My Love Language

So it was brought to my attention that the sibling I referenced in the last post may have been sensitive about not getting gifts for birthdays, because it might have been that particular sibling's love language.  I hadn't thought about that before, partly because it is not mine. I don't care about gifts, and even though I have family members who insist on making sure we all have at least one gift for Christmas, I wouldn't be heartbroken without one. No. Gift giving isn't my love language, but what is?

I've looked through the five common love languages that can be googled in seconds, and discovered that I might actually have two love languages:  

Words of Affirmation are a big deal to me, and I believe played a big part of my struggles at my former job. As much as I am capable to accomplishing many things without it, the positive feedback motivates me to keep going, even go the extra mile, but the key point here is that I need it to be sincere, and I can often tell the difference between sincerity and obligatory. The encouragement and positive feedback lifts my spirits and recharges my spirits so that the one part of me that feels weak that day gets just a little stronger from it. The moment someone begins to point out and focus on the negative things, it brings me down and discourages me. When it gets to be too much, I become vulnerable to depression--which is subtle and sneaky since I don't always detect it until it's affected my behavior in some way. I love my personal cheerleaders who always seem to continually teach me all the things that are going right for me.

Quality Time is the other one that could qualify as my love language. In so many ways I have no clue how to bring attention to myself. Even when I make an effort it's often a failure.  It's the way things go when you're as quiet as I am. I've always joked that I'm a master at slipping through places without being noticed. That is why when people actually take the time for me I notice. I notice it, and I appreciate it. I am grateful when people want to do activities with me or be with me. It doesn't take much.  I feel like my ways are a little unusual for people, so when they take the time for me I know it took some effort, and I appreciate that; however, I do like to note that being as I am I have my limits on how much attention I get. Sometimes people in their good intentions will want to give to the point that it will start to feel pushy.  That is not appreciated, thank you, but I've only known a few people like that.

So in the meantime, I'm going to have to think about this love language thing and see how it applies to my siblings, friends, and other people because clearly theirs is different from mine. 

I may have shared this photo before, but a lot of people who know me really
 like this one I did of myself, because it is a good representation of my personality.