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Love x 5

30/5/2013

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Picture
How do you feel loved?  Is it when you receive gifts?  Is it when someone says you are wonderful and so good-looking?  None of those do it?  How about when your spouse cleans the entire house or makes dinner for you? Or your friend just simply wants to spend time with you?  No?  What if someone gives you a hug or touches your shoulder or holds your hand?

Which one of these 5 different actions generally makes you feel loved?  It’s important for you and those who love you to discover.  Your spouse maybe thinking that they are showing you all kinds of love and yet you may not feel loved.  How can you connect if you aren’t speaking the same language?

There is a book written by Gary Chapman called the “5 Languages of Love” which is very enlightening.  Essentially each of us feels loved through one or more of these 5 expressions he has labelled as love languages.  The 5 languages Gary has identified are quality time, physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service and receiving gifts.

Gary Chapman shares on his website how he came to identify these love desires.  “In the book, I share some of my encounters with couples through the years that brought me to realize that what makes one person feel loved does not necessarily make another person feel loved. For a number of years, I have been helping couples in the counseling office discover what their spouse desired in order to feel loved. Eventually, I began to see a pattern in their responses. Therefore, I decided to read the notes I had made over twelve years of counseling couples and ask myself the question, “When someone sat in my office and said, ‘I feel like my spouse doesn’t love me,’ what did they want?” Their answers fell into five categories. I later called them the five love languages.”[1]

Through helping marriages be better he discovered a vital ingredient.  Marriages and families need to speak the right love language for happiness to flow.  All 5 languages will speak love to you but one usually is the bedrock upon which all the others build.  When you are feeling unloved the question is which one will fill your love tank?  For me it is quality time with my wife.  She can be serving, giving me gifts, speaking affirmation and physically connecting with me but without time together I feel unloved.

So what language do you think is your predominant one?  What about your significant other?  Your children?  Do you speak theirs?  Hmm…. think on that!

(image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

[1] http://www.5lovelanguages.com



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When Was the Last Time You Went On a Date?

22/2/2012

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Being a parent is an awesome responsibility!  Really!  To think you are forming, training and guiding your child into responsible and mature adulthood can even be overwhelming.  There is so much pressure around today to do it right too.  The government has jumped into it with both feet.  The newspapers feed on all the worst things that happen.  Parents today can live in fear of letting their children out of their sight.  The ‘what ifs’ are so much more a conscious reality than they were 50 years ago. 

Some parents seem to spend all their time with their children.  They don’t get a sitter but have the kids with them constantly.  Well, what happens when those children go off to university or some other adventure?  What happens when they marry and leave home?  What happens to the parents?

If you don’t take care of your relationship now, what relationship will you have later?  I know what it’s like to try to have a conversation with the children around.  You simply don’t!  There is always something that interrupts the flow of thought.  Does anything more in depth get decided than whether to choose chunky or smooth peanut butter or 2% or whole milk?  Often when you return to the conversation you can’t remember what it was about to begin with.

We have been out to dinner with couples when the husband started sharing some of the plans he had for their future.  The look on his wife’s face totally communicated that she had no clue what he was talking about and that they had not discussed these ideas.  If you aren’t setting time aside to be together alone, you and your partner will drift apart.

We just had Valentines Day.  Did you and your partner go out?  If you did, congratulations!  If you didn’t, what are you waiting for?  A time when the restaurants aren’t full and charging a premium price?  Have you followed up on this?  Or will it get over looked for another year?

Why don’t you plan at least one Valentines Day event a month for just the two of you?  Make it a romantic dinner out with time to talk and share your heart.  Who knows where that could lead to later?

Not only is dating your partner good for your relationship its good for your children to see.  You are modelling what a couple do that value each other.  It keeps a spark involved in the marriage and hope for a great future together.

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    Jim Inkster

    Hi guys, this is where we do the talking!

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