Love languages

Have you heard of The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman? I recommend this book to people on the hunt for self-awareness. Its insights can help us understand relationships in our lives that work and do not work, including the relationship we have with our inner voice.

(Click here to check out the website and to discover your love language.)

Each of us has grown up in a family dynamic that sets up our adulthood expectations. These familial relationships tend to be the heaviest influences on our attachment styles,† though of course other influences are present. Whether or not we realize these attachment styles following us, they do follow us. Sometimes we pokerface our way through certain phases of relationships, but these expectations sneak around our unconscious like mice in the attic. For example, the love languages I appreciate most are words of affirmation and quality time.

Let's go through each love language one by one briefly and connect with them together. Knowing how you relate to each of these love languages is helpful for knowing yourself. It's also helpful to keep in mind when reflecting on current or past relationships. Sometimes we express love in one language, and the person on the other end completely misses it because that's not their love language.

1. Words of affirmation
   To affirm in this context means to encourage or support. One example of words of affirmation is "You make me so happy." If you love expressing your appreciation for people through verbal praise and recognition, this might be your love language.
2. Acts of service
   Service simply means doing something for somebody. For instance, one friend of mine loves cooking for house guests. If you like to do special things for people you love, you might love through acts of service.
3. Gifts
   This is pretty simple. You show your loved ones you appreciate them by giving gifts. My dad loves gift giving, big and small. If you like giving people gifts, this love language could be yours.
4. Quality time
   Maybe you enjoy simply being with people you love. If you enjoy spending time with loved ones regardless of the activity, your love language could be quality time.
5. Physical touch
   Think hugs, holding hands, PDA, and lap dogs. When you love someone, you show it by being in physical contact with them. If you love touching, poking, and hugging people you're close to, this might be your love language.

The love languages I identify with most, again, are words of affirmation and quality time. These are the languages I appreciate when directed toward me. This may or may not align exactly with the languages I'm most comfortable directing toward loved ones. Regarding family and friends, I'd say I mostly engage in words of affirmation and gifts. I don't enjoy hugging or quality time too much because family matters have always been difficult (as I revealed in a previous post, my attachment style tends to be insecure avoidant). Ain't that just somethin'?

When it comes to romantic encounters, upon reflection I have to say it varies. I don't fall in love easily because, again, I don't attach and stay attached easily. If I already know the person before we start dating, I'm more likely to trust them and more likely to engage in quality time and acts of service. While I love words and giving gifts, I'd say that stage two includes my service and my time. Stage three is physical touch. It's a tough barrier to break. Childhood attachment styles interact with other theoretical frameworks, like love languages.

As we learn to quantify how much we identify with each of these languages, we get a better look at ourselves. We can identify strongly with a couple of them. (We're basically bilingual!) We can also identify with a few of languages when "speaking" to those we love, but we might only be able to "hear" one or two. This does not mean any relationship is in peril if the languages between people are not the same. It's just a good bit of information to know for building and maintaining those relationships. That being said, it's super helpful to reflect on past or existing relationships to try to understand where certain things fell flat or why certain encounters felt magical. Once we practice these analyses enough, we can look at potential relationships to figure out how to approach the new people in our lives.

Also, what is our language like with our inner self? Quality time is a given, right? But sometimes we avoid quality time by chasing highs, avoiding alone time and the dialogue that circulates inside ourselves.

• What comprises your inner dialogue? (words of affirmation)
  Who in our early childhood contributed to the tone of that inner voice?
• Do you find relief with retail therapy? (gifts)
  When you give yourself gifts, do you feel satisfied?
• Do you take good care of yourself? (acts of service)
  How do you serve yourself outside of the basic functions like eating and sleeping?
• Is alone time relaxing, boring, or scary? (quality time)
  How do you feel about solitude?
• At what times do you make physical contact with yourself? (physical touch)
  What's your body language like when you're by yourself? With others? Etc.

Each of these languages is so dynamic. We can look at expressions of appreciation between ourselves and others, and we can look at how we show appreciation for ourselves. Learning how to speak each other's languages may help us connect in ways we didn't know how to connect before.

If you're looking to connect with a stranger, maybe bat some ideas around, please feel free to use the contact box on the right hand side of this page. It's there because I want you to know somebody is here to listen. Always here. :)

Take care, friends! Until next time.

I'm not too sensitive, you're just a jerk.

"YoU'rE sO sEnSiTiVe."

No, you're rude. I hate hearing variations of this message. It does a couple of things. First, it denies the speaker of responsibility. If I say something mean or rude to you, I expect to get an equal, opposite reaction from you. Not everybody is going to react the same way, but a reaction is almost inevitable. For instance, if you insult me, I'm going to try to hide the sting because I really don't want you to know you hurt me. I'm going to pokerface my way out of the situation and probably talk myself through the pain in private. Others might be rude back. Equal and opposite. Others are rock fucking solid and really won't take what you say personally.

Good for them.

Just because something isn't hurtful to you doesn't mean it isn't hurtful to someone else. Just because one person reacted one way doesn't mean that another person is going to react the same way. We might even step in soft places we didn't know were there, but we actually have the power to digest new information and move forward with greater intelligence. Take responsibility for your words and actions. It's actually pretty easy to be nice.

Second, this message denies the target her feelings. Barking at somebody's sensitivity is, in a way, how the dinkhole channels his own sensitivity. You're not fooling me, Mr. Sir! If you don't want to upset me, why say something upsetting? You're not exactly giving anyone thicker skin by blaming them for reacting in a way you are uncomfortable with.

😒 "Stop being so sensitive."

😂 "Golly, what an idea! Problem fucking solved!"

The APA defines sensitive as

1. adj. responsive to stimuli, changes in the environment, feelings, or other phenomena; that is, having sensitivity
2. adj. having well-developed or intense affective sensibility

Let's think of this word in another context. Mark has sensitive skin. When his skin reacts to a certain temperature or chemical, does he really think telling it to toughen up is going to solve the problem? No, his skin's still going to break out. Why? Because it's fucking sensitive.

Kyle could (a) ignore his skin's reaction, frustrating himself because his skin won't chill tf out, or (b) learn new ways to treat his skin, working with instead of against its natural reaction.

"Skin gets so offended these days! This fucking PC weather/face wash!"

Sensitivity is actually a great indicator of emotional intelligence. As we can see in the APA's definition above, sensitive people sense stuff. You know when Spiderman says whatever about his spidey senses? Nobody's telling fucking Spiderman that he's being too sensitive. It's one of his super powers!

When we're good at sensing stuff, it's more likely we're able to produce moving works of art or music or poetry that reflect how we feel--or maybe how others feel. When we're sensitive, we not only feel bad things deeply but we feel great things intensely. Even though at one point we may have sunk to the bottom of the ocean, we also know what it feels like to rise in flight to another galaxy. Being sensitive can suck sometimes, but it can also be pretty incredible.

I have a couple more definitions to bring into this discussion before I sign off. The Cambridge English Dictionary supplies the following definitions:

• Insensitive adj. not feeling or showing sympathy for other people's feelings, or refusing to give importance to something

• Desensitize v. to cause someone to experience something, usually an emotion or a pain, less strongly than before

These two definitions kind of paint a picture of rude people, don't they? Rude people may have been desensitized, denied their own feelings at one point or another. Maybe they're insensitive. It's possible a critical figure early on was insensitive to their natural emotions. Input *bloop* output. It's hard to give X if we don't know what X looks or feels like. In a way, these types of people missing something.

Something beautiful.

While I do believe in looking for new ways to strengthen myself, I also believe in looking at things that weigh me down. Some things are consequences of my own behaviors, but some things are not. People have told me that my feelings are my responsibility, but successful relationships are seldom one-way interactions. I do have the biggest role in my mental circus, but it's not always easy to dodge or work through hurtful things. And that's okay. I don't want to lose my sensitivity. It colors my life so beautifully. And, honestly, the last thing the world needs is another grayscale merpface knocking people down and blaming them when they hit the ground.

The ground loves you, babe! Keep falling. The more times we fall, the more times we stand up (I hope), and the wiser we become in helping others do the same. :)

If you're looking for an outlet, or if you want to vent about a Dinkhole Merpface in your life, please take advantage of the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. You don't need to feel alone. I'm not a doctor (yet!) but I'll try to help you the best I can.

Stay well, you beautiful weirdos!

Inheriting family trauma

It's probably common knowledge that we inherit genetic traits from our parents. It might be lesser known that the effects of trauma are likely to flow down the proverbial bloodline as well. In his book It Didn't Start With You, Mark Wolynn introduces terms like "family mind" and "family consciousness" to help readers understand how a relative's past experiences can affect a child who hasn't necessarily endured the same things.

(The following points are iterations from Wolynn's work.)

The Family Mind

"The parents eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" Ezekiel 18:2.

Chances are, if there's some sort of trauma or emotional deficit in your bloodline that hasn't been acknowledged, addressed, or repaired, it's trickled down to you.

Both of my parents experienced abandonment during childhood. While neither of them abandoned me, I likely have inherited a certain kind of emptiness due to what they lost early in their lives.

The Family Consciousness

"Traumatic events...can exert a powerful influence over us, leaving an imprint on our entire family system for generations. These imprints then become the family blueprint as family members unconsciously repeat the sufferings of the past" (p. 44). 

"Unresolved traumas from our family history spill into successive generations, blending into our emotions, reactions, and choices in ways we never think to question. We assume these experiences originate with us" (p. 58).

“The greater truth would be that the love you longed for was not available for your mother to give” (p. 68).

“Until we uncover the actual triggering event in our family history, we can relive fears and feelings that don’t belong to us—unconscious fragments of a trauma—and we will think they’re ours” (p. 77).

Because of things that have happened to your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, you might have an inner dialogue or interpersonal expectations based on events that didn't necessarily take place in your life. Gaps don't fill themselves, you know? And people normally can't give what they never received. I can't teach you Russian grammar because I've never learned Russian grammar. Input; output. Because of what your predecessors were missing, those things might be missing from you too. When we do notice that something is missing, the emptiness may be hard to identify. Maybe we feel like something's wrong with us because there's a hole we aren't equipped to understand. One way to help fill this hole is through obtaining knowledge of our family history. I may not be able to teach you Russian grammar at the moment, but I'm positive I could. I just have to equip myself first. One mode of equipment in terms of balancing emotional deficit is therapy. It can be helpful when a properly equipped, objective third party gives us a knowledge-based mirror to show us what we have essentially been blind to.

My mother and my mother's mother were significantly undermothered. Because of this, my own relationship with my mom was void of emotional connection. The only time she vocalized "seeing" me was when she was disappointed. She didn't have much to be disappointed in to be honest because I was a good kid, but boy did she magnify anything she could find. She loved to put words and doubts in my mouth, insisting that anything I wanted to do was stupid and outside of my ability. That attitude had an origin. Her mother had a destructive you-can't attitude as well. I don't know how long that's been in the family or where it came from, but I do know that it sucks when your mother doesn't believe in you.

I've felt this dissonance between myself and my mother since I was very young. That relationship has brought me more pain than warmth, and a few years ago I put a calculated distance between us. (Recall my post about attachment styles, mine being insecure avoidant.) With distance, I've been able to read about and reflect on the relationship we had. With the information I'm learning, I'm able to draw from the past and identify which pieces of a healthy mother-daughter relationship were missing.
(More on this in a later post. I want to stay on track here.)

Four Unconscious Themes that interrupt the flow of life:

1. We have merged with the feelings of a parent.
2. We have judged, blamed, rejected or cut off from a parent.
3. We have experienced a break in the early bond with our mother.
4. We have identified with an excluded member of our family system.

There's so much content on YouTube and other media that features Wolynn himself talking about his writing, his experiences, and what he hopes the world will gain from his work. My posts are normally overflowing with my reflections and elaborations, but I think collecting a few of his words verbatim is the most effective way to share this information with you. If you're interested in more of what Wolynn has to say, I encourage you to dive straight in to the abundance of sources available on the internet.

If you'd like an unprofessional but friendly outsider to talk to, the contact box on the right is for you. :) Sometimes we feel like nobody is rooting for us, but I want to try to help you however I can.

Enjoy this lovely spring evening, friends! Stay well.