An Understanding – The Best Valentine’s Gift

 

Valentines

“The one who choses love will find appropriate ways to express that decision every day.” Gary Chapman  

Next week is Valentine’s Day. A day many like to call “a Hallmark Holiday.” To me, those people are sort of like the Grinch who Stole Christmas – the ba humbugs of love.

I love Valentine’s Day – a special day dedicated to expressing love. What could possibly be better?

Of course we should not reserve our expression for just one day of the year, but perhaps this one day can inspire our commitment to be more open in expressing our love to our most cherished friends, family members and partners.

Perhaps this one day can mark a new beginning. The start of something better; something more genuine, more connected and something more meaningful.

Love is a journey.  Every journey has good days and bad. However, we have a choice to consciously create our journey. If you desire a deeper, more connected love relationship that gets better with each passing day, week and month YOU can create this.

If you want this Valentine’s Day to be the start of something better consider something beyond just flowers, chocolates and a card. Don’t get me wrong here. Of course you should still do these traditional gestures of love! But this year I challenge you to reach beyond tradition and start creating. For when you begin to consciously create the relationship and love your heart desires, it will truly lead you to happiness.

One of the best ways you can nurture your love relationship is to understand your partners “Love Language.” In The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, he reveals five distinct ways we communicate love:  Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts, Quality Time and Physical Touch. Most of us enjoy receiving love in all five ways; however, we typically have two that are our primary love languages.

What tends to happen is we communicate our love to our partner in our own love language because that is how we feel loved. It is sort of like speaking Italian to someone who only understands French – your message is not heard, felt or completely understood. When your gift of love is not understood it leads to frustration.

When our partner communicates their love to us in a language other than our own we are left feeling like they don’t care about us.

Example – “Why doesn’t she understand that I work so many hours so I can provide for our family?” One of his love languages is Acts of Service. If this is not her love language or she does not recognize this Act of Service as a gift of love it leads to frustration and away from love.

Or, “He never compliments me anymore or gives me cards for no reason like he used to.” One of her love languages is Words of Affirmation. As a result this expression of love carried beyond the courtship stage is critical to the success of this relationship.

The best gift you can give your love this Valentine’s Day is understanding. By understanding how your partner feels loved you can customize your loving messages and acts accordingly.

Valentines Date Idea – Take the free on line Discover Your Love Language quiz. Over a nice dinner or chocolate fondue for two have a discussion about your love languages. Share what they are with each other and share examples of times you each felt loved by the other. See where this leads.

One of my Love Languages is Words of Affirmations and that means I would love to hear your comments or plans for Valentine’s Day in the comments below!  Come on…show me the love!

6 thoughts on “An Understanding – The Best Valentine’s Gift”

  1. What a lovely post Diane! Happy Valentine’s Day my friend. Thank you for enriching my life in so many ways.
    Love you!
    Ana

    • Happy Valentine’s to you sweetie! Lets get together and celebrate in “our love language” – good wine ;) Love you! D xo

  2. Your posts are always so positive! I LOVE reading your words of wisdom! Happy Valentines Day to you and bunches of Roses! xoAngela

    • Thank you for your Words of Affirmation Angela!! I am feeling very loved :) I hope you and Kevin will try this date idea ;) Roses, Alpha Love & Mine! D xo

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