Category: Words To Live By

The subject of the “5 Love Languages” are something that continues to pop up throughout my life via my cognitive therapy, my MKP men’s group, and my 12 Step recovery work. The love languages describe five ways that people receive and express love in a relationship. Many are often not even aware of what theirs is. I wasn’t, that is until just a few years ago when I first heard about these love languages and wrote about the ones I connected with the most. Today I decided to put a placeholder out there in my blog for others to know what the actual 5 love languages are, as it can help relationships grow closer, once each partner is able to fully identify what their love language(s) are. So, here are those five love languages I’m speaking of:

1. Words Of Affirmation – This is where a person expresses their love in sincere words and verbally explains all the reasons why they love the person. It’s all about expressing words of encouragement, appreciation, and empathy. They tend to be regular complementers of others. The opposite of this love language is offering non-constructive criticism, rarely recognizing, or appreciating another’s effort, and instead negating another’s accomplishments in life.
2. Physical Touch – This is where a person uses non-verbal forms of communication through body language to show their love for another. This person tends to show their love through hugs, holding hands, pats on the back, or just being close to another when in their physical presence. The opposite of this love language is neglect, any form of abuse, long stints without intimacy of any kind, and receiving affection coldly.
3. Receiving Gifts – This is where a person offers their love through thoughtful gifts that generally have a symbolic meaning behind them and often shows the other person they matter and how much they really get them. This person tends to symbolize the statement, “It’s the thought that counts!” The opposite of this love language is forgetting special occasions, giving gifts with no meaning or heart in them, and receiving gifts themselves unenthusiastically.
4. Quality Time – This is where a person spends time together with another one-on-one and remains fully present. They tend to give their full undivided attention, especially in eye contact, rarely interrupts the other when they’re talking, and makes a very concerted effort to really get to know what the other person is going through. The opposite of this love language is getting caught up in distractions such as using a cell phone when spending time with another, avoiding spending one-on-one time for long periods, and constantly interrupting the other only to talk about themselves.
5. Acts of Service – This is where a person eases the responsibilities and burdens of another. It’s where one regularly goes out of their way to do something for someone else and is usually a sacrifice. This person tends to make the requests of another a higher priority, where helping do things like chores (especially together) to alleviate the other’s workload is typical for them. The opposite of this love language is laziness, broken commitments, making a person wait to get chores done, and adding more to a person’s workload.

These five love languages have been helping me see my partner and my friends in a much better light. It is said that these five love languages can improve relationships when each person identifies what theirs is, as well as what they want from the other. Once that’s figured out, it becomes easier to see how love is being uniquely expressed in connections between two people. Personally, I absolutely excel in offering words of affirmation, physical touch and acts of service, but I could use serious improvement in receiving gifts and quality time. With others, what I seek the most is quality time and acts of service.

Nevertheless, I hope today’s article may help you figure out what your love language(s) is/are, as I know it can and will help you, once you identify it/them. And when you do, not only will your own unique expression(s) of love be more identifiable by those you are in connection with, but vice versa as well…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever wondered if every one of those things many of us have worked so hard to obtain or achieve in life isn’t what really will matter when our life comes to an end?

Whether that’s achieving a dream position/title at some job with amazing pay and a great benefits package, or acquiring a dream home in a neighborhood you desired with a great backyard/view in a coveted school district, or owning a dream car or some other long sought-after valuable possession, or going on a dream vacation to some exotic locale, or reaching a level of income you always dreamed of earning, or experiencing a level of sex/intimacy that satisfied all your sensual dreams and desires, or reaching a level of popularity you only ever dreamed of having, or getting an award you only ever dreamed of achieving, whatever it is you’ve attained from your dreams in life, in the long run, has it left you feeling fully complete? I ask this because I’ve had enough of those things in my own life to realize that none of them made me feel any better or left me feeling fully complete in life after I had attained them for a while. Along the way, I discovered what left the biggest betterment upon my life were each of those loving marks I made upon another’s heart and soul, and never what I personally obtained or reached in life for myself.

Look, I once had that dream job, title, and income, owned that dream home, taken the dream vacation, garnered those dream possessions, experienced those dream sexual encounters, reached that dream level of popularity, earned that dream award, and achieved many of those self-desired dreams, yet none of them ever left any lasting impact upon my own heart and soul, and instead only left me coveting something else to seek in life.

So, what has mattered? What has made the biggest difference within me? What has left the most lasting of impact upon my life? It’s been in those hugs I’ve given to another when they’re in need of support. It’s been in telling someone I’m proud of them for an achievement they’ve made. It’s been in all those times I’ve let someone know they’re not alone in this lonely world. It’s been in all those tears I’ve shed alongside someone suffering from deep grief and loss. It’s been in helping someone desperately in need, especially through my 12 Step recovery. It’s been in all those gestures of kindness I’ve extended to another even as small as holding a door open for them. Ultimately, each of those times I’ve put someone else before myself, showing them unconditional love from my heart seems to leave the most lasting of impact upon my life. This is what I believe will truly matter the most when my life finally comes to an end, that being all those times I did my best to be there for another, rather than all those times I accomplished something for myself.

For that very reason, now I see that to live a life where I’m more there for another than myself, where my heart finds a way to connect to another soul in need, is what truly matters in this world and will consistently leave me feeling more full than empty. So, in the end, maybe that’s all that really matters and anything else we strive after for ourselves is really nothing more than a fruitless quest to please an ego that will never fully satisfy us and only leave us wanting something more…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I’m sure every single one of us on this planet has played that “What If” game at some point or another in our lives. You know that one where we find ourselves questioning if we could have had a better outcome arise from making a different decision than the one we actually made in our past, one that typically has a less than desirable outcome.

Playing this game is one that only seems to occur when we think some present circumstance in our life could have been better if we had chosen differently in the past. While I recently wrote about a similar subject where sometimes those past decisions are ones that our Higher Power has a hand in to save us from experiencing greater pain, there’s still plenty of times I’m left wondering where my life would have headed if I had just chosen Option B over Option A.

Do you remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” novels from the 80’s where you reach a page in the book and have two options to choose from, where one option takes you down one path in the story, and the other takes you down a completely different path? That’s about the extent of what I’ve done in my brain far too much in life, wondering how things would have unfolded if I had chosen differently.

What if I hadn’t pursued that friendship with Carmine during my senior year of high school, that guy who led me to my first alcoholic drink and to quit the swim team? 

What if I hadn’t gone to Rochester Institute of Technology and instead chosen the other college I had been accepted into, that being Northeastern?

What if I hadn’t pledged Phi Kappa Psi, or any fraternity, and had instead focused on developing my sexuality and spirituality during my collegiate years?

What if I had spent more time getting to know my father prior to his suicide, instead of avoiding time with him? 

What if I hadn’t gotten into relationships with 1^st Jerry, Kevin, 2^nd Jerry, Barry, or Carl?

What if I hadn’t purchased that bed and breakfast and instead remained in my home outside Washington, D.C. working at my last corporate job with U.S. Customs.

What if…

What If…

What if…

The fact is, I realize today it’s a complete waste of time playing this “What If” game, writing out my own “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel in my head surrounding all the decisions of my past life. While this type of game may be great subject material for some science fiction series on television (ex. Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch on Netflix) or for some major theatrical release (ex. “Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow”), it’s only created more pain and suffering in real life the more I’ve dwelt on my past decisions with thoughts I could have done better.

I’ve made tons of decisions in my life I feel I could have done far better with, but after watching enough science fiction surrounding this and meditating on all those decisions I’ve labeled as poor ones, I’m inclined to believe that everything really does happen for a reason, including each decision we make. Because I’m just as inclined to believe that even if we had made a different decision, that eventually the outcome would still have been the same, it might just have taken a slightly circuitous path to get there.

So, maybe it’s a totally pointless exercise to play this game because who we are now, what we are now, what we stand for, and everything in between, is precisely the person we’re supposed to be at this very moment in time? Maybe every possible decision we could have made in our past would have resulted in us becoming the very same person we are now? And maybe all that’s important today is simply to accept ourselves right now, just as we are, and continue to explore our spiritual growth in life, learning as we do, rather than wasting any more time living in the past playing that “What If” game that never goes anywhere but in circles in our heads…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson