Do you speak the same language as your loved ones?

In my path to hippie happiness, I am trying to de-stress. In doing that, I have to realize I cannot make everyone happy. But what if you found out that the way you were trying to make someone smile was making no impact or worse maybe even irritating that person. Wouldn't you stop and try to change?

You see your friend, child, spouse, lover, etc and you tell them how great they look and have much you love their new haircut. To you, you love when someone realizes that you got a new hairstyle because you see that as them paying attention to you and that attention to detail is not about vanity but taking the time to give you some of their moments because they care. BUT in the head of the person you just complimented, they are thinking, "Uh, is it all about how I look. Anyone can say words. I wish she would just sit down with me and teach me to play Rummy so we could spend time together." Because to that person, Quality time like doing a shared hobby is more important than any words you could pull together.

You are speaking Mandarin Chinese to a person who can only understand French.

This is the theory of Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages. The 5 main love languages we speak are QUALITY TIME, WORDS OF AFFIRMATION, ACTS OF SERVICES, RECEIVING GIFTS, and PHYSICAL TOUCH.


This theory is not just for romantic love, it can be applied to all relationships. My interest was peaked by his application of this with children. My kids are all twelve and up and I constantly feel as though I am never saying the right thing. My teen daughter will come back at me with-- Oh, didn't I look good yesterday? when I tell her she looks nice on a particular day. I have learned that she is Receiving Gifts type. And before this book and assessment, I think I thought it meant she was materialistic. But for her (and I have to admit it was in my top 3), a gift can mean that the person was thinking of her and spent TIME and money on something for her. Now for my son, he wants nothing more than your undivided attention (with your mouth shut and let him just talk, most of the time...LOL).Now I have not had them complete the assessments for kids that can be found on Chapman's website. But these are guesses based on years of being their momma and seeing what I think makes them happiest. But I will give them the quiz because I want to be the best momma to them.

After my research for this, I think back over different relationships in my life and realize how else this has played out. My father was never one to say niceties or even I love you. But he would pick up some small trinket or gift when he was out of town. Each gift was always thoughtful and very specific to the person he bought it for. He may have never used words to express his love, but he was thinking of us and did try to express his love through giving gifts.

Chapman's ideas are that if we can find out what our loved one's language is, that we can adapt to speak what they need to hear. And vice versa.

My top three were Quality Time, Words of Affirmation and Receiving Gifts. I think the other part to remember is genuineness and quality. No one wants someone to force any of these language types. I don't want someone to make up WORDS OF AFFIRMATION just to pacify me. But a heartfelt thank you, you look nice today melts this writer's heart. Also not looking for extravagant gifts. In high school, I had boyfriends that would leave me notes on my car at work under the windshield wiper and these little gifts would keep me on cloud 9.


I started researching this topic because I felt someone's view of me was skewed. We only experience this world through the filters our brain allows us to. We need feedback from others to see their point of view and to communicate in the way that they can understand and give them love in the way they want to be loved.

Do people want to be happy?

I have witnessed numerous people in the past week that actually made the statement, paraphrasing of course, that they like the misery in their lives alluding that to be happy would be boring. And this really has made me evaluate what we value in life has created these paradigms in our brains, souls and very beings that we would ever equate unhappiness with a state of being that would be preferable to happiness.


One area I see this on a regular basis in children and even adults who choose negative attention and feedback rather than positive. But who gets the most attention in a classroom? The best student or the child acting out? What makes the top of the news feed the charitable monk or the rambling idiot on twitter? The adage bad attention or PR is better than no attention never made sense to my brain, who is rather introverted in most ways and that may why I suck at publicising my books. And I only write a blog because I don't believe people read it except my Aunt Gini (still loving the duster!).

I digress...

So do people want to be happy?

I heard a bartender talk about being with someone who clearly made her unhappy in a million ways but the way her eyes lit up when she talked about him. It didn't take a psychologist to tell ya she will be back with that dude at least twice in the biblical sense and once more in the let's try to see if we can really make a go of this. Neither will end smoothly.

So what motivates us if not happiness? I believe that depends on what you value. I value my children's' future happiness (believe me they would agree that I don't care about their current happiness as I give them chores daily) and my own happiness. I cannot help anyone one if I am not first happy.

Happiness comes from self-happiness.

That was the a-ha for so many of us and for others they never understand and can read my words and say that I am just spewing hippie bullshit. Truly happy people are complete all on their own. Then when they meet people, friends, lovers, children, they can be wholly there for. I think where many people fail in any relationships (not just romantic) is without analyzing what it was in past interchanges that I can grow from, change, keep, toss and then glow.

A therapist told a man who had been divorced five times that the common thread in all his divorces was him. Not the women, him. That's hard to hear. We don't ever want to think maybe there is something we need to evaluate about ourselves. But that is where we become free.

We are not to replay the past over and over like its entertainment to be watched. Learn from it and let it go.


I want my happiness to be that glow that others see and feel without me having to say, I AM HAPPY. We all know truly happy people. And as I have said in this blog all along. My goal is hippie happiness. A happiness that radiates my soul without me saying a word.

Something old is new again... go out and see your State Parks

When I was a child, my mom and her bestie brought us kids to Hueston Woods, State Park beach pretty regularly. In our part of Ohio, there are not beaches or even much suitable rivers to swim in but in the 70s and 80s Acton Lake was the place to be.  The drive through the woods seems to take forever. The speed limit in the park is 25 mph and I used to beg to take off my seat belt so I could get a better view into the woods. Hoping to get a glimpse of an animal. My impatience then as a child would boil over until that beautiful site of the water would come over the horizon. We would unpack the car, and set up our perfect spot and have a whole day of swimming, picnic eating, sand in not so comfortable places and inevitable sunburns even though mom covered us from head to toe. But none of that mattered because my brother, his best friend, his little sister and I had a fun day in the sun and didn't have a care in the world except what just touched our legs under the water and what caused the warm spots in the water-- pee? The mystery still remains.

Thirty years later I have found myself drawn to these woods constantly this summer. I have been hiking the woods and not swimming at the beach. I still drive the 25mph roads and I still remember my antsy feelings as a child. But now I love the slow pace, I love the quiet empty space. It is like coming home every time I pull into the Woods.

I have learned the trails and have started to meditate and walk those trails so often that when there was a storm the other day I was saddened and excited to see how the trail had changed. You see downed trees all the time hiking but how often do you get to see trees within hours of the carnage.

That day I was the treehugger. I paid my respects and thanked each down tree for their years of shade and life. I am reminded that none of us know when our last day is. Trees or human.

Links:

http://parks.ohiodnr.gov/huestonwoods

http://parks.ohiodnr.gov/Portals/parks/PDFs/parks/Maps/Hueston_Woods/huestonwoodstrailmap.pdf

Not writing... to write

It's been days if not a week since my last blog when I had been churning them out one after another. But I have a great reason for the delay, I am working on my books. Like to completion. I know I have blogged about wanted to really write not that putting words in this blog isn't writing. But I love writing books and novellas. I had put my books away digitally speaking for almost three and others five years. And I have been reading them and remembering that I love taking someone, even myself to somewhere where they are not themselves. Feeling things, seeing things, and all through the arrangement of letters. What amazing of magic is that?

I plan to self-publish a few novellas first and I have one full-length novel that once completed in the final edits. I think I may submit to a publishing house started by an acquaintance I met at a Writing/ Author's conference seven years ago this month. I thought I would be published within a year or two of meeting all these authors and writers.  Today is my time to wait no longer.

My muse has been busy fueled by a happy body and mind. I have been doing yoga, taking walks, seeing butterflies, meditating, working on my craft every day and doing something every day that brings me happiness. EVERY DAY.

Sorry so short...

Back to my novels.