The 5 Love Languages

Love is not just an idea, but an actual physiological effect.  When we fall in love with someone all kinds of crazy things happen in our bodies.  Love is chemistry in action.  Chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin and many other chemicals are released and manipulated in our bodies to cause sweating palms, butterflies, passion, and that top of the world feeling.   This is the love we experience when we meet someone we might want to spend the rest of our lives with.   For those of you married,  that "honeymoon" phase soon begins to fade, but that does not mean we still don't love them.  It just means the real relationship begins after all those chemicals have stopped making us go love crazy.  And relationships take work.  We also love our kids, friends, and relatives and these relationships take work too.


I was having a conversation with a couple a few years ago and they were telling me about this book they had just read to help cultivate relationships.  It was called the The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman and while it sounded interesting I never really pursed the topic further.  Since that conversation, I have heard the topic come up several times.  I still have not read the book, but there is a really nice site that I recently checked out that now allows you to see what your love language through a very quick questionnaire.

The concept of the book is that we all respond to certain expressions of love differently.   Love is about putting those people we care about above ourselves.  So if we put other's above ourselves, we might as well make sure we express our love in a way that make's our spouse or children the happiest.  Gary Chapman defined these expressions of love into 5 categories.

1.  Words of Affirmation
2.  Acts of Service
3.  Receiving Gifts
4.  Quality time
5.  Physical Touch

I took the questionnaire and you get a breakdown of you love language.  For me getting a new tie as a gift may not make me as happy as just sitting on the patio and spending some time in a deep conversation.   We are all different in what makes us happy.  Ultimately this is just a tool to help us interact better with the people we love and find out what makes them happy.  Take the questionnaire and see what your love language is.  this is also one for kids.  I enjoyed thinking about what I thought my kid's love languages were and then having them to answer the questions.  They surprised me a couple times.

5 Love Languages:  http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

My results