as we are together and that is when I feel most loved. I hate it when people start playing on their phones when I’m trying to talk to them because it makes me feel unloved. I feel most loved when someone goes out of their way to give me their attention and spend time with me. 

If you are in a relationship then you need to prioritize time with your loved one. Set aside time for the two of you where you can set aside distractions and dedicate your attention to each other. I challenge you this week to carve out time to spend with someone you love. Give them some quality time free of distractions where you guys can hang out and spend time without distractions.

Physical Touch 🤝🫂

This is a touchy one (pun intended) with some people because there are some people who do not like to be touched or have had physical or sexual abuse which makes even the most innocent of touches something that is a trigger. Not every Physical touch is sexual either. Just like Verbal  Affirmation, there are different dialects of Physical Touch. There are implicit touches and explicit touches.

Implicate touches are like touching someone on their shoulder to show concern. Or congratulating someone with a slap on the back. They are little implicit touches that don’t imply anything more than care and empathy. They don’t require much effort but they do require attention. Explicit touches are more like back rubs or holding hands or a hug. They are more intentional and take thought and effort. Both are necessary for humans to live a happy life. 

Studies have shown that humans need at least 7 meaningful touches a day to feel loved. Humans crave physical touch as part of their nature. Numerous research projects have been completed on babies and have shown that children that receive physical love like hugs and being held and tender touches, develop a more healthy emotional state than children who don’t. There have also been cases of children in orphanages who never received physical love, that ended up dying from lack of love. Literally, they died because they never received explicit touch, they only got their most basic needs met with no additional loving touch. Those children developed more diseases and mental health struggles which ultimately led to them passing away.

If Physical Touch is your receiving love language you may often find yourself craving a hug or to hold hands with someone you love. You may desire a more sexual marriage. You may find yourself desiring to be close with those you love and sitting where you can touch them. It makes you feel extra special and loved when someone shows they care by touching your arm as you talk or when someone gives you a little pat on the back as they depart. 

If it is your giving language you may find yourself greeting people with a handshake and or a hug when you see them. You may find yourself initiating hand holding. You may reach out and touch someone’s arm as they talk to you. You may find you always touch them at random times when you feel loving and affectionate towards them. Maybe you like to play with their hair, or rub their arm.

Physical touch is also the love language that will get you in the most trouble in a dating situation. It is hard to know how to handle physical touch in an appropriate manner. But a general rule to follow is; would you want your parents seeing you touch them there or like that? In regards to how far you go, that is up to you and God. We’ll talk more about those boundaries later.

Physical touch is an extremely important love language and unfortunately is vastly overlooked because it sometimes can be perceived as sexually suggestive. And while there are definitely some types of touches that are sexually suggestive, there are others that are totally innocent and totally necessary for a healthy emotional state. Unfortunately the pandemic created a divide between people so now physical touch is highly discouraged, but it’s needed now more than ever! 

Even if physical touch is something totally outside of your comfort zone, I challenge you to start incorporating it into your interactions with those you love. Nothing big, start with a handshake or hug when you say hello. Or try touching their arm to show concern. Be appropriate with your touches and be intentional. 

Love Is A Verb

Now that we’ve gone over what the love languages are, I’d like to mention that you do have to be intentional about learning all 5 and incorporating them into your lifestyle. Every single person around you exhibits one of these languages and you need to know how to communicate love to them. You don’t have to be fluent in all five, but you do need to know how to communicate briefly. If you are in a relationship, you need to learn your partner’s love language fluently so that you can effectively show them love, and vice versa, they need to learn your love language fluently to show you love on the deepest level. 

Knowing each other’s love language in a relationship eliminates the excuse of “falling out of love”. You’ve heard time and time again that love is a verb. Love is not a feeling, lust and infatuation are feelings and usually do not last long. Love is an intentional act. If you are showing your partner love in the way that they desire it most, then you can’t simply fall out of love, YOU just get lazy. It takes intentionality to keep love thriving in a relationship. 

Love lasts through the hard times and grows in adversity. I think about 1 Corinthians 13:

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” 

I like this passage because it describes the intentionality of love. It takes work to maintain a healthy and thriving relationship abundant in love. But thankfully with the love languages it doesn’t have to be a gamble, it can be way easier to make sure everyone is loved and happy.

Like I mentioned before, love languages are not just for romantic relationships. They can be used to spark a friendship or create a closeness between siblings. It can be invaluable in getting along with your roommate or your coworkers. Discovering your love language will radically influence every relationship in your life.

What about your parents? 

Many people have trouble pinpointing their love language because they never received proper love in their childhood, so any type of love speaks deeply to them. They are so starved for affection that any type will do and fills that hole. If you lacked love and affection from your parents growing up or as you became an adult the love stopped, then you can use the love languages to spark that love between you and your parents. 

It takes intentionality and it is admittedly very uncomfortable, but imagine the difference it would make in your relationship with your parents. Taking the time to figure out how to speak your parents’ love language will in turn cause them to want to return the love and speak your language. This has the potential to repair any broken relationships between you, or even just begin the repair.

What if you have kids?

You have a unique opportunity as a parent to be the influence for and provide a solid foundation for your children.

If you are still unsure what your love language is, you can take the Love Language quiz on 5lovelanguages.com. I highly recommend reading the 5 Love Languages book. If you are unmarried, you have the option of checking out the Singles Edition, if you are married or just want to read the original, read the original 5 Love Languages book. It is such an eye opening experience to go through it and find all of the gold nuggets for how best to show love to your loved ones.