relationships

The Five Love Languages

/ James Browning

5-languages

At times I had told others “I am my own lab rat”. Such a strange statement has a fairly simple meaning; I experiment and try things on myself in a quest to improve and grow. From self-hypnosis (which I got decent results from), to lucid dreaming (never could get in the habit of doing it) to meditation (which I get great results from) to lots of other experimentation I remain open to finding what can make a positive difference in my life.

Several months back someone told me about the book “The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate” by Gary Chapmen. I got a copy of the book and on my current business trip brought it along. It has been difficult to put down. The concepts are presented in a down to earth manner that makes complete sense to me. I have gained a lot of insight into relationship difficulties in the past and opportunity for the future. While the book’s frame of reference leans toward married couples, it is applicable to anyone in a serious relationship. I have had several strong “ah ha moments” so far and will complete the book before I get home.

The primary concept of the book is that each person has a specific love language (sometimes two) that is essential for him/her to feel loved. If a partner “speaks” the language the other needs, the relationship is far more rewarding, comfortable, intimate and resilient. Even when difficulty comes it is more readily and constructively dealt with when both partners are speaking/hearing each other’s language. Otherwise one person in the relationship figuratively ends up speaking “Dutch” while the other is using “Italian”. Then neither understands the other at all.

Here are the 5 languages of love outlined in the book:

Quality time: For one who needs things spoken to them in this language, things like spending time together, eye contact, deep and meaningful conversations and shared activities are needed to feel loved. Bonding time with their partner is what is most important to them.

Receiving gifts: When you are with a partner who relishes little gifts and surprises, this is precisely what you will get. You will constantly be showered with new clothes, flowers or other presents. This is how they want to be loved and is exactly what they do for their partners. This doing for another person is expressing what they actually need themself. Giving the gift of one’s own time is also an important symbol of love to these people.

Words of affection: This works by giving your partner near constant reinforcement, compliments, sweet love notes and lots of encouragement. This is important because those who speak this language are sensitive people and need reassurance on a highly consistent basis. They thrive on being told they are loved and are important. Such a person can become fearful and uncertain without it.

Physical touch: If this is the language of your partner they will be very affectionate or, as some like to call it, touchy-feely. Sex to them means much more than just an orgasm – it is a way to connect. However, they desire contact far beyond sexual activity. Holding hands, hugs, and caresses are very important to these men and women. Without physical contact a person who needs the language of Physical Touch can feel unloved.

Acts of service: Some people find pleasure in doing things for others. By doing these people are actually illustrating what they want and need themself. Such a man or woman may show love by helping out, doing chores, running errands or gladly doing things for a partner, whether desired or not. However, the only acts that matter are those done out of love, not obligation.

While I still have about a third of the book to go, the “Languages” of love I personally need spoken to me are already apparent. I was able to confirm my initial impressions with a quiz you can take at this link to find the language of love you need: http://www.beliefnet.com/Love-Family/Relationships/Quiz/The-5-Love-Languages-Quiz.aspx

Here are my Love Language Scores:
10 Words of Affirmation
10 Physical Touch
7 Quality Time
2 Acts of Service
1 Receiving Gifts

The highest score possible is 12. I scored a high need to be spoken to in two distinct “Languages”: Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch. Accordingly to the book two is not unusual but more than two is. Simply, its Affirmation and Touch that make me feel loved. Quality Time matters some, but Acts of Service and Gifts really are not my needs. That all rings true for me.

Now it’s easy to see I played to my own need in every past love relationship. If those things were the needs of the other person, that was a good thing. If I was involved with someone who needed one of the three other Languages spoken to her, I never fulfilled her needs. I was too busy giving what I wanted, thinking I was showing love by doing that. That all seems so simple now to the point of “duh, why did I not see that before?” I am very grateful to have this insight!

Love makes your soul
crawl out from its hiding place.
Zora Neale Hurston

More about Gary Chapmen’s “The Five Love Languages”: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/learn-the-languages/the-five-love-languages/

First posted here on November 16, 2011

 

No One Gets Too Much Love

/ James Browning

Keep-Love-Alive-neon-small

The loneliest days are the ones where you keep company with someone you love who can’t hear you. Holly Robinson

It’s become a quirk of mine to watch couples and how the two interact. What I see all too often saddens me. Many hardly interact at all. Watching a middle-aged couple in a restaurant recently words like indifference, boredom, faded love, apathy and even coldness came to mind. Wedding bands said they were likely passionately in love once upon a time, but apathy and inattention looked to have taken their toll.

…no eye contact…

…no talking…

…no touching…

…no stolen kisses…

…no smiles…

…no eye contact…

…sitting without a word spoken…

…feeling numb…

…feeling lost…

…feeling alone together…

Life is hard. Love is harder. Both are highly worth what it takes to live them well. What I learned with experience is all love is priceless, but amazingly simple to lose. The type that causes two people to want to make a life together is among the most precious. It is also love lost the easiest.

Loving and losing is the classroom where the value of love is taught. My living regrets have over time morphed into hard learned knowledge I am grateful for. No one gets too much love. Most of us barely get enough to get by. If two people truly love each other there should be no restraint in its expression to keep love alive. Love is a fire that must be fueled continually to stay strong and lasting.

Indifference and neglect
often do much more damage
than outright dislike.
J.K. Rowling,

My History of Anger

/ James Browning

illustrate-anger-1

Every destructive emotion bears its own harvest, but anger’s fruit is the most bitter of all. Uncontrolled anger is a devastating sin, and no one is exempt from its havoc. It shatters friendships and destroys marriages; it causes abuse in families and discord in business; it breeds violence in the community and war between nations. Its recoil, like that of a high-powered rifle, often hurts the one who wields it as well as its target. Anger makes us lash out at others, destroying relationships and revealing our true nature. The history of the human race is largely the history of its anger. Billy Graham

Years ago my anger was a crutch; a habit and a bad one. My temper would get loose the easiest when slighted or left out by people I cared about. In hindsight, most of the time I simply needed to be understanding toward an unintentional act. But letting indignation give flame to anger, I volleyed back with spiked words hurled with intention to hurt another. Being sorry later did little to calm the hurts I often caused. The end result was usually ending up mad at myself.

Finding out some people were afraid of me, or at least reluctant to be in my company, was humbling. It’s wasn’t that I was an intentionally hurtful person, but rather I was a powder keg that did not need much agitation to go “boom”. I know now that my anger was only fear turned inside out.

A Hindu saint who was visiting river Ganges to take bath found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other. He turned to his disciples smiled and asked, “Why do people shout in anger shout at each other?”

Disciples thought for a while, one of them said, “Because we lose our calm, we shout”.

“But, why should you shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner?” asked the saint.

Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the other disciples.

Finally the saint explained, “When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other to cover that great distance. What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is either nonexistent or very small…”

The saint continued, “When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other”.

He looked at his disciples and said, “‘So when you argue do not let your hearts get distant, Do not say words that distance each other more, Or else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return”.

In recent years I am a calm person who rarely gets agitated and when I do it’s a fairly rare occurrence for me to express it externally. Those who have known me ten years or less say they can’t imagine me being a person with hair-trigger anger. I am grateful that’s true and for the guidance and intention that has put anger mostly behind me.

Anybody can become angry —
that is easy,
but to be angry with the right person
and to the right degree and at the right time
and for the right purpose, and in the right way;
that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.
Aristotle

Fewer Words

/ James Browning

2586027821_d30d0ccc79

Fewer words often say far more than quantity, hence, three sincere thoughts this morning about the art of being grateful.

As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breathe it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm. Laura Ingalls Wilder

Embracing an attitude of gratitude is nourishing to the soul. When we allow ourselves to be engulfed in gratitude, this abundant soul nourishment overflows to your relationships, careers, and day-to-day lives. Act in gratitude today… If you are grateful to those you love, show them. If you are grateful to those who have helped you, show them. If you are grateful to your creator, to your family, to your friends, and you want it to be known, let it be shown! Steve Maraboli

Woke up today feeling appreciative of being alive and the comfort I live within. I spent time with a friend last night that made hours evaporate quickly. Special people add bright colors and flair to living. I am grateful for every caring soul that has been and is a part of my life.

The invariable mark of wisdom
is to see the miraculous in the common.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Disappointment: Hurt to Gratitude

/ James Browning

3064088848_2a4b8faf48_b

With disappointment, there are multiple layers of sadness that one experiences before being able to look on the bright side.

As adults, we do not often face disappointments in manageable doses; as such, we are stuck with the disappointment dilemma. After emotional and even physical preparation when disappointment comes, we are faced with the immediate and aftermath reactions.

Preparation anxiety: Anticipation can be exciting when we feel the adrenaline rush as we prepare for a celebration, a special date, or even dinner with friends. But what happens when you are let down by a last-minute change or cancellation? Unless you are a pessimist, mild hurt and disappointment set in.

Immediate and aftermath reactions: The most often heard immediate response to serious disappointment is this: “I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach.” But because someone else was in control, the person who was hurt can do little more than make some feeble statement such as, “It’s alright, I understand.” In many cases, it was not alright, and you didn’t understand. But you said nothing and took the high road.

Resolution or regret: If a person in one’s life disappoints once or twice, it might be understandable. But what happens if it becomes a pattern? It can only become a pattern if you allow it. This is where choice comes in and you take control.

To protect yourself and maintain self-respect, say something in a kind, but firm way. You may even wish to give the other person some wiggle room. But if you say nothing, your disappointment may soon turn to regret.

Regret is a feeling we experience because a personal choice we make does not turn out as expected. But unlike disappointment, making that decision is within our control. From “Disappointment: Three Layers, Hurt to Gratitude” by Rita Watson, MPH http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-and-gratitude/201209/disappointment-three-layers-hurt-gratitude

While not a major disappointment with lasting impact, plans for an evening with a dear friend had to be shelved. I was looking forward to doing what we had planned for over a week. However, it was not to be. The reason for the cancellation was not specifically within anyone’s control. Rather, it is an outgrowth of where my friend placed them self. That fact has now become self-evident.

Showing that I am a true friend, I expressed my disappointment and not a lot more (even thought this is the second time my friend has recently canceled long made plans). I am thankful to realize the best thing I could do was show understanding and empathy, even thought initially I wanted to spout off. I am grateful I didn’t!

Disappointment to a noble soul
is what cold water is to burning metal;
it strengthens, tempers, intensifies,
but never destroys it.
Eliza Tabor Stephenson

A Portion of Gladness

/ James Browning

b03ac5dc2095d44acc74c7253ecb4cb0

Friends are the family you choose.
Jess C. Scott

The older I get, the more valuable old friendships become. A few new friends along the way are always hoped for and welcomed, but it is the ones of decades endurance that mean the most. For the weekend my friend Sam drove hundreds of miles to hang out with me. We are different in so many ways, but exactly alike in others; the perfect combination for an enduring friendship.

“A Friend’s Greeting”
by Edgar Guest

I’d like to be the sort of friend
that you have been to me;
I’d like to be the help that you’ve been
always glad to be;
I’d like to mean as much to you
each minute of the day
As you have meant, old friend of mine,
to me along the way.

I’d like to do the big things
and the splendid things for you,
To brush the gray out of your skies
and leave them only blue;
I’d like to say the kindly things
that I so oft have heard,
And feel that I could rouse your soul
the way that mine you’ve stirred.

I’d like to give back the joy
that you have given me,
Yet that were wishing you a need
I hope will never be;
I’d like to make you feel
as rich as I, who travel on
Undaunted in the darkest hours
with you to lean upon.

I’m wishing at this… time
that I could but repay
A portion of the gladness
that you’ve strewn along the way;
And could I have one wish this year,
this only would it be:
I’d like to be the sort of friend
that you have been to me.

Years have taught me how to love better and more openly, whether it is my son, a romantic interest or a dear old friend. I am grateful for the handful of friendships I hold most dear, but none more than my visiting friend. I am grateful for every year I’ve known him and every minute we have shared and yet will share. Thank you for being my friend Sam!

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead.
Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.
Albert Camus

Someone Who Knows All About You

/ James Browning

Funny-Friendship-Images-Background-HD-WallpaperGetting older has caused my high school sports injury to hurt more. Some regrets have deepened. Lots of others have dissipated to be nearly evaporated. Being more thoughtful of others has been taught to we well by years of pain and grief. Like a decades old car that has been decently cared for, I have lots of miles on me but am still moving swiftly down life’s highway. I am a better friend that I ever could have been before and have come to know just how priceless a loving friend is.

American poet and song writer Shel Silverstein wrote, “How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live ’em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give ’em.”

My oldest friend other than my brother died a few years ago. For many years he was one of a couple of people I called my “best friends”.  The age of my friendships range now from three decades to a couple of years. And I have more than ever before in my life. Why I do is simple: I have learned to be a good friend to those I love.

More of my friends are men than women, but inside the last decade there are several deep female friendships I have been blessed with. My ability to be a good friend to a woman came through a broadened view of that gender that allowed me to see them as another person and nothing else. Love addiction and sexual compulsion used to be a blinder that narrowed my view. I am so very damn glad to have grown beyond that way of perceiving.

Friends are a strange, volatile, contradictory, yet sticky phenomenon. They are made, crafted, shaped, molded, created by focused effort and intent. And yet, true friendship, once recognized, in its essence is effortless. Stick around long enough to become someone’s best friend. From “The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration” by Vera Nazarian

It allowing others to see me, true and deep, has been the top single reason I have more friends today. There is little to hide anymore and none that I intentionally hold back. I am who I am, scars and all. My dysfunctions and past mistakes are part of what has shaped me. Only with allowing them to be openly seen can anyone know me and become my true friend.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. Henri J.M. Nouwen

So to all my dear friends, thank you for accepting me into your life. Along with my immediate family, you are the greatest treasures of my life. One of my hopes is to continue to become a better friend. For those who see me as I really am and love me just the same, “I am deeply grateful”.

A friend is someone who knows
all about you and still loves you.
Elbert Hubbard

Looking at the Surface

/ James Browning

1009018202_1364565644

Life is actually simple. It’s principals are straight forward and uncomplicated.

Nature will always be its natural self and never a pretender or a poser. Trees are simple. Flowers are uncomplicated. Dogs and cats are predictably the way they are. Elephants look like elephants, sound like elephants, move like elephants and can be counted on to act like elephants. Weeds grow like weeds. The sun rises and sets. The moon comes and goes. It is humans that are otherwise.

Human beings are always complicated on the surface. The only apparent thing predictable is we are unpredictable. Humans are prone to be unhappy in some manner with the way they look, sound, move and act. We don’t grow uniformly and our coming and going is hard to forecast. The world is really not a complicated place outside of human kind’s effect upon it. Only through stillness in a present moment can one person truly see another in simplicity, honesty and love.

There is so much more to all of us than the obvious.

A few times in my life I have gotten a glimpse of the real self of a person. It was only for an anguished moment and only because I looked with eyes of love.

But for an anguished moment I looked with eyes of love and I saw. I cannot say what I saw, but I knew that is was something inexpressibly beautiful. I shall always believe I was looking at being as it really is, and I saw beauty naked.

I believe that is what I would see if I saw the real self of you. But I have to look with eyes of love.

That is why lovers go around starry-eyed. They have seen through what is form to what is real, and it has left them dazzled. They can only murmur, “Beautiful.”

We look at what they are looking at and wonder how they can see so much in such a plain creature. But it is our vision that is imperfect.

Love raises vision to a higher power that eye charts cannot measure.

People are like that. They, too, glow with a kind of hidden luminosity when you get past the obvious. From the book “Look With Eyes Of Love” by James Dillet Freeman

My perception of the complication and difficulty of life remains a blinding illusion unless I look beneath it, around it, over it and under it to realize most that is difficult to sort out is man-made. To take people only at the face value is lazy, unimaginative and lacking in inspiration. Instead, I remind myself to look beyond what a person shows and postures. I am grateful that beyond the obvious there is always goodness and beauty in every person I encounter if I can look deep enough to see it.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking
at the surface of the ocean itself, except that
when you finally see what goes on underwater,
you realize that you’ve been missing
the whole point of the ocean.
Staying on the surface all the time
is like going to the circus
and staring at the outside of the tent.
Dave Barry

Life is a Course in Life

/ James Browning

forgivenessForgiveness is a powerful and affirmative part of our humanity. It should be differentiated from its close cousin, acceptance, which while important, is essentially, passive. For many, the healing power of forgiveness allows us to truly move on. A life lived without forgiveness is a life of real pain.

We are all wounded. You will be surprised to hear of all the wounds that normal people carry with them. It may be hard to believe, but many of these wounds can determine how people feel about themselves for an entire lifetime. And everyone’s been hurt in one way or another.

Forgiveness, like grieving, has its stages. It is well known that grieving has its stages. You loved someone, or you lost something dear to you. You go through denial, bargaining, anger, depression and finally you come to acceptance. Forgiveness is a lot like grieving. The important things that we need to forgive don’t come easily.

First, you have to acknowledge that you have to forgive. It is important to your psychological health. Carrying old wounds is simply a burden that steals the pleasure from the life that you have now. We are not on this earth forever, and sitting in victimhood can be such a loss.

Acknowledging a wound that needs healing is only a first step. You also have to deal with real feelings of anger and at times, betrayal. I often think that the word – FAIR – is a four letter word that should sit unhappily with its other, less decent, brothers. Too many people can’t get over just how unfair life is. Such pain, for what? Life is unfair, but it is also filled with potential for beauty, love and grace. The anger over things having been unfair is a product of our immature minds needing to have a balance in nature. Yes, there may be a balance, supervised by God or by nature, but it often has little to do with the narrative that we want to write!

Forgiveness is ultimately a gift you give yourself. It allows the wounds to heal. Asking for forgiveness is a noble act. It is an acknowledgement that you hurt someone and it makes it easier for the forgiver to forgive. It takes a burden away, but this is only the first step. If you really want to be forgiven by the person that you hurt, just apologizing is not enough. You have to try to right the wrong. This is not a perfect science, but a little effort can go a long way. While nothing can undo an unfortunate experience, making amends counts.

Life is a course in life. We are taught by our experiences and no textbook can really do it for us. Learn what each chapter has to teach you. Forgiveness is part and parcel of the emotional work of learning these lessons well. From “The Intelligent Divorce” by Mark Banschick, M.D. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-intelligent-divorce/201110/can-you-forgive

So grateful am I for the lessons in recent years about forgiveness. Today I am many times more capable of letting go; of forgiving others and myself. It’s amazing how much better life is!

True forgiveness is when you can say,
“Thank you for that experience.”
Oprah Winfrey

The Perceiver’s Vantage Point

/ James Browning

tumblr_m3wbh9fPRD1qzjwnko1_500Being solitary is being alone well:
being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice,
aware of the fullness of your own presence
rather than of the absence of others.
Because solitude is an achievement.
Alice Koller

For a long time the beliefs I carried made Alice Koller’s statement impossible for me to grasp and appreciate. Knowing people who were alone used to bring thoughts tinted with pity, suspicion and sympathy. I was compassionate, but looked at such people as not being whole. Surely there must be something wrong with them. In other words, something would be wrong with me if I was alone.

The glass that life is viewed though is only the perceiver’s vantage point. It can feel true and be far from it. I did not realize my fear of being along drove me from one relationship to another. I honestly thought I was normal and feeling incomplete without a woman in my life was typical for every man. Without any rational examples in childhood of what love between a man and woman was supposed to look like, I ended up believing it meant ‘to be with someone’.

So many people are terrified of their own company. The thought of being at home, by themselves, with nobody to talk to, is debilitating for them. So they do everything possible to avoid just that; they create an overactive social life so that they are always with friends, or they become workaholics so they can drown themselves in their jobs, or sadly many even become alcoholics; but all with the same goal: to avoid the pain and darkness that they feel by being alone.  http://jeanniepage.com/2011/04/09/the-art-of-being-alone/

My phobia of being alone is not unique to me. Many carry the burden with a fear greater than heights, snakes or even death. My irrational fear was based on the belief that being “alone” was like an illness or some other unfortunate condition that happened and had to be cured. It was a great sense of failing; a sort of emptiness when a romantic partner (or several) was not in my day-to-day life.

The shape of my thinking today about being alone is quite different. Not only do I not fear aloneness as I once did, I actually enjoy it a good bit of the time. And that amount seems to be growing as who I wish to be and who I am become more parallel.

The pain in loneliness comes from all that surrounds it, not the act itself. And when you spend enough quality time alone, you realize that it is indeed nothing to fear. You realize that you, by yourself, are happy and are confirmed in life and worth by everything around you. Chelsea Fagen http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/the-best-part-of-being-alone/

I don’t love being alone all of the time but find the peace in it more and more. Aloneness is not for the faint of heart for it will twist and wring a person at any point in their psyche where one feels ‘less-than’. Being solitary forced me to wrestle  a long list of inadequacies. The attacks of loneliness I felt were actually those things assaulting me when I was not distracted by a relationship. Being alone was damned hard and the first two years by my-self felt like they were going to kill me sometimes. But I survived and am so much better for it. Will I always be alone? I don’t know and hope not. However, today I am grateful to know alone or not is a choice I can make and not a perceived lack I have to fill.

I don’t want to be alone,
I want to be left alone.
Audrey Hepburn