DG- Love Languages

We started this series 2 weeks ago, but it's been a lot of background information (very important background...Ex: Where you're learning your love languages from, what love really looks like, our own descriptions of what love is, etc..)

Through the different love languages, we're learning to recognize how people show their love towards others, and how we primarily show our love to others.

In recognizing someone else's love languages, You're letting them show their love for you in their own way.

The cool thing is: love languages are learnable. (I just added that word to my dictionary..)

- I appreciate this, because (especially in this week's love language) I am terrible at showing my love to other people! There is total hope in this statement, that we can actually get better at the different ways of showing our love.

Proverbs 18:21

The first love language the book enters into is...

WORDS OF AFFIRMATION:

Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits.
~Proverbs 18:21

And of course, my first thought is "Oh, crap..." considering my struggle is totally with my words. My problem is.... I use them. Waaay too much. And those words sometimes may be good, oftentimes can hurt... I like to think of the "talkers" like me as people who shoot hundreds of arrows in an attempt to hit a small target. We just have somuchtosayinsuchlittletimeandprobablyhaveaprideproblembecausewethinkeveryoneshouldknowallaboutourstory

..my point proven. :)

• The family that we grew up with, the house we lived in.... they have HUGE impact on how we give and receive words of affirmation. Or whether or not we do either, .. ever.
• Growing up in a positive home will impact the way that you are with expressing your words of affirmation. You're in a way, pre-trained into affirming others.
• Very inversely, if you grew up in a very negative home, you'll have a harder time learning to affirm others with your words.
  
  I want to work on this ******
  
  
• If we want to Love, we need to take action.
  -Luke 6:38
  -1 John 4:19
  

A few points of homework for us..

1. Start where you are. Figure out your environment where you grew up in.
-Question: Did I ever feel love? Did I hear the words, "I Love you"?

2. Be active and not passive.
-For those of us who grew up in a negative household, we need to learn to not be the victim. Make the choice to love people.

I really love that idea of making the choice to love. That it's not always super easy to love people. But you make that choice right then and there, even if someone is treating you badly, you make that choice to love them.

3. Choose a strategy: How you can love those other people.

• With words of affirmation, never fake it. People can tell when you're not being sincere.
• Do it with a pure heart. Not for the return affirmation, not for your own recognition.

Different Dialects of Words of Affirmation:

1. Appreciation
2. Encouragement
3. Praise
   -Helpful for conflict-type conversations: before you're about to criticize someone, recognize and praise the thing that they've been accomplishing.
4. Kind words
   -Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
   sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
   (Proverbs 16:24..NIV because it has a little more of a fluid sentence structure)

Wisdom from Dustin's Moleskine:

"According to Paul from Prolango.com, 55% of communication is body language, 38% is tonality, and 7% are the actual words used."

Another aspect of how we express ourselves verbally is the tone in which we address others.

-For some people, you're going to have to learn what kind of tones they respond to the best, as well as the tones that they don't like. Everyone has their own sensitivity level.

Learning how to have the deeper, harder level conversations w/ people & choosing to be loving within those heated conversations:

-A great tip for this is Receive their heated emotion as information about where they are emotionally.
(I never thought about things this way before. I feel like it's so easy to get caught up in the middle of the emotionally heated conversation, that we miss what this person is actually SAYING-- They're trying to communicate something more than what words happen to be falling out of their mouth at the time.)

Forgiveness:

When we've wronged others...
don't be afraid to say you're sorry.

(...)For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
-Matthew 12:34

• Own up to your own heart and feelings.
• Try your best to make things up to that person.

When you've been wronged by others... you have two options:

1. "You deserve this" action plan: putting yourself as the ultimate judge
   
   
2. Forgiving them: releasing them to God and submitting to Christ as the ultimate judge.
   -a sign of humility, in knowing that we can't judge others as we are all sinners.

When someone repeatedly sins against you and doesn't apologize:

-CHOOSE to release them to God.

Saying to yourself "I won't let this ruin me or control me"

A Few Small Quotes and Ideas:

"Many people mess up every new day with what happened yesterday"
"The best thing to do with our past hurts: Make them history."

"What I say and how I say it will affect the climate of my relationships."

To Encourage someone is to inspire courage within them. We lack courage, and that hinders us from doing things: By encouraging people, we're enabling them to have the courage to do that new thing or take that new step.

With this, I've Set up a few "To Do" List items....but Dustin has encouraged me to label the list "Priorities", so that I won't feel bad if I don't accomplish every single item today. I kind of like that idea.. :)

Priorities:

• How can I improve my own Words of Affirmation towards others?
• Proverbs 18:21