I’m sure you’ve heard of Gary Chapman’s ‘5 Love Languages’. and if you haven’t, where have you been?

You can take the quiz here: https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/love-language

You’ll learn in what way you prefer to receive love from a partner, and might just find the perfect explanation for your last break up. (It’s not you, it’s your love language, babe). 

Let's be honest, this whole language phenomenon can be fun. *Cue wine nights with your friends - ‘you’re totally a quality time person’*. It can also be a great tool of knowledge to better understand your partner and improve your relationship. But could we be missing the biggest gift?

Instead of seeing our love language as a way for another to love us, why don’t we just skip the waiting and see it as a map to loving ourselves? Have these quizzes distracted us into looking for the right person, instead of just being the right person?

The way I see it, we can tap our foot impatiently for someone to enter the chat and meet our love language, or we can step up and speak it to ourselves. We can use it to calculate the language of another and adjust ourselves to fit them, or we can adjust ourselves to fit our own. I know what I’d prefer - a codependent frenzy just doesn’t do it for me like it used to. 



There are 5 Love Languages: Physical Touch, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time & Words of Affirmation. Can you be more than one? Definitely. Can you speak more than one to yourself? Definitely. Here’s how:

Physical Touch:

Touch is absolutely a universal human-need. But what happens when the bf is busy and your go-to massage therapist is booked out? Body rituals and ceremonies allow us to gain comfort and pleasure through our own touch. In a society that’s full-speed-ahead, we could all benefit from slowing down to connect with this vessel and tune into its needs.



practices; 

- self-massage 

- a self-hug when you wake up in the morning

- placing a simple hand on your heart-space to connect to your intuition

- masturbation

Acts of Service:

Translation: You’re a sucker when someone does something to make your life easier. So, what if we turned into what our future-self needs most and decided to live in devotion to her? Set her up for the best chance at happiness and success by keeping small, daily promises to yourself.

Ask yourself: What is something I can do today that my future self will thank me for?

practices; 

- get up ten minutes earlier to meditate 

- book that therapist appointment you’ve been putting off

- show up to that gym class because you know you’ll feel good for it 

- investing in a course for self development (there are so many short, cool ones out there)

- cook yourself a nourishing meal instead of making that uber eats order 

Receiving Gifts
:

One of my favourite movie lines is in Sex & The City when Samantha buys herself a ring instead of letting her partner buy it for her. ‘When I look at it I don’t want to think of him, I want to think of me!’. The line speaks for itself.

self-gift ideas; 

- buy yourself a nice candle to light at night 

- take yourself out on a date to a nice restaurant (extra points: stay off that phone!)

- If you are tight on money, treat yourself and say yes to taking a break. (It’s not about the price, but the intention behind it)

Quality Time:

There’s nothing worse than spending all your time with another and losing touch with what it is that you enjoy doing. Your first and foremost relationship should be with yourself. What is it that lights you up? Dedicate an hour each day where you give all of your energy and focus to you - and don’t bail! 

 practices; 

- read that book you’ve been meaning to start

- yoga

- do some art (painting, clay)

- take a trip to a museum  

- take a good old-fashioned nap 

Affirmations:

Whilst I don’t believe you can put anyone under one heading, if I had to, this would be mine. That feeling I used to get when someone would compliment me? Now super measly compared to the safety I feel when I speak to myself this way.

practices; 

- picking one self-loving affirmation and writing it daily (7 x daily is the magic number)

- mirror-work (speaking into a mirror what it is that you love about yourself)

- re-parenting our inner child (there are so many resources out there on where to start) 

When you create a foundation of love for yourself, you raise the standard for all other relationships in your life. Those people who don’t take your pleasure just seriously as you do? They vibrate out, whilst the people who are ready to celebrate and worship you vibrate in. The best part of my own self-love journey was no longer being afraid to let go of outdated relationships, why? Because I knew I’d be caught by the net of my own love. 

Mastering our own language emits serious big-d**k energy of ‘my happiness depends on me, so you’re off the hook’. Whether we’re single or taken, absolutely no one can be available to make us feel good 24/7, and the best thing? We don’t need them to. We’ve got our own backs, which frees our relationships up to be vessels for fun, growth and expansion, instead of a codependent sh*t show, and a fast road to disappointment. 

*** 

The point here isn’t to take away the value of Chapman’s work, and it’s not to be alone forever either. But the saying goes ‘you can’t pour from any empty cup’. When you love you, you love others better, it’s that simple. It’s totally okay, healthy even, to be curious about how to meet another language, but not at the cost of abandoning your own. I guess the point is, learn to be bilingual! 

At the risk of sounding cheesy here, the love we seek is never outside of ourselves. What we most crave from others, is the thing we most desperately need to give ourselves. No one’s coming to save us - and it’s time we stopped needing them to. You know who speaks your language the best out of anyone? You! So start listening. 

Happy loving, 

Em x