Love Strategies

The Paradigm of love is such an essential idea that everyone of us should know, regardless if we are in a relationship wiht our spouse, children. parents, friends, neighbours or even enemy.

Well, the bible did not "suggest" that we love, but it commands us to love, so we do not really have a choice do we?

The question is, how do we love?

Love is a feeling that needs to be expressed effectively, otherwise it may be misunderstood. I mean, how often do we feel the lack of love from someone we love but later at a more resourceful state, we think back and realise that the things they did for us are done out of love. But why do we not appreciate them on the spot?

From my study into this subject i realise 2 things that may have affected this difference in paradigm:

1) Our learning styles - VAK (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic)
2) Our rules for Love.

Our Learning style affects the way our mind learns or process the information. Each of us learn better either Visually, by Audio, by Kinesthetic (doing, physical) or a combination of all.

What has this got to do with love? It is relevant because we need to learn that the specific actions or word we are receiving is a sign of love.

Let me explain further: For example i am a kinesthetic person and my wife is a auditory person. So she feels love when she hears me say,"I Love You" but i, being a kinesthetic person prefers to show love by doing things for her. What will happen?

I will keep making things, or doing things for her, or kiss her and hold her hands, but she is not able to learn that this is love. She learns best by hearing me express my love for her.

Understanding this idea, it may be better for me to say the words, "i love you" or even sing her a love song. I do hope this example helps.

Ok, but there is another step to it. Even if i say,"I love You!" it still may not work fully. Why? It brings us to my second point: Our rules for love.

Each of us have different rules for what is an expression of love. I mean, why do we feel love when someone comes up, place his/her lips which is filled with germs and unknown food partical to our lips? This isn't very logical is it?

The truth is, it makes sense to us because of our personal rules. And of course this may be influenced and shaped by the media, or culture etc.

I mean, i heard that in some places, the sign of ulitmate love for your parents is to EAT them before they pass away. This is so that they can live on in our bodies. How can this be LOVE? Well, think about it, that is their rules. What are yours?

So the first step to be able to effectively shpw your love is to find out what are the rules of the person you want to show love to.
This is likely to be closely tied to their learning style which is our first point.

In Gary Chapman's book, he suggested the 5 love languages which are namely:
1) Word of Affirmation (Audiotory)
2) Physical Touch (kinethestic)
3) Gifts (Visual)
4) Quality Time (could be a combination of all)
5) Acts of Service (more of visual rather than kinesthetic, as it requires the person to see the service done -my personal feel)

Well, these love languages may be a very good guideline to start with. Well, we need each of this in different amount, in different times.
So, my personal stratgey is have a love language of the week, where i find opportunity to use this love language to express my love and review after the action on the response and outcome.

Do test it out yourself!