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.

Just breathe

Inspiration hit, you type out this amazing blurb. You thank your muse. And go back to read it and it is gone. Not saved... That was the first paragraph of this blog. I am in research mode and not for anything in particular but synchronicity will peak my interest in a topic then due to Youtube and algorithms that I would rather no nothing about. I start seeing certain topics in my life more and more so I must consume all I can on that topic until I have a general idea on the said topic. Particularly Nikola Tesla, dreams, alternate universes, and philosophy.

I will try to create some of the thoughts and ideas in the lost paragraph, but it will never be the same.

I am a social worker and many times I am dealing with children, parents and even coworkers that are upset and what seems inconsolable. I have been learning about meditation and yoga lightly for years but I know I am an amateur so I do not speak up about it very often. But a few times this year in my job I saw places that just some deep breathing could possibly solve an issue if not give the person a moment of calm to get a fresh perspective. One was a child crying and agitated. I asked the child to do a three-step breathing exercise that I do with my son, where we stretch our arms to the sky greeting the sun inhaling through the nose, holding the breath as we bring the hands to our center solar plexus for a second to hold the breath and then releasing the breath and we reach to the ground to touch our toes. And repeat. I did this with a screaming crying child and within a minute he was fine. The sobs stopped and he finished a round of 10.



Another time a co-worker was agitated with parents and just a few weeks ago. He knew about the three-step breathing I had done with the upset child. It was the first thing out of his mouth-- he refused, thinking he would look silly. So I asked him to just breathe in through his nose holds it then exhale the negative thoughts out through his mouth. Repeating it a few times. Which he was willing to do. He only did about three but his shoulders relaxed and a smile came to his lips. Even he was a little surprised that just a few breaths brought him back to a calm he thought was gone for the day.

Our bodies do so much automatically without our knowledge, the brain, all our organs, and systems are working day and night to keep us alive. But when we can override the computer and take back some control, we can learn to be in control of our bodies even in the most stressful and what may seem overwhelming. And the easiest and healthiest way seems to be with the breath. Our lungs will breathe without our help. But when we control the air as it comes through the nostrils and hold it for a count of x. Then exhale for a count of four, the I that isn't our mind or our body is in control. Because we are not our bodies and we are not our brains. But through the overriding of these systems, we are taking back control but also letting go of that freedom of thought that many times accompanies the breathing focus.

Then feelings and emotions are no longer in control, we are. And that is the real power, the real goal of this life. Learning to control our inside leads to not allowing the outside (People and situations) to control us.

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.

Halloween Special on Life,Liberty, and the Pursuit of Ginnie--- still time to be a CHARACTER in BOOK 3 of Mythic:Psion

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