Love Languages
Love Languages explore the idea of how individuals express and receive love. This concept recognises we don’t all communicate love in the same way and how we receive love also differs from person to person.
There are five love languages; Quality time, Touch, Gifts, Words of Affirmation and Acts of Service. We may identify with all of these, but it is likely one primary aspect played an important role in our growth. These five styles of communicating love were originally presented in Gary Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts.
My love language is acts of service. As a sensible, eldest child, my love language focussed on being helpful in a chaotic household. With bickering parents and a mischeivous little brother who was more than a handful, my acts of service misfired and were not understood by my family, probably because my parents attention was focussed elsewhere when I was trying to insert myself into chaos. To this day my mother still mentions my heart is in the right place but I am misunderstood!
Despite having loving parents and a good upbringing, some people have huge wounds yet someone who grew up in a traumatic household can become a well-adjusted adult with zero wounding. The difference is how love language is interpreted by our parents and carers.
The way we are wired to receive love and affection can impact our upbringing and how we experience wounding. If we receive wounding in the same way we receive love, it can have a detrimental impact on us.
Wounding, whether it is real or imagined, can create problems for us if negative experiences match with our love language. We can perceive wounding when we are spoken to harshly or yelled at by a parent, especially when our primary love language is incumbant upon receiving words of affirmation.
As children, we lack awareness that our mum yelled at us to keep us safe from danger, we can only perceive mum as uncaring in the moment. To make sense of why, we create stories that mum didn't love us because our inherant need to have our love language affirmed was unmet.
When we become aware of our love language and how it may have been misinterpreted in our childhood, ensure to give yourself compassion and forgiveness for not knowing better at the time. You may not have felt appreciated or understood as a child but it is likely no one is to blame for misinterpreting your love language.
Use Love languages as a tool to help you understand your unique way of giving and receiving love and affection, to know yourself better and where you may have felt misinterpreted showing love and affection.
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