How To Give Heart-Opening Gifts Using The 5 Love Languages
Elevate Yourself into the Hall of Greats in the Hearts of your Friends & Family!
I happen to really love giving gifts and I am that person who will spend my last dime to buy a super cool gift for someone I care about. So after over 20 years of giving gifts, I have to self declare as a a gift-giving aficionado and I want to give you a massive leg up!
Valentine’s day is in exactly two weeks and maybe you have a newish love whose heart you want to blow open and transition your relationship to the next level. Or perhaps its your oldish love (you all have been together since fanny packs were first in fashion) and you would like to shake things up a little…
Maybe this is not not about romance for you — your person has a birthday coming or is bringing in new life to our world. Your parents made it to 30 years of blissful matrimony or your boss is ready to close shop and move to Bali and you want to get them something special.
You might not know it, but there is a science, soul and art to giving gifts that inspires those mushy inner feelings that will install you as a permanent fixture in the hearts of your friends and family and will cause them to turn the other cheek 77 x 7 times when you temporarily loose your sanity and slip.
Let’s Backtrack a Little
My birthday just passed and I am still riding the highs of all the oxytocin and serotonin running through my bloodstream from the gifts that I received and heres why;
There is something that is very special about receiving a gift from someone that speaks to your soul and after contemplating why I felt so good, I realized that everyone who gave me something, gave me something that nourished a piece of my innermost being.
Receiving what I like to call “heart opening gifts” nourishes the deepest levels of your being leaving lasting marks on the tablet of your heart because they are an affirmation of your existence, of your life and right to occupy space on our blue planet.
The thing is, contrary to popular belief, the best gifts are not necessarily tangible. They are gifts that speak your persons soul language and is inclusive of where they are in their lives. And I promise, it is not as complicated as it sounds. Gary Chapman has given us all a big boost with his creation of the 5 love languages, and I cannot believe that I just heard about this concept about two months ago ( what rock was I hiding under?) although I have been using it intuitively over the years.
For those of you who have been hiding with me — know that I am about to blow your mind! You are welcome.
For my yawners and practical folks who want to get straight to business of gift choosing, feel free to skip this section and head on straight to the roadmap below.
At your own peril :P
5 Love Languages
To put it simply, Gary Chapman wrote the book, The 5 love languages that sparked a new way of thinking about love. In his book, Chapman says there are 5 primary ways people like to receive love which are;
- Acts of Service
- Physical Touch
- Words of Affirmation
- Quality Time
- Receiving Gifts
When it comes to giving gifts, your person’s love language goes a long way to determine what they would really love and appreciate and as hard as it is to believe, they may not care for a trip to the Balkans. If you don’t know your own love language, take a few minutes to go over here and take the quiz.
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1. Words of Affirmation
If you are like me and you love them sweet sweet words - those words of acknowledgment of your efforts, appreciation of you and things you did, then words of affirmation might be your primary love language. As Chapman says in his book, there are many different ways words of affirmation can manifest.
For example, if your person’s love language is words of affirmations, the following words from people in their lives might be all it takes to melt their hearts.
Partner: Dinner tonight was excellent! Thank you.
Child: Mom/dad I love you! ( giving them a hug)
Boss: Wow, you knocked that project out of the park. Amazing work!
And if you don’t believe it, I am proof!
On my birthday, I was flooded with words of affirmation that felt like a deep cleansing and nurturing that will probably take me through the rest of the year!
These were hands down my best gifts.
The morning of my birthday, I got up early and wrote this article about how my dead mom wished me happy birthday first and for me to receive positive feedback from it and know that 30+ people read the article — I was in heaven that day.
2. Acts of Service
I hate doing laundry and I would rather use my last $15 to have my laundry washed and folded than buy food to eat.
Yeah that’s how much I hate laundry. So when I came home one day after a long day of work and noticed that my then boyfriend had done my laundry, (holy cow!)in that moment, I would have turned over my empty bank account (well it will be pouring with money someday :P ) to him. What was magnificent was that he had sorted through my clothes, folded the clean ones and washed the dirty ones.
Now that is what Chapman calls an act an act of service, and if your person’s love language is acts of service, then it makes their toes curl when you do practical things to help make their life easy. Imagine you come home after a long day and realize that your person has cooked you a nice meal and drawn a bath for you, or your colleague notices that you are overwhelmed and offers to complete some tasks for you. If this is your person’s love language, you can start thinking along this lines to gain inspiration for your gift.
3. Physical Touch
My 3-year old niece and I share alot of things in common ( my sister might disagree but that’s her opinion :) ). For one, we shared the same face for all of 3 months when she was like 1 until she outgrew my face. That one didn’t last long, but the one that I am sure would endure for a lifetime is our love for physical touch. She is such a touchy feely baby that one. You can hear her say things like “mommy rub my back” or “hug, please”.
That was me as a child. My mama and her body rolls were mine. (All secret admirers, I hope you are taking notes).
Physical touch comes in many different forms, and we humans need touch to thrive and the essence of this love language is connection and intimacy through physical touch — fingers grazing cheeks, hands touching hands, hugs, knee squeezes, a slight touch on the back all the way to full blown love making. Our skin is the largest organ on the body and there is something so soothing when you connect with another human through touch.
If your person’s love language is physical touch then there is something magical happening in their bodies and brains when they are touched.
That magic is oxytocin release.
Research shows that oxytocin levels in our bodies increase with hugs, hand holding and even massages. So now you might begin to understand why your person might be are always begging for hugs like my niece and I
“Oxytocin is a neuropeptide, which basically promotes feelings of devotion, trust and bonding,It really lays the biological foundation and structure for connecting to other people”.
Matt Hertenstein
4. Quality Time
He had dark hair and a mouth like sin.This one knew my soft spot and went in for the kill!
When he looked at me, I felt like he could see into the depths of my soul, because all his attention was laser focused on me. Spending time with him felt like being cocooned in a warm blanket of love, and each time we were together, I felt like a million dollars because I was seen in every way possible!
This was a whole other level of quality time and let me tell you folks, I fell for him and I fell like I have never fallen before! So to bring this back to earth and more realistic realms, quality time is about being present with people when we spend time with them.
In our current age of technology and distraction, we sometimes never get moments of being present with people. We are always doing 5 different things at the same time and have forgotten the power of pauses, of just being fully present with a person.
If your person’s love language is quality time, they need periods of time when you give them your focused attention. It is not necessarily about what you do, but rather about just being fully present with them when you spend time together. It could be as grand as going on a vacation to Bora Bora or just going on a hike together. It could also be as simple as listening to them tell you about their day, and for this people, it doesn’t take much to kick down the doors of their hearts and find your way in.
5. Receiving Gifts
When we think about giving gifts, most of us think about this love language, but from Chapman’s perspective, even this love language is not as black and white as we might think. A person whose love language is receiving gifts might not appreciate a bottle of wine you picked up from the liquor store on the way to their birthday party or a “big” gift.
For example, in my Cameroonian culture, most men believe that a woman’s primary love language is receiving gifts and we are not talking here about those sweet handmade thoughtful gifts. No no, we are talking about expensive statement gifts like buying her a car, or that designer purse or shoes…
And they are not wrong, because many women in my culture would not date a man who does not give them expensive tangible demonstrations of love.
And if this is your person, by all means make them sparkle with a Tiffany & Co diamond. (Better yet, If you are in the ring giving stage of your relationship, just buy the darn ring already! )
The other side of the gift receiving camp is those people who appreciate really well thought out gifts that speak to their soul. For example, for my birthday I received some aromatherapy and chakra candles and lotions which were exactly what I needed. My friends took the time and effort to mail my my gifts all the way from Australia and New York and this meant the world to me.
P.s. I am also open to those big statement gifts :P
So now that you have an idea about love languages, lets get to showing you how to choose those heart-opening gifts that would forever elevate you into the halls of the greats in the hearts of your loved ones.
Selecting Heart-Opening Gifts Roadmap
As humans, it is our deepest desire to feel seen, valued, appreciated and loved and I hope that this roadmap will help you chooses a gift for your person that will make them feel as special as they are. It’s really not that hard. You just need to understand what they need and I developed this roadmap as means to help you form a deeper bond and connection with your person.
- Step 1 : Set your intention
- Step 2: What’s their love language?
- Step 3: Becoming Sherlock
- Step 4: Heart-Opening Gift Mind Mapping
- Step 5: Secret Sauce, Soul source
- Step 6: Go get/ make the Frigging Gift!
Step 1: Set your intention
There is so much untapped power in setting an intention and when we declare that we intend to do something, it is like the entire universe conspires to help us get what we want, and so I always start my process with setting the intention to get a gift for a person.
This is a very simple and powerful exercise and all you have to do is say your intention to get something for your person and then ask the question
“What should I get for <CC> for her birthday this year”?
You could do all of this internally or write it down on paper. Usually this already puts me ahead and ideas start popping into my head randomly.
Step 2: What’s their love language?
You might know or not know their love language, and If you already know their primary love language, great! You can move on to the next step.
If you don’t know their love language, you will have to figure out a sneaky way to ask them. Except you are fine with them knowing before hand that you are about to blow their hearts open with one of the best gifts they have ever received and become a permanent fixture in the halls of their hearts.
In that case you can take the straight road and just ask them.
On the other hand, if you are like me and have some Pan aka Loki aka trickster energy in you, then you are going to have to trick them into telling you their love language. Here’s a short story for inspiration.
Friend 1, wanted to buy friend 2 a ring (not that kind silly) for Christmas and wanted to find out her ring size without giving the present away.
Enter yours truly.
I was recruited to to do the digging and so I went into her office and casually started a conversation.
“ omg M, I love your rings! can I see them?”
I didn’t wait for her permission before gathering her fingers in mine and gushing over her rings.
“I am such a ring person” I said looking wistfully at my bare fingers,
“ and I need to get a new ring”.
“Where did you get yours? What size do you wear?”
She proceeded to tell me the ring size for all her fingers ( even her thumb ) and the rest is history as they say.
Your turn!
And if your trickster skills need some brushing up, hit me up in the comments.
Step 3: Becoming Sherlock
If you have some time say — 2 weeks or more ( which you do if you are searching for a valentine’s day gift) — begin to pay more attention to what your person is saying and/or doing. Notice the little things like what is bothering them right now, what they wish they hard or could do and start taking notes.
This is the Sherlock phase where you are investigating and opening yourself up to what their unspoken needs are and you will be surprised by how quickly you begin to notice things about them once you set the intention to really see them and understand their needs.
If you don’t have time, scratch that and complete the journaling exercise below. Even if you have time, it might still be helpful to complete the exercise below.
Set aside 10 minutes to do some free flow journaling to the questions below.
- What things, people, places makes my person happy
- What are their favorite hobby(ies) e.g. stain glass making, swimming, reading books etc.
- What is something they have always wanted to do? e.g. learn to play the piano, visit the MOMA…
- What is something that is bothering them in this moment? e.g. Need childcare, don’t have enough money to pay bills, anxiety from work, hate their job and don’t know what to do
- What do they need most right now based on where they are in their life?
From here you have enough raw materials to jump into the next step.
Step 4: Heart Opening — Gift Mind Map
Now we are going to jump into the mind mapping. For those who don’t know, a mind map is a really cool visual tool that can help you clarify ideas and spark your creativity. In essence you can think of a mind map as an intentional doodling session or a an active daydream in full color. When you start playing with ideas spatially on paper, you will be surprised at the amount of novel insights that come out of the exercise. You don’t need to spend more than 10 minutes on this, but of course you are welcome to spend as much time as you want.
What you’ll need.
You can be basic and go with pen and paper or you can be extra and go all out with colored pencils.
So here is how you can create your mind map
- At the center of your paper write your persons name and your intention/question and create a circle around it.
- Divide your gift ideas into the 5 different love languages. You can also just focus on their top 3 love languages although I would recommend that you put all 5 for now because we are also wanting to take into consideration the current context of their life.
- For each of the love languages, start throwing out gift ideas based on all the information you gathered from the previous steps. Don’t worry about being accurate. Think of this as a brain dump.
- You can even create sub branches out of the main love languages for example, you can further subdivide quality time to dates, vs trips.
When you are done, it might look something like the diagram above (probably not as pretty though :P ). After completing this step, you should have a pretty good shortlist of gift ideas.
Step 5: The Secret Sauce , Soul Source
This is my secret sauce, soul source part of the process where we ask “them” what they would like. In this part of the process, we are going to complete a 12 minute meditation/visualization where we connect with higher aspects of your person or what I like to call their “spirit soul” and ask that deeper aspect what they need in this moment that is for their best and highest good.
The meditation is about 12 minutes and you can download a free copy of it here. Set aside 12 minutes when you know you will not be disturbed and listen to the audio. Make sure you have something to write with nearby so that you can jot your impressions after the visualization exercise.
Pro Tip: You can also incubate the question to receive answers in your dreams.
- Before you sleep, ask for a dream with answer to the kind of gift you need to get for your person
- Mentally tell yourself you will remember the dream when you wake up
- When you wake up, try not to move your body and begin to recollect your dreams. When you have the dreams downloaded, feel free to get up and record them
After this visualization exercise, your gift choice should be pretty obvious to you.
Step 6: Get / Make the frigging gift already!
Need I say more? Well maybe I need to. Depending on the gift you want to buy, you can check out the sites below to get ideas for activities, dates and DIY gifts.
- Groupon
- Course Horse
- Etsy (DIY, unique gift ideas)
- Canva ( DIY Affirmations/ mood boards)
For my over achievers and next level folks — this is for you
Go crazy and creative on your delivery method. Some things I have done in the past
- Create a scavenger hunt
- Russian doll concept ( 8 levels deep with 7 gifts for delivery people and the finally gift for my person)
And so you have it. Enjoy your new elevated position and let me know what super cool stuff you come up with. The more you run through the steps, the more it will become like second nature to you.
P.S What’s your love language? Can you guess the order of mine?
First three people to guess the order of my love languages gets gifts from me. Let’s Go!
