Welcome to Day 11 of 31 Days of Connection! Have you missed one of the posts? Stop by Day 1 to get the links to all 31 days. Have you been following along with the daily challenges? Don’t forget to grab your 2 free printables to help you get through the challenges!
Connection Through Love Languages
Have you heard of the Love Languages? Gary Chapman wrote a book in 1995 talking about the 5 ways that love is expressed in marriage. Since then, he expanded the idea for children, singles, the workplace, and more. He came up with these 5 love languages: receiving gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, and physical touch. I’m not saying that the 5 love languages should only be considered in marriage or that they are the only ways to express love. The love languages are a helpful tool to discover how you can be more effective when you are trying to improve the connection with family and friends. (If you don’t know what your primary love language is, you can click and take a test online.)
When you realize that there are different ways to express love and friendship, you can try figuring out what ways might best appeal to those around you. When you take the time to know people better and connect with them in a way that means more to them than maybe it does to you, you strengthen that relationship. And when you realize that the ways you perceive love and appreciation may be different than the ways your spouse, family member, friend, or even coworker are expressing that love and appreciation, you will benefit and have an improved connection.
I’ll use myself as an example. My primary love language is words of affirmation (followed very closely by acts of service – almost a tie). That doesn’t mean that I don’t fully appreciate physical touch, gifts, etc! It does mean that if you give me words of affirmation, I hold those very near and dear to my heart and they have a greater value to me. In fact, words of affirmation from family, friends, teachers, coworkers, and even strangers mean so much to me that I have saved those words over the years in my mind – almost in a virtual scrapbook. Words of affirmation create a special connection for me, even if I don’t talk to or see the person very often.
I won’t discuss each love language in detail, though I have already posted about connecting through touch and will be talking about acts of service tomorrow. If you are not familiar with the love languages, I do recommend checking out the website or reading one of the books, if for no other reason than to understand how people connect in different ways. And though you can’t go around asking everybody to tell you what their primary love language is, you can often figure it out. People tend to express love and appreciation for others in their own personal primary love language, so that might give you a clue. Using the love languages can help you find new ways to strengthen your connection with the people closest to you.
Day 11 Daily Connection Challenge:
Figure out what your primary love language is or what you think it might be. Pick 1 or 2 people – family or friends or coworkers – and try to figure out what their primary love language might be. Try to improve your connection with those people this week by doing something for them in their primary love language rather than your own, if different.
Thank you for joining me for Day 11 of 31 Days of Connection! Are you working on connecting better with your family and friends? How is it going? Let me know in the comments! I’ll see you right back here for Day 12, friends.
