A good reminder...

Love is...

Love is...(insert all of the quotes and poems and information you've ever heard or felt here).

Love may be all or none of those things but I think that Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Langauges, is really trying to get at how each person feels love.  Not only this, but also how giving love in the way a person feels it (or not) can be the difference between a mutual love persisting or not.  As Gary writes: 

People are different. What makes one person feel loved will not necessarily make another person feel loved. By nature, we tend to express love to others in the way we wish they would express love to us. When our spouse doesn't respond positively to our expressions of love, we get frustrated. The problem is not the sincerity of our love; the problem is that we are speaking the wrong love language. If we speak our own love language but not our mate's, we will fail to communicate.

Love, then, is not enough in and of itself, if it is not communicated in a way that the receiver of that love recognizes it.  That is to say, we all have different ways of receiving love, the same way that we all have different ways of learning or receiving information; Some people really need visual information to learn, while others need to be physically involved in the learning process or it will never stick.  The same is true with love, according to Chapman.  Like teachers, lovers also tend to err when they stick to solely teaching or loving others in the way that they themselves learn or receive love the best.  If you learn from simply hearing lectures, it is easy to assume that this is how all of your students will learn, because that is your personal experience with receiving information.  Similarly, in love, if you feel love when other people touch you, it is only natural for you to feel that the best way to express your love for others is through physical touch.  

What Chapman explains, though, is that in love, there are five major modes of expressing love that trigger a receiver to feel the love that you are giving: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, and Physical Touch.  Each of us tends to feel love when it is shown in certain of these categories, while when love is shown to us via the means of a different category, it's as if the lover were simply talking about the color of the wall; it just doesn't translate for us.  

For this reason, understanding and communicating to your partner about what makes you feel love is really important, not only for your satisfaction, but also for theirs.  Imagine the confusion and stress it must cause to be giving love in the way you think another person should understand, but having that person tell you they feel unloved.  It would certainly be frustrating and hurtful to feel that the person you love feels unloved even despite all of your efforts.  We all know that loving (in any of these modes) takes a lot of courage! Your partner or yourself may feel like your efforts to show your love are unappreciated when in reality they might simply not be translating for the other person in the relationship since it isn't their "love reception style" the same as hearing lectures isn't my learning style and will never translate into useful or memorable information for me because it just doesn't.  If you give me gifts, while I appreciate them, they don't necessarily make me feel more loved.

I highly encourage you to do this exercise with the people that you love;  Take a look at the brief online series that gives the background and basics of the love languages.  If you are feeling that there is no hope, be sure to read the whole thing, anyways and to remember your unconditional love.  When we are feeling unloved or unappreciated, we often shut down or push others away.  The love languages can also be a way to open both ourselves and others up again; it may not be immediate or a joint venture to speak the love language of your partner, but if you find resistance about opening up or seeking help to better your relationships, there are ways to interpret the negativity from our partners to find out what their love language(s) is (are) and to start using those in our communication in order to get back to a place where our own love languages can be understood and expressed back to us.

Love is... complicated, complex, different for everyone, received differently by each individual, can be directed and expressed in many ways for many people...the list goes on.  Find your love language, find the love language of those you care about.  Help others to feel the love you give, and help them to know the best ways to communicate their love to you and then love can really be like "all of the quotes and poems and information you've ever heard or felt." 

Battery is dying, I'm one bar closer to humanity...

Why I Refuse to Let Technology Control Me.
Posted by Prince Ea on Lunes, 29 de septiembre de 2014

Update:10/10/15...this actually happened to me today: the very day after I posted this video.  Out for a 5 mile run and my phone/music/run-tracker just bit the dust without warning.  But I remembered this video...and I smiled at everyone I passed, the same way I always do, and I focused in on my breathing a little more and I listened to the beat of my own footsteps instead of the music, and it was music...it was my own.  I didn't need someone else to keep my pace, I have my own.  I already knew the distance, and I could check the clock when I got home to see how long it took.  I think I ran faster than usual, but I don't know and I don't care.  I think I'll go unplugged again tomorrow.

Bubble Gum Love

The Story of Sarah & Juan
When you fall in love with a commercial :) Video courtesy of Extra Gum
Posted by Love What Matters on Jueves, 8 de octubre de 2015

Beyond technology: Better relationships

When I read the title, I wondered first:  will this be what it actually says?  Or is it a warm and fuzzy that makes you think it's going to be negative but then gets all happy on you?  Is it going to be a true story or will it be some angry person who doesn't have any real experience with it?  Well, the title 5 reasons we can't handle marriage anymore  ended up being exactly what it says...except it wasn't altogether negative or altogether positive and warm-fuzzies.  I think, instead, it was a commentary on life and relationships in general (despite relegation to solely marriage relationships).  The major thing I got out of it was the repetition of a lesson:

Own your technology and your life.  

Don't let technology own you or your life.

It's easier said than done, as the author describes, but it's so true that it hurts to read it...as you try to put down your cell phone or computer while simultaneously continuing to read the article off of the bright-lit screen.

Do yourself a favor:

Take a break.  Do it for yourself and do it for the people you interact with.  Put your phone down.  Don't tweet.  Don't selfie.  Don't listen to music on your iPod.  Exist.  Breathe.  Say hello to someone.  Say hello to your family and friends and coworkers.  Ask about their day.  Tell them about the day you spent NOT hooked up via IV to your technological device.  Tell someone you love them.  Tell them you miss them.  Do something silly.  Make someone laugh.  DON'T post it all online.  And then?  Do it all over again.  How much will your life change?  What will be better?  What will be worse?  Anything?


Is it possible?

I went for over a month without my smartphone when it was left behind in a taxi.  A new friend (that I had met while waiting to board a plane drove 45 minutes while on her vacation to pick up my cell phone from the good taxi driver who returned it to my point of departure and brought it back from overseas to me.  Now if that isn't a whole lot of awesome...there's more.  For a month, I didn't do anything on the train or the bus or while walking except be there.  I talked to people.  I listened to people talk.  I didn't take pictures of everything that I saw that was cool...I made memories of them, instead.

Was it sometimes difficult to navigate without my gps? Sure.  But I grew up before GPS existed...so I found my way, or used mapquest before I left, or I ASKED people.  Real people.  In real-time.  Was it a little more difficult because my weather app didn't tell me everything that might come my way?  Sure...but my morning walk with the dog did, so it worked out!  Was it hard not to be accessible all the time?  Yeah, of course, especially when I had a lot of people trying to contact me about issues with my apartment but you know what?  Not being accessible meant I wasn't constantly distracted by messages and people and events pulling me away from what I was doing.  It's a teeter totter.  A balance.  You can't let technology (and all that it brings and offers) be in control of you.  You can't let the feaux-reality of the internet distract you from the reality that is your own life (nor the fact that the "reality" you are seeing is not "the whole truth and nothing but the truth").

When I got my phone back?  I still kept it on me but I use it less.  I text less.  I've been more prone to calling.  I've never been one to selfie, but I'm exceedingly aware of the standards that we are all comparing ourselves to of beauty and of lifestyle and it's stressful and hurtful.  I wonder why we do that?  I read recently "imagine what would happen to beauty care products if women all woke up tomorrow and realized they are already beautiful?"  Holy cow.  Chills.  It's true of men AND women.  We're all competitive and most of the time I think we don't even notice it.  Technology emphasizes it because we pick and choose good shots and good stories and best angles.  We comment and like posts anonymously and we are liked and commented on anonymously in return.  It's nice...but it's also not real.

Those days without a cell phone?  I found out it's easier to make eye contact with someone and compliment them on their cool shoes or nice jacket.  It's easier to tell the old man that there's a garbage can two feet away to the delight of other passengers who also noticed him throwing his trash on the ground around him.  It's easier to interact, period.  So go interact.  Don't lose your ability to interact and to read gestures and facial reactions and body language because you're too busy communicating through a dead device.  Live.  Love.  Show people.  Be physical.  Be real.  Be alive.

Maybe if you do, that article won't have to be so shockingly close to home forever.