Word-Of-the-Week #972: Love
March 23, 2023 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #972: Love
Love – to have passionate desire, longing, and feelings for.
Are you aware of what your love language is? Do you know what actions speak to you and make you feel loved?
This week features the first half of “Do you know the 5 love languages? Here’s what they are — and how to use them,” by Carol Bruess PhD.”
She writes, “Have you ever been asked “What’s your love language?”
Chances are, you have. Because the concept — first created by counselor and pastor Gary Chapman, unpacked in a series of books, and picked up by many others — has spread far and wide. The five love languages refer to the five simple ways that we want love to be shown to us and the ways that we show others love.
I’m a relationship researcher, and while I haven’t empirically studied the love languages concept, other academics have. Some of the published studies confirm the validity of love languages, revealing they can increase people’s relationship satisfaction and longevity.
What I find so helpful about love languages is that they express a basic truth. Implicit to the concept is a common-sense idea: We don’t feel or experience love in the same way. Some of us will only be content when we hear the words “I love you,” some prize quality time together, while some will feel most cared for when our partner scrubs the toilet.
In this way, love is a bit like a country’s currency: One coin or bill has great value in a particular country, less value in the countries that border it, and zero value in many other countries. In relationships, it’s essential to learn the emotional currency of the humans we hold dear and identifying their love language is part of it.
No matter your situation — whether you’re living alone, spending 24/7 with a partner or roommates, living with adult kids or steering younger kids through virtual school — the five love languages are a highly effective set of tools to have in your relational toolkit. When we know what another person’s love language is, we can choose the gestures that will most resonate with our partner, friend, parent or child. And when we know which actions speak to us and make us feel loved, we can ask other people for exactly what we need.
While there are plenty of online quizzes to tell you what your love language is, it’s easy to figure out yours and what your loved ones’ are by looking at what lights them up, what presents they give you (since many of us bestow on others what we would most like), and what their perfect day would look and feel like.
Here’s a look at the first two languages and how they can be applied and optimized — even during a pandemic.
- Love language #1: Words of affirmation
Those of us whose love language is words of affirmation prize verbal connection. They want to hear you say precisely what you appreciate or admire about them. For example: “I really loved it when you made dinner last night”; “Wow, it was so nice of you to organize that neighborhood bonfire”; or just “I love you.”
For the people in your life that you’re not seeing in person because of the pandemic, you could film a short video to send them. My kindergarten-aged goddaughter and I haven’t been together in 7+ months, but we text each other silly videos of us saying — or even singing — what we miss most about each other.
And for the people you are seeing all of the time these days, remember that even making tiny gestures matters. This is my primary love language, and my husband of 29 years knows it. I’ll often wake up and go into the kitchen to find a sweet post-it note next to a glass of ice water on the counter (which is another love language — an act of service).
- Love language #2: Acts of service
Some of us feel most loved when others lend a helping hand or do something kind for us. A friend of mine is currently going through chemotherapy and radiation, putting her at high risk for COVID-19 and other infections. Knowing that her love language is acts of service, a group of neighbor friends snuck over under the cover of darkness in December and filled her flower pots in front of her house with holiday flowers and sprigs. Others have committed to shoveling her driveway all winter. (It’s Minnesota, so that’s big love.)
In your home, you could be proactive and do something that eases your person’s daily grind. Why not take on the chore that everyone avoids doing, whether that’s cleaning the oven, changing the litter box, scraping ice off the car, or filling and running the dishwasher? For anyone whose love tank is filled up by people pitching in, seeing someone intentionally scanning the environment to figure out what they can do to make their environment better sends a clear and loving message to them.”
This week is about love language. Do you know what actions make you feel most loved? Is is someone telling you they love you? Is it someone doing something for you?
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Word-Of-the-Week #744: Love
November 8, 2018 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #744: Love
Love – an expression of emotion.
Love is a versatile word — like what it describes. Love takes many forms.
Once again this week we experienced another horrendous act of violence and when I read this article by the Associated Press, “Jewish nurse says he treated synagogue shooting suspect out of love” I felt compelled to make it this week’s focus.
“Love. That’s why I did it. Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope,” Ari Mahler wrote on Facebook.
PITTSBURGH — A Jewish nurse who treated the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect says that he saw confusion but not evil in the man’s eyes, and that his own actions stemmed from love.
“I’m sure he had no idea I was Jewish,” registered nurse Ari Mahler wrote in a Facebook post about suspect Robert Bowers, who was taken to Allegheny General Hospital after the Oct. 27 rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood that left 11 people dead.
Mahler described his role as “The Jewish Nurse” who treated the suspect, saying that he felt nervous about sharing his account but that “I just know I feel alone right now, and the irony of the world talking about me doesn’t seem fair without the chance to speak for myself.”
“I didn’t say a word to him about my religion,” Mahler said in the post. “I chose not to say anything to him the entire time. I wanted him to feel compassion. I chose to show him empathy. I felt that the best way to honor his victims was for a Jew to prove him wrong.”
An Allegheny General Network representative confirmed the authenticity of the post.
Bowers, 46, pleaded not guilty Thursday to a 44-count grand jury indictment charging him with murder, hate crimes, obstructing the practice of religion and other crimes, for which he could face the death penalty. Authorities say Bowers raged against Jews during and after the massacre. He remains jailed without bail.
Mahler, whose Facebook page noted that he started his job in the hospital’s emergency department March 1, said he didn’t see evil in Bowers’ eyes but “a clear lack of depth, intelligence, and palpable amounts of confusion.” He said he couldn’t go into detail about their interaction due to medical privacy requirements, but Bowers thanked him “for saving him, for showing him kindness, and for treating him the same way I treat every other patient.”
He noted that this came from the same person accused of mass murder who “instilled panic in my heart worrying my parents were two of his 11 victims less than an hour before his arrival.”
Mahler, who said that his father was a rabbi and that he experienced anti-Semitism “a lot” as a kid, said he acted out of love.
“Love. That’s why I did it,” he said. “Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope. It demonstrates humanity. It reaffirms why we’re all here. … I could care less what Robert Bowers thinks, but you, the person reading this, love is the only message I wish instill in you. If my actions mean anything, love means everything.”
And this from Brian Resnick at Vox.com. “You might think that with every new death, we’d all feel greater and greater empathy, greater and greater sadness.
But no. It’s human to feel numb.
There’s a profound and infuriating psychological concept that can help explain increasing numbness in the face of long, slow-burning tragedy like mass gun violence in America. It’s this: As the number of victims in a tragedy increases, our empathy, our willingness to do something, reliably decreases.”
This week’s focus is on love. Would you be able to show compassion and empathy if you were put in Ari’s position? Wouldn’t it be great if we all could feel more love instead of feeling more numb? Something has to be done. I think we should start a LOVE movement – starting today!
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