Listen, Learn, Love by Susie Albert Miller

Author:Susie Albert Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939447852
Publisher: Dunham Books

Tips to Practice Skill #2: Learn Them

Skill #2: Learn Them doesn’t have to be complicated. However, it does require being intentional and taking time to investigate and remember what you learn. These few tips will equip you to learn the people in your life.

Love Banks

Tip #1: Learn their love languages

The 5 Love Languages™ is an excellent book by Gary Chapman, and the foundation for this tip. The book teaches five different ways we give and receive love. I use this concept with all of my clients and have seen incredible and rapid results. Relationships grow and thrive when we learn how to express our love and care for others in their specific love language, as well as teach others our love language. According to Chapman, the five love languages are gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, and physical touch.

I highly recommend this book. Simply put: Buy it. Read it. Use it! In the meantime, here are the ways I teach these love languages to my clients:

•Gifts: small tokens of affection, cards, flowers, notes, anything that says, “I was thinking about you—and made this, picked this, or bought this for you.”

•Words of affirmation: words spoken or written—often—that affirm, praise, and offer encouragement.

•Acts of service: caring, helpful, or kind acts done on behalf of another.

•Quality time: chunks of uninterrupted time, while being fully present and engaged—no smartphones or multitasking.

•Physical touch (this is not the same as liking sex): loves to hold hands, sit close, is touchy-feely.

Do you see yourself in any of these? Pause and think about a time you expressed love, care, or appreciation to your spouse, family, or friends. What action did you take? Did you buy flowers or a treat, pick up their dry cleaning or do another kindness, give them a back rub, spend a chunk of time focused on them or doing an activity of their choice, or share your appreciation in words? Once you have an answer, go back and see what category it fits into. My guess is you just identified your love language. (Make a note of your top two love languages.)

We tend to show our love for others in our specific love language. This makes us feel great! But we miss the fact that people in our relationships probably have a different love language. Learning Them means discovering and using the specific way a loved one, friend, or colleague gives and receives love. Think of using a person’s love language as putting money in the bank or making a deposit in their “relationship account.” When this account is full rather than empty, there is a lot more grace and understanding when you have to make unexpected withdrawals… also known as disappointments, hurts, misunderstandings, tension, and tough times in a relationship.

The tricky part is we are far more skilled in showing love, care, or appreciation in our preferred language. We often assume our love language is universal. We tend to operate on the misconception that what makes us feel loved, known, and cared for will do the same for others.

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