How do you love others?
How do you love life?
How do you demonstrate that you love?
Mothers and fathers all seem to show love differently.
Romantic Love, friendship love, spiritual Love, all seem to show up differently.
When I ask within, “What is Love?”, I hear lasting Love is Freedom and Trust.
Perhaps the question invites more questions.
How do you love your parents?
How do you love your friends?
How do you love your children?
How do you love your Self?
Do you love with positive words of affirmation?
Do you love with special gifts, cards, flowers?
Do you love with affection, physical touch, hugs or holding hands?
Do you love with spending quality time, just being together?
Do you love with acts of service, helping without being asked?
(See the info below and go to 5lovelanguages.com for assessment on your favorite.)
Love is letting go of fear.
Love is letting go of control.
Love is letting go of attachment.
Love is letting go of need to get.
Do you accept or expect?
Do you ask or demand?
Do you appreciate or take for granted?
Do you trust or suspect?
Do you listen or ignore?
Do you touch or move away?
Do you appreciate or ask for more?
Do you support or take over?
Do you give unconditionally or give to get?
Do you respond with love or react with fear?
Do you speak respectfully or yell with frustration?
Do you share or withhold?
Do you take time or act impatient?
Do you forgive or judge?
Do you let others learn from natural consequences or discipline?
Do you allow or restrict and set limits?
Do you respect others choices or meddle and try to control?
Do you worry or let go with love?
How do you show you Love?
Time to love as your truly want to be loved.
Time to love yourself to show how to Love.
Time to be love in the Presence of lack of Love.
Time to free Love by trusting in the Love within.
Loving you , trusting you and freeing you to be You!
Betty Lue
The 5 Love Languages
What if you could say or do just the right thing guaranteed to make that special someone feel loved? The secret is learning the right love language! Millions of couples have learned the simple way to express their feelings and bring joy back into marriage: The 5 Love Languages, Dr. Gary Chapman’s New York Times bestseller!
Words of Affirmation Actions don’t always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, “I love you,” are important—hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.
Quality Time In the vernacular of Quality Time, nothing says, “I love you,” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes your significant other feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed dates, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful.
Receiving Gifts Don’t mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous—so would the absence of everyday gestures.
Acts of Service Can vacuuming the floors really be an expression of love? Absolutely! Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an “Acts of Service” person will speak volumes. The words he or she most want to hear: “Let me do that for you.” Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don’t matter.
Physical Touch This language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.
The 5 Languages of Fear
or
The 5 Calls for Love
An intuitive look at some possible explanations for unacceptable behavior.
According to A Course in Miracles, everything is either a gift of love or a call for love. The 5 Languages of Love (Dr. Gary Chapman) teach us more about how to effectively give and receive the gifts of love, but what about responding to the calls for love? The answer is always to “give love”, but that is only possible after we have stopped reacting to the call as a personal attack. The first step is awareness.
Awareness with love is healing.
When people are in fear or pain (and needing love), they are not always sensitive, aware, articulate, considerate or even caring. They will either see you as the cause of their current dilemma or just a handy (loving) person they can strike out at so they won’t be alone in their misery. They will either deprive you of what they know you value most or what they, themselves, value most.
Here are 5 possible disguises of the call for love.
1. The Put-Down—This includes complaining, anger, blame, guilt, insults, destructive words. If Words of Affirmation are a primary love language for you, hearing someone else’s pain directed at you can be especially hurtful.
2. The Cold Shoulder—This includes being pre-occupied, too busy, multi-tasking, distracted, walking away, ignoring, threatening to leave or end the relationship, shutting you out. If Quality Time is a primary love language for you, being left alone or abandoned can be devastating.
3. The Take-Away—This includes taking or breaking things, stealing, constantly saying “We can’t afford it”, not giving or sharing, being selfish. If Receiving Gifts is a primary love language for you, being deprived will be hurtful way out of proportion to the value of the actual gift itself.
4. The Complication—This includes forgetting to do things, being too busy to help out, refusing to help out, being destructive, making messes, causing problems, adding complications and making more work. If Acts of Service are a primary love language for you, the burden of having to do more or do it all yourself leaves you feeling hurt and resentful.
5. The Hurt—This includes hitting, hurting, outside affairs and cheating, withholding/denying touch and affection, and all acts of physical violence. If Physical Touch is a primary love language for you, either destructive touching or touch deprivation can cause you to emotionally wither and want to withdraw from the world.
Keys to responding with love:
1. Don’t take it personally. It’s not about you. It’s about them. If you take it personally, they may think it actually is about you and fail to (eventually) take responsibility for their condition.
2. Take care of yourself. You may need to actually remove yourself from the situation in order to stop getting hurt and to get clear. If you let them hurt you, you create either conscious or unconscious guilt on their part, which will cause them to either attack more vigorously or withdraw completely.
3. Listen within for guidance. Once you can bring yourself to peace and neutrality, listen to your heart about how to respond. This is clearly a call for love. What does the other person actually need or want? What will be the most helpful and the most easily received by them. Sometimes love and forgiveness is best expressed in person and sometimes it is more effective from a distance. Do you need to speak, write, think, pray, act?
4. Do what you hear and trust it is good. Get on with your life and keep loving yourself so you can continue to love others.
Robert Waldon, Feb. 2012