Love is in the air.
Whether you are a fan of Valentine’s Day or not, a reminder on your calendar to reach out to those you love with a word of appreciation, a thoughtful card, some flowers, chocolate, an invitation for a date night, or a foot massage can go a long way.
I believe a little love in any direction has a lasting effect.
But what’s going to make the biggest impact?
Two years ago I was at a retreat and the women I was with started talking about their “love language”. I had never heard of it before. I quickly found the online quiz. I was fascinated to find that my results reflected back to me that my love language is primarily quality time and secondarily, words of affirmation.
Over time I started to overlay the results of the quiz with my values and priorities in life and to my surprise, they lined up. I started observing myself with gift exchanges and at birthdays and holidays and it’s been affirmed over and over again.
The results affirmed my interest in shared experience and connection over receiving a random gift or chocolates.
Taking the quiz opened up this world of seeing myself and others in a unique and fun kind of way. It became a useful tool for self-reflection and connection. And yet another reminder of how different we are.
I distributed the quiz to my immediate family and it sparked great conversation, especially between my husband and I. It shined the light on what is meaningful to me and how he doesn’t need to buy me fancy things, chocolates or flowers because I’m actually not all that interested. While my needs might actually stretch him to some degree, all in all he was slightly relieved he didn’t need to shop for the perfect gift, that meaningful words would
And of course, I have a clearer picture of what is meaningful to him now. We’ve found it so important to acknowledge and honor how different we are in terms of our needs. This has been a huge gift to our relationship.
My gift to you this season of love and connection is to take the “Love Language” quiz and send it to your friends and family. It will create new ways of seeing each other and being able to support one another in a meaningful way. If nothing else, it’s a great conversation starter.
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Rachel Peters is a yoga teacher, yoga health coach, lifestyle and habits expert, easeful living advocate, and lover of wild places. She leads others towards Embodying Ease through a yearlong wellness & lifestyle journey to dissolve perfectionism, embody daily habits that promote mental clarity, overall ease, and deeper connection to life on this wild ride of modern living. Learn MORE today!