- Your name: Pablo Pons
- Title of the book: "The 5 languages of love".
- Author: Gary Chapman
- Publication date: 1st edition in English: 1992. Spanish edition (revised) read by me: 2017.
What did you find the book useful and what did you like the most?
Although it is a book aimed primarily at relationships, in my opinion, it offers something more. The approach of the existence of different languages through which we communicate in love - in the emotional dimension - has been a revelation for me.
Of course, I think it applies to my relationship with my wife, but it also applies to all other relationships. Knowing you are loved is not the same as feeling loved. In my case, this is what this book has revealed to me.
The author argues that We all have an "emotional tank" that fills up more or less to the extent that we feel loved. We perceive this feeling of love through a language that is best understood by each of us.
Therefore, if our partner or the person who offers us love does so in a language that is unintelligible to us, we will not fill that "emotional tank" because, quite simply, no matter how much effort the other person makes, it will not reach us. It is as if I were having a conversation with another person who speaks a language unknown to me.
Based on the above, what I liked most about the book is that it led me to ask myself the following question: if I have made the decision to love someone, why don't I communicate my love to them in a language they can understand? Is it a question of me loving and that's it, or of me loving and the other person feeling loved?
If loving involves actively desiring the good of the other, it seems clear to me that I should show my love in a way that I can receive and feel it. Therefore, I must apply some effort to recognise which love language the other person understands and learn to communicate through it.
Another thing that I really liked is that the author emphasises that love is not our only emotional need, There are also those of security, self-esteem, importance, etc... However, love interacts in all of them, in such a way that, if I feel loved, I am more relaxed, calm and confident (security); I feel worthy of love (self-esteem); if I am loved, I am important for someone (importance)...
Is it possible to love everyone, even those who do not love or hate us? The author also deals with this question in a very illuminating way for me, starting from a postulate that we work with in coaching: to love or not, whom... It is my decision and I have the power to decide, regardless of what happens outside of me.
What learnings from the book relate most to the way you experience coaching?
Personally, love seems to me to be essential to live coaching. Without love we can hardly leave our self-referential sphere to enter the coachee's sphere.
Empathic listening has its mainstay in love and, ultimately, what motivates a coahing process, in my case, is the desire for the coachee to reach the goal he or she has set for him or herself, which will allow him or her to be better and happier.
Understanding that we do not all feel loved in the same way and that we can learn new languages to express love to others (including our coachees) seems to me a very enabling challenge.
Any time of insight during your reading?
As I was reading this book and Marshall B. Rosenberg's "Nonviolent Communication" at the same time, it became clear to me that in our relationships with others - and even with ourselves - it is of great importance to discover what our true (sometimes hidden) needs are and to be able to express them in a non-violent way.
Through love, expressed in language that is "understandable" to us, we can welcome and meet these needs. As they are satisfied, we can feel fuller and more complete.
A belief of mine, therefore, is that there are more or less legitimate needs. Perhaps the limit lies in the conflict with the freedom and needs of the other.
What tools from the book can be used in a coaching process?
- Ddiscovering the language through which others express their love for us (although we do not perceive it because we "speak" our own language). can improve or heal many relationships. It's not that they don't love us, it's that they express it to us in a language we don't understand.
For example, in the book there is the case of a man who had always thought that his mother did not love him because she had never hugged him. He realised that the language of his mother's love (who had worked her ass off to care for him all her life) was that of acts of service, while his was that of "physical touch".
- Listening to the judgements, complaints and requests of others is part of our empathic listening. Judgements and requests are taken for granted, but if we can overcome our displeasure with a complaint, we can discover the underlying need.
- At the end of the book, there is a very comprehensive (and fun) questionnaire to discover our primary love language and that of our partner. In situations where there is a problem arising from a lack of understanding, it can be a very useful tool, even just to be willing to try.
At what point in the learning process as coaches might it be advisable to read it?
It is advisable at any time, and especially when learning is more focused on managing emotions.
