The Changing Face of Love Languages

It is possible for someone to have been married a long time and miss the subtle fact that Love Languages, the ways in which we communicate our love and understand the love of each other, change with time and situations.  What at one time was a wonderful way to express our love to a spouse at some point may have become worn out through abuse or failure to follow through. 

An example may help my point here.  We may start out our marriage being able to use flowers as an expression of our thoughtfulness and love to our spouse.  Later, it becomes possible and even more welcome sometimes to perform more direct acts of thoughtfulness such as filling up her gas tank when she thinks she will have to do it, or doing the dishes, or folding the laundry she fell asleep on because she was exhausted.

These acts also say in much the same way as flowers do, but sometimes more potently, that I love you and am devoted to your happiness. 

Sometimes, we use the token expressions, such as candy or flowers but in other ways fail to show or to follow through with expression of our love, to the extent that the tokens lose their meaning and effectiveness.  Sometimes situations change, money gets tight, she feels more burden than before, he feels more detached, and so the things that we need to feel loved and to feel love for our spouse might take on a different flavor.

In a loving relationship, it may be easy enough to find out what the new love language is that we must learn to express our love in a better more fulfilling way, but like any language, it may be a stretch to learn and may cause us to feel that too much is being expected of us. Sometimes we show our love language to our spouse through our own actions hoping they will mirror those actions without realizing that their language is different and thus we may only be showing them how we want to be communicated to but not doing a very good job of communicating in our partner's love language ourselves.

Sometimes the best thing we can do to feel more loved, is to love more, without any thought of how long it may take for that love to be returned. Obviously forever is too long to wait, I speak only of a relationship where one or the other has for a time, withdrawn their willingness to express what they feel because they are hurting and need to feel safe again. So our best action is to help them feel safe again.

It is not always easy to get to this point, but it can begin a whole new level of wonder if we can push beyond the obstacles that threaten us and open up into a new world of discovery. Sometimes, this can only be done with outside help. If needed, get some.

There is no way to know easily that one has reached such an impasse without decent communications. Some people never get there, some couples never get there, and so they fade away. Don't be that person. There's too much at stake.

Learn the Direction of your Goal and make constant course corrections along the way

One time I was asked why my life seems so uncomplicated, which first of all, I had to admit, it only seemed to the other person to be so, for it has never actually been uncomplicated.  My answer, after brief thought however, considered the reason he had asked me, and I supposed it was because for him, life had constantly held let down after let down and nothing seemed to work long for him before it would fall apart and he would have to move on.

What I said was that some people wake up each day and they have a larger goal or destination in their mind, a purpose bigger than what they can accomplish that day, while others merely get through the day and largely let the outside events of the day dictate their overall direction.  

The second example could be likened to someone who wets their finger, tests the direction the wind is blowing and then sets their sails to go that direction.  At the end of each day their progress is only measurable in forward movement, but in the long run, they may be running in circles accomplishing nothing over the course of a week, a month or a year.  Or a lifetime.

Contrast this with the person who awakes each day with a goal (the same one as yesterday or maybe bigger) that rises above the day to day scuffle with circumstance and is measured against a goal that rises above the tree line making the daily as well as the weekly and monthly movement toward it, constant and measurable over the long run in progress toward that singular goal.

Each day, I arise with a purpose that transcends the daily or weekly obstacles that attempt to obscure my path, and because I can see the goal rising above the forest, my direction is more constant from one day to the next.  I liken this to using the celestial movements of the stars or the sun or even the mountains in the distance to help me determine the direction of my daily walk, so that in the short run as well as the long run, my direction remains constant and measurable, not only in forward progress but in less time remaining from one day to the next, to achieve my distant but constant goal.

My walk is not perfect, and at times, all I can see are the trees and the predators, but more than a few times, I hit a clearing, and the mountain comes back into view and my faith and my purpose are restored.  We are 100% more likely to achieve a goal that is planned and patterned after those who have gone before and know the way, than to follow the wind, or those who want only for the path to be fun, and care nothing for the long term results of their journey.

Consciousness is not the same as Thought

If consciousness were the same as thought, we could not actually be aware of our thoughts.  It follows then, that the constant stream of thoughts that are in most cases a natural chemical response to the constant barrage of external and internal stimulus, and not something we willed or caused to be thought.  How many times do we have thoughts we are sure could not have come from our own mind, because they reflect nothing of what we desire or want, but are simply deviations from the comfortable stream of innane and often useless thoughts that parade through our mind from morning until evening.

If we learn to observe our thoughts, and by extension the emotions that they generate, we can become more in touch with those thoughts which create or produce emotions and hence actions that we wish to change or eradicate from our daily behavor pattern.  How many times do we actually see a fight with a loved one coming simply because all the cues are falling into place and yet we do not seem to be able to stop the pattern from emerging?

This is something we can become better at steering away from by practicing the art of observing our thoughts and learning to dissociate ourselves from the ones that inevitably result in emotions that produce actions that are always destructive to our life and relationships.  By observing the thoughts that parade through our mind, we can even recognize those that seem to be inspired by the protective power of our ego, which always appears to be protecting us from hurt but which usually leads us directly into the middle of more pain and destruction of our precious relationships.

By becoming a skilled observer of our thoughts, our consciousness can eventually become more attuned also to the thoughts that lead to positive and desirable results in our lives and we can set ourselves on a pattern of repeating those thoughts which lead us to the joy we and our loved ones desire and deserve. 

Once we become skilled enough at this art of observation and only then can we begin to recognize when others thoughts and actions are contributing or attempting to revive our own ego's defense mechanisms, and by then we should be more adept at allowing those attempts to "fly out open windows" as Stephen R Covey so skillfully described the act of allowing the daggers or stones (comments) of others to pass through our windows without resistance and land softly on the ground below rather than meeting resistance of a closed window and having shards of glass resulting in cuts and mayhem to the thrower and the window.

The best observers, are the best listeners and are often those that can hear and see the reality of a situation instead of the image our chemical reactions begin to form as our thoughts attempt to steer us in a defensive course ultimately intended to protect us, but which inevitably leads to diminished love and joy all the way around.

Fear and Faith are two sides of the same coin, but "I Am" is where knowledge begins

Courage is not the absence of Fear, but the desire to act in spite of it.  So the opposite of Fear is not Courage but Faith.  When we are acting in Faith, we have an image of the completion of our action as a positive result.  Fear is as much a mental construct of some past or future that at present does not exist as is Faith.

Past and Future are both tied to time and so we are living as much in a creation of the mind when we say "I will do something" as we are when we say, "I wish I had never done something..."

The most effective affirmations that we can employ to change our lives toward a new existence is one that Bob Proctor and Jack Canfield often speak of.  It is simply to speak as if the thing we desire, or desire to become is already a part of our existence, and speak with gratitude for its existence.  Some examples of this type of affirmation are:

I am so grateful that I am a son of God, heir to all the promises of the kingdom as I follow His will in my life.  I am a teacher of spiritual wisdom of life and am sought by many to help them understand themselves and their place in life better.  I am a loving husband and father who leads my family by willingly doing anything I would ever ask of them, and by serving as the Savior served in his kingdom.  I am a magnet for good experiences because I am grateful for all that I have been given and ever seek to learn new lessons from all experiences that pass my way, even those that might be called bad or unfortunate by others.

We can use the faith in God that he desires for us eternal growth and expansion of life as the way to confidently be grateful for the promises he has made to us, as we seek more to do His will, or seek more to be a blessing to others through the gifts we seek or strive to obtain.

I am so grateful each day I awake next to my wonderful wife who has pledged herself to eternal growth by my side, developing an eternal friendship, and partnership as we seek together to bless the lives of others with our talents and our increasing wisdom that comes from our Father in Heaven.  I am grateful that God has given us a beautiful world full of people and experiences that are available to any who will seek a way that they may be of greater service to the world, through expansion of their own life and talents that they have been given.  I am grateful to see this principle taking hold in my life, and look forward with joy to the life that is unfolding before my eyes with my eternal companion and bride by my side.

We Must Learn to use Life's Hurts for our Good

I have recently been going through some painful realization that my marriage is not as perfect as I thought it was.  This is not as I might once have thought because of my wife’s attitude or lack of gratitude for what she has.  It turns out there are some things that I have been comfortable with that are, even in my own opinion, unacceptable levels of complacency with my financial and spiritual status quo.  It’s just that everyone reaches a limit of their own ability to tolerate something they have observed for so long, and while the initial revelation to me of these areas of concern hurt deeply to my core, it awakened something in me that needed to be awakened.

 

Many people at this point would simply allow their egoic self to put up another wall and blame others for why things have taken such a turn.  So part of the difference for me is that I truly see my marriage as an eternal companionship with my best friend, and that she is telling me things that only a best friend can get away with.  But even more deeply, I have come to understand that I am far from rid of the ego, the natural man, which I understand scripturally to be an enemy to God and to my eternal progression.  Obviously it is also an enemy to my eternal marriage, though things had gotten comfortable for a while.

 

Holly and I both know that we are committed to love each other, not just to be in love, but that we have reached the edge of the plateau we have been on and the next move is a bit of a jump to the ladder dangling from the next higher level plateau.  Leaping is scary, and holds its own dangers, but sitting down and quitting holds far more peril to both of us and our eternal union than the knowledge that I tried with all my might and perhaps failed.  We both know we cannot yet say that we have done all we are capable of and so there is the need again to take a leap of faith and move forward in faith that what the road ahead holds is more adventure and new levels of joy for a marriage that has been comfortably if mildly growing in the right direction.

 

I know change is always painful, and yet I also believe that pain is weakness leaving the body.  As we seek to rid ourselves of the egoic dominance that holds us back in so many ways, it becomes more apparent that it is not so much about throwing off any bad habits but about developing new necessary ones, which will eventually edge out through atrophy those that no longer have any use for us.

 

I see this now as a welcome and important new phase of my existence and a demand to run a little faster while I am able. 

Catching Myself Earlier Each Time

The best part of changing, of ridding ourselves of bad habits, is when we begin to see ourselves while we are doing what we want to stop doing, and eventually that becomes, catching ourselves before we do it.

I have a thing about rude drivers, discourteous drivers, mostly because I am a very conscientious and courteous driver and try not only to allow others to go ahead if they seem in more of a hurry, but I try to spot those potentially about to need to move into an opening that I could make, which I then do.

Well today I was leaving my neighborhood, turning left onto busy Gilbert road, and a tall XTerra pulled up on my right side completely obscuring my view of traffic to the right, forcing me to have to wait until she moved on before I could see if it were clear to go.

What happened next made my blood boil in an instant.  She pulled straight out into the gap of the median and made the left turn I was sitting there to make, so I instantly laid on my horn and of course yelled "Hey!"  Since it was now clear to go, I zipped out into my left turn and instantly thought, "what am I doing?"  "I couldn't go until she went, and here I am, so what did I really lose, besides an imaginary place in line?"

I caught up to her in the empty lane to her right but instead of looking left or saying anything else, I just went on my way, smiling and thought, "she might have decided after getting there that she wanted to go to Walgreens first before heading south, it could be anything," but certainly there was not one good reason to treat this as an affront to me.

I would like to say here that I had just earlier read in an Eckhart Tolle book on the Power of Now, that there is no pain or emotional hurt that is caused by anything outside of ourselves.  It is our thoughts about a situation that determine whether we will be hurt, or angry, or peaceful from that point on. All emotional response to any situation is 100% based on our views and thoughts regarding the persons, or situations involved. 

I saw that again today as I completely removed myself from anger by changing what I thought she had meant by her actions.  It was that quick, and that complete.  The time it takes for us to change away from our bad habits can be the time it takes to change the way we see ourselves or others around us, or maybe the way we see why we are here in this life, or why we are where we are at any given moment.

Gratitude is one thing that can help change a lot of anger and hurt inspiring thoughts and replace them with peaceful ones.  It takes real effort sometimes to change course once on a particular one, but the ease of changing course can also depend upon our resolve to change our lives.  My changes seem to be happening at a quicker pace each day, and for that also, I am grateful.

Be Ready For Change When It Comes

There is little room in most people's lives for change.  Most people by nature like to settle into a comfortable pattern of existence. Change however is in the grand scheme of things and is a daily occurrence.  Without change, our life can take on a monotony that stifles growth and hampers our ability to adapt later.

Aging in fact happens as atrophy sets in to once vibrant cells of the body, and though we have not yet figured out how to reverse the process, there are many who have slowed it down substantially and it is always by renewing the body's ability to adapt and by changing things up from time to time, or even daily.

In the book and movie, What the Bleep do We know? Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about how habits in life are formed by hardening neural pathways, which has the further effect in the long run of deadening the body's ability to form new neural pathways.  To combat this stifling stagnation of growth, we should endeavor to override the body's mechanism for forming habits by changing each day, the way we do things.  Whether it be holding the toothbrush with a different hand, or taking a different path to work in the morning, it keeps the senses alert and keeps the body from hardening certain response patterns to the same outside stimulus.

There is great wisdom in always being ready for change, as most of us found on 9/11/01 and while many people actually reverted back into old patterns once the smoke had settled, many more found themselves changed forever, most in a good way.

Change is rarely comfortable, but in most cases, if we are ready for it, can be full of lessons to prepare us for more and greater change, thus strengthening us for life ahead.  Our readiness for change and our adaptability to life's little annoyances can greatly affect both the length and the quality of our lives, improving both.  Are you accepting little changes in your life or are you completely resistant to them.  They are the very things that help us be ready for the big life changing events that most certainly will come our way.