Written by: Meagan Brody, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Let’s first start with, “What is a Love Language?”. Love Languages are categories that differentiate how someone experiences the feeling of being loved. The five Love Languages are Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Quality Time, Acts of Service, and Gifts. Let’s dig into each Love Language to understand how they affect us, help us, and teach us about our partners.
1. Words of affirmation
Words of Affirmation is how someone feels loved through language. This could be as simple as telling your partner, “I love you” and “I’m proud of you”. Reassurance through words is how this person feels the most loved. The tricky thing about Words of Affirmation is knowing who to trust with their words and to know who is simply charming you for their benefit.
2. Physical touch
Many people assume Physical Touch is only related to sex, but intimacy comes in many different physical forms. Holding hands, playing footsie under the table and cuddling are all versions of Physical Touch. Someone who has Physical Touch as a top Love Language needs to feel physically interactive with their significant other to feel loved.
3. Quality time
Quality Time is not just being with someone for hours on end, but how you are spending those hours together—emphasis on “quality” in Quality Time. You can have two people sitting in the same room on their phones, not paying attention to each other, but technically “spending time” together. Real Quality Time ensures focus and attention for your partner and from your partner.
4. Acts of service
A good example of Acts of Service is when you have had a busy day and your partner comes home and cooks you dinner. The people who have Acts of Service high on their Love Language list feel love when their partner is doing something considerate for them; whether that is taking an errand off of their plate or simply cleaning the house so they don’t have to.
5. Gifts
Gifts have a bad reputation because everyone thinks that receiving gifts is materialistic. While getting a physical gift can be a Love Language, let’s explore the deeper meaning of Gifts. Being brought a gift is not just about the physical item, but implies that your significant other was thinking of you during a time when you weren’t together. Planning and thoughtfulness were a part of getting the gift. If your partner got flowers on the way home from work because they knew flowers make you happy, then it was not necessarily about the flowers, was it?
Now that you fully understand each Love Language, and how they make you feel loved, you can ask yourself the question, “Do I need to feel all of the Love Languages?”. Typically, you take a test to help determine what your top Love Languages are. The results usually give you two strong Love Languages; the Love Languages that you lean on most to feel loved. While it may be true that some hit harder than others, I feel it is fair to say that we need all of them, on some level.
Each category accesses a different part of ourselves; hearing, feeling, being, doing, and seeing. Saying that you only need one or two of these senses to be activated to feel loved is unrealistic. Depending on how your day was, your mood, where you are, and what kind of relationship you are in, the needed Love Language could change.
Another thing to consider is why your top Love Languages are the most important to you. Are you in a relationship? Are the top two which you lack the most, therefore the ones you crave the most? I believe that what you want is what you aren’t receiving. If you are not getting enough Quality Time, but that hasn’t always been a top Love Language for you, then maybe it rises to the top as you understand that you need more quality time from your partner. Are you single? Do you know these are what you need from a partner in the future? Have you experienced these before in a relationship and know that you can’t live without them? Or maybe you have also had an experience where someone in the past hasn’t given you one of the Love Languages and you are craving it because you lacked it previously.
Although it is important to know your own Love Language, it is even more important to know what type of love feeds your partner, so that you can love them correctly. This does not only apply to couples in relationships, but also in work environments, friendships, and with family members. The problem with only understanding your own Love Language is that you likely show love how you expect to receive it. However, if your partner’s Love Language is Quality Time and yours is Words of Affirmation, then constantly telling them how much you adore them is not filling up their love tank. Knowing the Love Languages within your relationship can improve communication and unspoken gestures between you and your significant other to create an ever-thriving partnership.
Meagan Brody, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Meagan Brody is a Relationship and Communications Coach who helps her clients connect better within their own relationships and helps those looking for a relationship find the right partner. Although she studied Psychology, for ten years she worked in fashion pursuing the creative side of marketing. As she has transitioned into Life Coaching, she has realized that her creative abilities have helped her clients in reaching their full potential; whether that be in their relationships, personal growth or confidence in the real world. Meagan is NLP Certified (Neuro-Linguistics Programming) and has used these techniques to help her clients with various mindset goals.
