Knowing your personal Wellness love language

By Isabele Sanden

I first learned about Chapman's love languages when I was going through my divorce in 2014. At that time, I was questioning many, many things like trying to figure out why I had stayed in an abusive marriage, trying to figure out how to keep life as consistent and drama-free as possible for the children and how in the future I would make things better for the next time around. I learned to understand how Love Languages work in relationships to build bridges, strengthen connections and find balance and awareness.

I also learned at that time was that these love languages and their qualities could be applied too many areas within my life. And I re-discovered, a concept that I had always known but never really embraced; the concept of knowing, loving and appreciating yourself and your needs.

If you are not familiar with the Chapman Five Love Languages, I’ve included the link take test or quiz for your own self-discovery.

Taking this quiz will share with you many situations about what is important to you and what makes you feel cared about and loved and appreciated.

I would recommend anyone taking this quiz to have that knowledge, self-discovery and that awareness, so that when you meet your “someone” you can understand if they are the type of person that will provide you the feelings of love, safety and appreciation by the way that they act and the things that they do. Will their actions fulfill/speak your love language?

BUT… this blog is not about understanding Love Languages so that you can find the Perfect Mate. This Blog Post is about understanding YOUR personal Love Languages. Doing so will allow you to dive deeper into your own Wellness and know how to speak TO yourself, provide FOR yourself and give TO yourself.

Nurturing yourself in the activities that will make you healthy, keep you strong, engage your spirit and get you through difficult situations if one happens to come across your path.

One of these “situations” might even be yourself, and self-sabotage. I feel it's incredibly important to know that we can self-sabotage and at times we do!

At times, there are "things" in the back of our minds, in our behaviors, in our habits and interactions that cause us to fail, even though we have goals, thoughts, inspirations, needs, wants and desires.

She Likes gifts. She likes words of appreciation. Physical touch is important to her, BUT she LOVES quality time, and feels that someone truly loves and appreciates her, when they help her... acts of service.

So, you ask how does that relate to working out how does that relate to motivation?

If we can dig in, if we can understand what truly motivates us. What truly makes us feel amazing. We can give those same gifts to our self and that’s POWERFUL.

My client values this time in the Pilates studio as her quality time. She feels how important these moments are for her self-esteem, for her goals, for her dedication, AND she is making a sacrifice to herself for her health.

She is, in every action, considering the act of coming to the studio, the action of being dedicated to that work, as a service to herself. She is helping herself.

She is filling herself up with those very things that mean the most to her and make her feel incredible and LOVED! And she is ROCKING IT!

So, I ask you to ask yourself these questions ...

How can you make a shift in your Wellness?

How can you apply your personal love languages to yourself?

What are YOUR Love Languages?

How would you employ those qualities to yourself?

How can making the choice to give to yourself, help you STOP the self-sacrifice and bad habits?

Id LOVE to hear back from you…tell me your wellness love language and how it will inspire you?

These “things” are BIG, HARRY THINGS, that can cause us to except substandard. They can cause us to give up or feel afraid, lack confidence, or look in the mirror and say I can't.

THESE THINGS cause difficult times, and derail our motivation or movement forward.

When this happens– RIGHT HERE- RIGHT NOW… is when understanding how to best motivate ourselves is the KEY! Recognizing self-sabotage, or those actions and feelings that cause us to stop from attaining our goals is important too. So we can stop the negative actions and feelings and replace them with words and actions that speak our Love Language and propel us into achievement!

So WHAT ARE THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES that SPEAK TO and INSPIRE YOUR FITNESS GOALS?

QUALITY TIME: How would Quality Time fill you up? When we consider fitness and exercise as a VALUE - it takes time and is something that we do with ourselves and for ourselves. It is TIME that we strengthen our bodies and invest in our health. The time spend working out creates healthy happy hormones and speeds up our metabolism and that TIME has such purpose for our mind and physical being.

WORDS of AFFIRMATION: "WOW! I DID IT!" There is POWER in those WORDS. Especially when spoken to yourself. Our subconscious loves to hear positive words. Do you feel amazing when you are told what a great job you have done? Then this is your Love Language. When you believe in yourself and verbalize your successes, you empower and inspire your whole being!

GIFTS: The importance of the love language of gifts is giving to yourself. It is also the language of receiving. When you feel most loved in this way, there are so many ways to give yourself gifts as a way of showing yourself appreciation for having a great workout! Like after a great workout your get to have Starbucks, or schedule a massage? Just giving yourself the time and space to workout can be a huge gift for many because it is something truly and totally for yourself!

SERVICE! Do you feel most loved when someone helps you and does something for you? This is one of my love languages, and I feel so good when I do something to keep myself healthy such as go for a walk or take an hour to exercise, eat a really healthy meal or give hugs to my kids. Considering healthy living and exercise as a service to yourself is an amazing way to keep yourself inspired and support yourself and your goals!

PHYSICAL TOUCH: The science behind touch and its benefits to our body, mind, wellbeing is so compelling, and when you are filled up from this type of physical connection your Love language is physical touch. Exercising and working out is physical in itself, and you can build on that positive energy with giving yourself a big fist bump or high five a friend. Not to mention that laughing is a huge form of phyiscal touch. A good laugh massages your whole core and feels amazing!

I am lucky. I see and learn so much from my clients about connecting with our love languages. I am thinking of a particular client in mind. She is a new client and has goals to lose quite a bit of weight. She has a dedication and a commitment to coming into the Pilates studio three times a week and she is determined to get through the workouts with a smile.

Through our conversations I have learned that she understands her love languages and she applies them to motivate and inspire herself. WOW – RIGHT?