Many of us are familiar with Dr. Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages. These love languages represent the way we prefer to receive love in our close relationships, and include five categories: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts, Physical Touch, and Quality Time. While learning and communicating our preferred love languages can be an enlightening way to unlock deeper trust and connection in our relationships with others, I have been pondering the powerful potential of how these love languages can change our relationships with ourselves.
Not all of us are in situations where people we love are frequently showing us the love we need and deserve through our preferred love language. Whether you are single, working through difficulties in your relationship, or simply living away from close friends and family, sometimes the only person that we can rely on to show us consistent and careful love is US.
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So how can we learn to better speak our love language in our relationship with ourselves? As with any other situation in which we are seeking to strengthen our communication skills, the first step involves gaining understanding, and the second, practice! In order to show yourself love in your preferred love language, you have to know what that preferred love language is! It requires a little self-awareness and a knowledge of your own needs and desires. This quiz from Dr. Chapman’s website is a great tool to help you figure out your love language if you are having trouble identifying it on your own.
* Note: Your primary love language for how you like to receive love from others may be different from how you like to receive love from yourself (what I like to call your self-love language). Try out different things, and learn what works the best for you!
After you know how you like to receive love, you have the power to start practicing showing that love to yourself! Intentionally work activities into your routine that give you time to show yourself love and compassion in the way that you like to receive it most.
Here are some ideas for how you can show yourself love in your preferred self-love language (there are lots more – get creative!):
The words we say have power – especially the ones we say to ourselves. Regardless of your preferred self-love language, each of us can benefit from speaking kinder and more loving words to ourselves! If Words of Affirmation is your preferred self-love language, these little efforts will make a big difference in strengthening your relationship with yourself.
Practice thinking kind thoughts about yourself.
Write yourself a love letter.
Listen to your favorite music, book, or poetry.
Implement positive affirmations into your daily routine.
Individuals who prefer acts of service are often very other-focused and are constantly worried about the needs of those around them. How often do you really think about your needs and do something nice for yourself? If you need someone to give you permission, then here you go!
Ask yourself what you need today, and then go do it.
Say “no” to something unnecessary on your “to-do” list.
Perform a service for someone else (alright, alright, sometimes, this is just what you need to feel a little extra love in your day!).
Giving a meaningful gift is not always about how much money it costs; it’s more about the thought that goes into getting and giving the gift. Take some time to think about your needs, and treat yourself to something that will be meaningful to you!
Budget some money each month to buy yourself a small gift.
The love language of Physical Touch is all about physical experience and connecting to your body. A great way to show yourself love in ways that relate to physical touch is by connecting to your senses, and by showing your body some extra love.
Give yourself a foot, hand, or neck massage (or splurge a little and get a professional massage). This is a great video to help guide you through some simple and relaxing self-massage!
Take a bath and be sure to use your favorite bath salts, bath bombs, or essential oils.
When you date someone else, you make sure to spend a lot of time with them so you can get to know them. But are we willing to do the same for ourselves? Spending time to re-connect with yourself and get to know who you are in the present moment can be so healing and enlightening. Take some time to get to know yourself better today!
Take yourself out on a date.
Spend some time out in nature.
Implement a meditation practice into your day.
Go on an adventure and try something you have always wanted to try.
Regardless of your situation, you deserve love, and practicing self-love is a great way to guarantee that you will get it! Get to know your preferred self-love language and start showing yourself some love more intentionally today!
Discover your self-love language, and implement one practice to show yourself some love this week.
Bunt, S., & Hazelwood, Z. J. (2017). Walking the walk, talking the talk: Love languages, self‐regulation, and relationship satisfaction. Personal Relationships, 24(2), 280–290. https://doi-org.erl.lib.byu.edu/10.1111/pere.12182
*The Healthy Humans Project is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you so much for supporting our efforts to improve relationships!
Rian Nicole Gordon is from Orem, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Life and Human Development. She has been married to her best friend Mark for five years, and they have two beautiful children, one boy and one girl. Apart from her full-time job as a stay-at-home mom, she works for The Dibble Institute, which specializes in relationship education for youth.
It hits when you expect it the least. It hits you walking past the baby aisle in the grocery store. It hits you driving past a cemetery. It hits when you look at photos. It hits you when a pregnancy announcement or engagement comes through on your social media feed. It hits you when the holidays come and you’re thousands of miles from family. It never really leaves, and it comes and goes.
What is Grief?
Grief is “the response to loss that contains thoughts, behaviors, emotions and physiological changes; if the loss is permanent so too is the grief, but it evolves and changes as a person adapts to the loss (The Center for Complicated Grief: Overview).” Grief, while including death, also includes any loss that one can experience. This includes losses such as miscarriage, infertility, graduating from school, relationships, moving somewhere new, and health complications, to name just a few.
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The “Stages” of Grief
There are no real set-in-stone stages of grief. Many of us have been taught the most well-known model of the Five Stages of Grief, however, research has gone on to show that putting grief into so-called stages can actually be incredibly damaging because not everyone will go through these specific stages. Compartmentalizing grief can create an idea of grieving wrong or incorrectly (Stroebe, Schut & Boerner, 2017). So rather than talking about stages of grief, I’m going to talk about various principles of grief drawn from these so-called stages in the next section.
Grieving
The most important thing to remember about grieving is that everyone grieves differently (Stroebe, Schut & Boerner, 2017).No two people will grieve in exactly the same way. It’s okay to grieve for things and people that others may not. It’s okay to grieve in the way that works for you. And remember while you are grieving to not compare the way you grieve to the way other people grieve.
Grief comes with a variety of different emotions. The most common emotions associated with grief are shock and disbelief, sadness, guilt, anger, and fear (Coping with Grief and Loss, 2019). These emotions are normal to feel with grief and sometimes will reappear at different points throughout grieving. Some people will experience all of these emotions, some may only experience a few, and that is okay because we all grieve differently.
Photo by Claudia Wolff on Unsplash
Grief can lead to questioning our belief-systems and understanding about life and the world. When a person dies we often ask questions like, “Why did this happen to them?” or, “Why not someone else?” or, “They were such a good person why did they have to die?” These questions are often based on ideas or belief systems such as the just-world hypothesis (the idea that when we are a good person we should only have good things happen to us). When these core beliefs are betrayed by mortality, they can be called into question, and that is OKAY. It’s okay to question and wonder why. Some will try to bargain with their higher power as part of their questioning. (Feldman, 2017)
Grief may eventually lead to acceptance. Grief helps us to come to the point of accepting both what happened and the emotions surrounding the loss as real and valid. There is no rush whatsoever to get to the point of acceptance (Feldman, 2017) and we shouldn’t feel the need to get there in a hurry.
The last point I want to make about grieving comes a little from research and from my own experience. Most people get through the hard, strong, initial grieving within about six months (DePaulo, 2019) but it’s okay if it takes longer. The initial grieving is hard and consuming but it does get easier. I say “gets easier” rather than “goes away”, because in my own life experiences I have found that grief ebbs and flows. Some days, grief shows right up and sits with me for a while. Other days it presents itself in small moments, and other days it’s virtually non-existent.
Photo by J Waye Covington on Unsplash
Coping with Grief
Just like dealing with mental illness or a physical ailment, we have to cope with grief to live our everyday lives. Here are some ideas to help with grief:
Seek support from friends and family members
Find comfort in your faith (this can be religion or spirituality in general)
Write in a journal
Embrace your feelings
Take care of your physical health
Remind yourself that your grief is yours
(Coping with Grief and Loss, 2019)
Final Thoughts
Grief is hard and it’s recurring. But it’s also an opportunity to deal with loss in the most human way possible. Grief at times may be consuming but it also provides an old friend as we go through loss throughout our life. Give yourself permission to grieve even if it’s from something from years ago in your past. It’s okay to grieve and it’s okay to re-grieve. And remember your grief is your own. Everyone will grieve differently and that’s beautiful.
Option #1: Share your thoughts about grief in your journal or on social media
Option #2: Share this post to help others learn more about grief
Stroebe, M., Schut, H., & Boerner, K. (2017). Cautioning Health-Care Professionals. OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying, 74(4), 455–473. doi: 10.1177/0030222817691870
Anasteece Smith is a Utah native who is now living it up as a Texas girl. She is the oldest of seven children and married her sweetheart in 2018 who happened to have her same last name. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Life. In her free time, Anasteece likes to read, paint, swim, hike, camp, hammock, and do graphic design. She is passionate about mental health, healthy sexuality, family resilience, feminism, religion, and research on shame, vulnerability, and perfectionism.
For years I had felt a quiet impression that I needed to look into my family history. I’d do a bit here and there, filling in missing gaps and such on the family tree, but not much beyond that. I thought I was doing my part, thinking that as long as the names and dates are there, we’re good. The thing is, family history isn’t just about filling in gaps in a family tree—though that is a part of it.
The real joy for me came when I began reading my ancestors’ stories and really getting to know them. That’s how I first learned about Grace.
Grace is my great-great-grandmother on my mom’s side. She had four children with her husband, an engineer who designed and paved roads both in the United States and abroad. That’s the basic story, and what I had known before. But life is, of course, far more complex and far deeper than two sentences can describe. When I dove deeper into her story, it ended up changing my life.
According to second-hand accounts obtained from user-submitted stories on genealogy websites as well as some information from family members, Grace and her husband met as teenagers and she was smitten. Against her parents’ wishes, they married in 1909 when Grace was 18 years old.
Years later, shortly after their fourth child was born, her husband ended up in Utah, where he designed the roads that went through some of the National Parks in the state. While his family was back at home, her husband fell for a young woman (25 years his junior) who worked as a waitress and played in an orchestra associated with the national park. James left his family and ran off with this young woman, leaving Grace to raise their four children alone.
I immediately saw the connection to my own life and my relationships.
While I have never been married nor raised children alone, my experience with unhealthy relationships and betrayal trauma lead me to believe that Grace surely experienced a degree of both of those. Those are things I understand. And from those things, I can also assume that his betrayal and abandonment didn’t just happen overnight—there were surely red flags that led to them.
Was I continuing to ignore red flags in my own life, perpetuating this cycle of unhealthy relationships?
It was only after learning Grace’s story that I realized this is a generational issue in my family, and I have the power to break that cycle.
The Research
I thought that doing family history work benefited my deceased family members as I sought to remember and record their lives. I had no idea I would find myself in their stories, and that they would influence my own life in such a monumental way.
When interviewed by CNN, author A.J. Jacobs shared the benefits of teaching children (and I’d also add adults) about their family stories: “What children learn when they hear about their past— both the good and the bad… is primarily that they can chart their own course and don’t have to follow the path of what their less-than-stellar ancestors did. They also learn that they are part of something bigger than themselves.”
The article cited research to back this up: a study by Emory University found that “Family stories provide a sense of identity through time, and help children understand who they are in the world.”
Discovering this family story helped me feel part of something bigger than myself, and gave me a sense of identity greater than I had felt previously. Feeling that connection to my great grandmother through similar traumas helped me see my own strength, both in my trauma recovery and in my ability to change unhealthy relationship patterns in my life.
The Emory University study also found additional unexpected benefits of studying family history: Teens who learned more stories about their extended family showed “higher levels of emotional well-being, and also higher levels of identity achievement, even when controlling for general level of family functioning.”
In Ancestry.com’s 2014 global study of over 6,000 Ancestry users, 67% said that “knowing their family history has made them feel wiser as a person.” Additionally, 72% said it “helped them feel closer to older relatives.” (This study was cited in a blog by the New York Public Library entitled “20 Reasons Why You Should Write Your Family History,” which is also a great read). Learning about ancestors clearly has benefits that reach far beyond basic knowledge of the past.
How to Start
A few months ago, I read an idea on an Instagram account (I’m pretty sure it was on @thelisteningearproject, though I could be mistaken) to specifically ask all living grandparents, “What is something you wish you had done when you were younger?” After recording their answers, you could then go and do those things in their place, sharing your memories with them. I decided to finally ask this question when I was home for the holidays this year. While I may not be able to actually complete the unfulfilled dreams of my grandparents (some answers included to go to nursing school, travel to Israel, and buy a horse and ride into the mountains), the prompt opened up new conversations and understanding of my grandparents’ lives. Even my parents were unaware of these parts of my grandparents’ lives. And hey, maybe someday I’ll go to Israel and share that experience with my grandma!
If you want to start asking family members questions and recording their answers (either by writing it down, or recording their voices, which will be so meaningful in and of itself), here is a great list of questions to start with.
One of my favorite lines from the New York Times article is one I’d like to end this article with: “[Culture] comes from lived experience, traditions and stories passed down, from actual people who shape our perceptions of the world.” When we get past the names and dates, we can discover our family, and discover ourselves.
Option #1: Ask a living grandparent the question, “What is something you wish you had done when you were younger?” Record their answer.
Option #2: Create a free account on familysearch.org. Learn something new about your family tree.
Allie Barnes graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Studies, earned a certificate in Substance Use Disorder Counseling from Utah Valley University, and studied writing throughout her undergraduate career. In every professional role she’s filled since then, her focus remains the same: People.
How can I stop being afraid of relationships? Fear is a universal emotion, and perhaps the most resisted. Our current age provides us with constant and limitless information. This access to data can also generate anxiety. Sometimes the more advice we get the less sure we are of life’s choices. A major, modern concern is in regard to relationships. Have you ever felt scared of marriage after hearing about your friend’s messy divorce? Or wanted to end things after something was said or done that reminded you of a past disappointment? The majority of people will say they desire connection and a romantic partnership, but the uncertainty in achieving that goal often keeps us from trying. While fear is a normal part of life, it does not have to be crippling.
Fear of relationships doesn’t actually protect us from the challenges in relationships. Understanding fear can improve our bonds with others. Leaning into the emotion and asking yourself how this perception came to be will start you on the path to bravery. Fear of fear will hinder our growth. Owning our fear and seeking to understand it gives us back our power.
Fear or Uncertainty
Fear is meant to fuel an action that creates more safety. When we feel unease, we usually avoid the environment that triggered the feeling. Often we bypass associating with others because we’d like to feel sure. However, we cannot be certain of a person unless we make an attempt to connect with them. This is why many individuals who fear relationships feel that the process is a catch-22. In the book The Four Loves it states, “There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one…But [your heart] will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell” (Lewis, 1960).
Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash
The reality is, no matter how knowledgeable or prepared we may feel for relationships, there will always be a risk. We take risks all the time. We risk getting out of bed each morning. We risk rejection when we interview for a new job. We risk our safety when we drive on the road, or get on a plane. While the outcome of such decisions aren’t always in our control, we still take action. Why? Because we’ve practiced. We’ve practiced the choices of ambiguity enough to have hope in the process of life. The way to fear relationships less is to practice this same hope in our experiences with others. Relationships involve discomfort and uncertainty. We will experience hurt in and out of relationships. So, what motivates us to participate in this connection process if it is never a guaranteed safe experience?
We Are Meant to Love
“We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering” (Brown, 2012). The reason we engage in such a risky process as connection is because it’s at the core of life’s meaning. It gives flavor and joy to our lives. It also brings disappointment and challenges. But real suffering comes in avoiding connection altogether. We all need each other if we want to grow.
Photo from pexels.com
Be Brave and Choose Hope
The brain is programmed to protect. This is normal and necessary for our survival. The emotion of fear is nothing more than a chemical reaction working its way through the body as a result of a thought in our mind (Moore, 2018). So, how do we be brave in our ties with others? It starts with our thinking. We have tens of thousands of thoughts a day, and the majority tend to be negative and repetitive. Unless we make those unconscious beliefs conscious, we will be controlled by them. Like Earl Nightingale said, “Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become reality” (Nightingale, 2019). Thought work can be arduous, but just like all good things, it is worth it.
Thinking Errors are patterns of thought that engender fear and other difficult emotions (Boyes, 2013). Patterns such as catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, and fortune-telling are a few of the ways in which our thoughts do us a disservice. When fearful thoughts about others arise ask yourself, “what real evidence is there that this thought is true?”, “Is there a more helpful way to think about this?”, “What’s the likelihood that this will happen?” Remember: don’t believe everything you think. I’m not suggesting that we don’t trust ourselves. Quite the opposite. Our gut knows more than our mind at times. Rather, observe if your thinking is accurate or exaggerated. The more honest you are, the more you can trust yourself. The way we show up for others is deeply based on our thinking. If we fear them, we will show up defensive, worried and insecure. If we choose hope and value the process of connection, we will show up in a way that is honest, vulnerable, and joyful (Moore, 2018).
Photo by Kate Kalvach on Unsplash
So, how can we stop fearing connection? Practice. Take small steps of vulnerability with those who matter to you. Trust is built up of many small and proactive efforts. Start viewing connection in a realistic way. Be the watcher of your thoughts (Tolle, 1997). Notice your errors in thinking, and switch to more helpful ideas. Yes, there will be discomfort and conflict in relationships. It may hurt, and things may even end. But that’s no reason not to try. Let go. Be brave. And recognize that most people have similar fears, but want to love and connect as well. Uncertainty is uncomfortable, but we can handle discomfort. Especially when such risks can lead us to deep and meaningful connections.
Practice mindfulness around your relationship thoughts this week. Study the thinking errors, and pick the one you’d like to work on. As fear arises in the mind walk yourself through your thoughts and feelings by asking yourself the questions in the “be brave” section above. Repeat this de-escalation process until it’s a habit.
*The Healthy Humans Project is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you so much for supporting our efforts to improve relationships!
Dray Salcido is from Elkridge, Utah. She is the youngest of seven and enjoys close relationships with her siblings. She graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work from Utah Valley University. She works at a law firm and volunteers with various populations. She enjoys researching and writing about the human experience, and hopes to make that her creative life’s work.
Have you ever seen someone else’s relationship and thought, “I want that”? Whether it’s another couple’s look, the fun they have together, how they serve each other, the love they have for each other, etc., it’s easy to compare yourself and your relationship to what others have. It’s also easy to feel discouraged and think that your relationship will never get to that point.
Knowing what you want in a relationship is an important part of finding a good match for you, as well as creating your dream relationship. However, making positive change requires more than just knowing what you want. Being willing to WORK for what you want is just as critical to molding your relationship into everything that you and your significant other want it to be. The good news is, each of us has the power to work on our relationships and help them move in a forward and upward direction.
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In 2020, we at The Healthy Humans Project want to challenge you to make your relationships a priority. Regardless of what your relationship looks like now, you have the power to make some #relationshipgoals that will help you work on connecting with those you love! Here are a few different types of goals you can include as part of your New Year’s Resolutions to work on your relationships!
P.S. These specific goals are written in a way that applies specifically to romantic relationships, but each of them can be modified to fit any important relationship in your life!
#1 – Create A Couple Motto
An important part of relationships is creating a shared identity and defining who you want to be as a couple (Maniaci, 2009). Working together with your significant other to write a motto (“a short sentence or phrase chosen as encapsulating the beliefs or ideals guiding an individual, family, or institution”) can help you identify what is important to you, and what you are working towards creating together! Your motto could just be for this year, or it could be for your relationship as a whole – you get to decide! Be sure to write down your motto and display it somewhere where you and your partner will both see it.
Photo from pexels.com
#2 – Set a Healthy Boundary
Healthy boundaries are critical for healthy relationships (Strong, 2019). Ensuring that your romantic relationship is a safe space (emotionally, physically, mentally, etc.) both for you and for your significant other can be a determining factor in achieving your #relationshipgoals. Consider sitting down with your significant other and discussing boundaries in your relationship. How can you increase physical, emotional, or mental safety for one another? What other outside relationships affect the safety in your relationship, and what changes need to be made to increase that safety? How can you work to protect each other and put each other first? When you work on defining and setting healthy boundaries together, it shows your commitment, love, and respect for one another.
#3 – Sweat the Small Stuff
While large gestures of love and commitment are nice, the quality of your relationship is primarily defined by the small things you do every day to re-commit to each other. Sit down with your partner, and write down a few things you can do every day to check-in and connect. Having a meaningful routine or simple ritual when you part ways in the morning and reunite in the evening can natural times to fit in moments of connection (Gottman, 2015). Physical touch like kisses or hugs and verbal check-ins are examples of small and simple things you can do every day to let your partner know that they matter to you.
Photo from pexels.com
#4 – Dream Together
Research has shown that dreaming about your future together strengthens the chances that you actually WILL have a future together (PREP Inc., 2015). If you want to protect your relationship from falling apart, dream together about what you want to be! What do you want your life together to look like in five, ten, or twenty years? What dreams do you each have as individuals, and how can you support each other in those dreams? What hopes do you have for your family and the life you create together? Set goals for things you can do NOW to help those dreams come to pass.
A final note:
Remember that relationships are two-way efforts! The most effective way to improve your relationship is to work on things together as a couple. If that is not possible for you at this moment, take comfort in knowing that you have power over yourself, and you CAN choose to work on your relationship as an individual.
Choose a goal that you would like to incorporate into your New Year’s Resolutions that focuses specifically on improving one of your relationships!
Maniaci, M. (2009). Couple identity. In H. T. Reis & S. Sprecher (Eds.), Encyclopedia of human relationships(pp. 336-337). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi/10.4135/9781412958479.n111
Prep Inc.. (2015). PREP 8.0 Leader Guide, Version 1.3. Greenwood Village, CO: Author.
*The Healthy Humans Project is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you so much for supporting our efforts to improve relationships!
Rian Nicole Gordon is from Orem, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Life and Human Development. She has been married to her best friend Mark for five years, and they have two beautiful children, one boy and one girl. Apart from her full-time job as a stay-at-home mom, she works for The Dibble Institute, which specializes in relationship education for youth.
Discover your self-love language, and implement one practice to show yourself some love this week. 
Last year, the New York Times published a beautiful piece (“
