How to Practice the FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES on YOURSELF

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Starting point to self-love <3

I remember reading the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman for the first time. Before even reading it, I was saying to myself how ridiculous of me to read this book because I wasn’t even in a relationship at the time… how would I benefit from reading the five love languages?

But I gave the book a go anyway, and things clicked for me.

I realised that yes, that book is made for those who are married… but the idea of the five love languages were still so relatable to even those who are not married.

Five Love Languages

So here are the five love languages. Each would include the following:

• Brief Description
• Revised Brief Description (to help practice them on ourselves)
• Ideas from the book revised into activities for us to practice on ourselves.

And yes, I’ve tried a lot of these before because I never want to suggest something that I haven’t tried yet! xx

Words of Affirmations

Book’s Description: Words of affirmations are simple statements of affirmations, such as compliments and words of appreciation. For example, they may include “You look really pretty today“, “You are the best cook in the world”, etc.

Revised Description to practice on ourselves: There is no change to that definition! The only difference is that we say those words of affirmations to ourselves! If we don’t have someone to say those things to us, that’s okay… we can say them to ourselves!

Ideas to Practice Words of Affirmation in the book: (+ practicing them on yourself)

1. Remind yourself that the words that you say to yourself are important. The book even suggested putting a sign where you will see it daily, that says “words are important! words are important! words are important!”
2. Keep a written record of all the words of affirmations you give to yourself each day. When I tried this, I have found that it was a really good exercise to keep track on what I was actually saying to myself. I caught myself saying negative things, and then I had to quickly switch them to positive.
3. Write a letter of encouragement to your future self. In the book, it mentioned writing a love letter to your spouse and give it quietly… that’s a great idea! You can do this as well, by writing yourself a letter to your future self, and tuck it away somewhere. Like for example, last year, I wrote a letter to myself for my future self to see. There was no timeline on it (it wasn’t Future Lauren 5 years, 10 years from now)… it was just when I saw it (because whenever I would find it, that would be the future right?). I placed the letter in a place where I hardly looked at. Then, just recently when I was looking at that area again, I found the letter! And what amazes me is how much had changed since I wrote it!
4. Don’t say negative affirmations about yourself in front of anyone – I’ll admit, this is a work in progress. Although it has improved a bit, I still want to get rid of doing this for good! I mean, it’s common sense, the more you put yourself down in front of people, the more those people would believe that you have a low self-image, and low confidence. Hence, it’s a better idea to just make sure that when we talk about ourselves, we’re not saying anything negative.
5. Look at your own strengths and appreciate your strengths! Chances are, you’ll work hard to live up to those strengths!
6. Compliment yourself everytime you see your reflection… and it’s not just the mirror!
7. Write a poem describing the great things about yourself! – I’ve tried this before but I personally cringed at myself, but it might work for someone else!
8. If you are having a challenging time saying words of affirmations to yourself, practice in front of the mirror. Everytime you look at yourself in the mirror, compliment yourself!

Quality Time

Brief Description: Giving someone your undivided attention.

Revised Brief Description to Practice on Yourself: Giving yourself undivided attention. It may sound a bit cringe to “go on dates with yourself” but it doesn’t have to be! Get to know yourself by figuring out what you like by going to different places on your own. You like doing something but none of your friends do? 100% fine! You can go on your own.

Doing things on your own is such a perfect opportunity to figure out what you like doing.

Ideas to Practice Quality Time in the book: (+ practicing them on yourself):

1. Take a walk – around your neighborhood, go to a nature track, or drive and discover new walking tracks. Be as adventurous as you like!
2. Explore your city (be a tourist in your own city!) – do whatever you want. Go biking, go sightseeing, go walking… the possibilities are endless!
3. Take yourself out on a lunch/dinner date… OR if you’re saving money, cook yourself a nice meal.
4. List FIVE activities that you would enjoy. Make plans to do one of them each month for the next five months.
5. Sit down and do nothing…. – I do this all the time and I have the time of my life! 🙂
6. Do an activity that you find boring! Or you thought was boring even though you never tried it before… go for it!
7. Have a 3-day non-negotiable rest day… no being productive!
8. Take some time during the day (specifically at the end of the day) to review how you went and if there’s anything you would do differently.
9. Have a “let’s review my goals” evening every month, or three months. The book talks about “let’s review our history” where you share with your spouse more about your life… but you already know about your own history! So look into your future… review your goals and even come up with new goals! See if your goals are still something that are driving you, and if they’re not, brainstorm new goals. Brainstorm something that would drive you!
10. Have your own movie night… watch whatever you want.

Physical Touch

Brief Description: feeling love through physical touch.

Revised Brief Description to Practice on Yourself: feeling self-love.

Ideas to Practice Receiving Gifts (+ practicing them on yourself):

These are the only ideas that did not come from the book itself, but instead came from various Instagram posts that I saw! These ideas are pretty great!

1. Give yourself a massage, stretch your muscles.
2. Take a bath – especially with epsom salts! A great stress reliever.
3. Moisturize your skin – with your favourite lotions, oils…
4. Have a mini spa day!
5. Do skincare! – I never knew that it counts!

Receiving Gifts

Brief Description: “A gift is something you can hold in your hand and say, ‘Look, he was thinking of me’, or ‘she remembered me.’ The gift is a symbol of thought”.

Revised Brief Description to Practice on Yourself: giving yourself a gift that reminds you on how much you care for yourself, and love yourself.

Ideas to Practice Receiving Gifts in the book: (+ practicing them on yourself):

Note that they do not need to be expensive! Your worth has nothing to do with monetary value, just like how giving a gift to someone isn’t about how much it costs, it’s more about how much thought was put in.

1. Do a parade of gifts – leave a box of chocolate to treat yourself for later, fill up a jar with candies to satisfy your sweet tooth, have food delivered to you.
2. Let nature be your guide – consider picking up something while you are walking for a souvenir to take home and remember the walk.
3. Make handmade gifts – DIY your own gift to yourself! The best part is that there’s not a lot of pressure to be 100% perfect as the gift is to you! If you want to go extra, you can even go to art classes, or pottery, etc.
4. Give yourself a gift every day for one week. It doesn’t have to be a special week, and it doesn’t have to be anything expensive.
5. Keep an “Gift Idea Notebook” – I read this idea in the book and I loved it! Except, whenever I thought of something that I wanted, I wrote it in the gift idea, so when the time came for me to get a gift for myself, I look at the list of gifts. Sometimes, there are some items that I’m not really into anymore and I cross out (note: this is also a really good idea to help with delay gratification, and not do impulsive purchases! It allows you to figure out whether that item you want is going to be something you’ll want in the longer term.”
6. Brainstorm Pinterest – okay, in the book it suggested to ask family members or friends of your S.O to give you gift ideas, but because it sounds ridiculous to ask our own friends and family on what we want, we can go on Pinterest for it!
7. Attend an event that will require you to meet people and be surrounded by people – this includes theatre shows, movies, sport events, etc. In the book, it suggests to offer the gift of presence to your S.O in any occasion, and obviously we are going to be present in whatever event that we are doing… so the twist here is to attend events that would allow you to discover new interests and meet new people!
8. Purchase yourself a book on a genre or topic that you’re not really interested in.
9. Research charities that raise awareness and funds for issues that you genuinely care about.
10. Get a living gift – purchase a plant and nurture it…. even a tree! I guess this is technically the one action that doesn’t just involve yourself?

Acts of Service

Brief Description: Doing tasks and actions for your S.O.

Revised Brief Description to Practice on Yourself: Doing tasks and actions for yourself which would make your life easier, and less stressful in the long run!

Ideas to Practice Acts of Service in the book: (+ practicing them on yourself):

1. Make a list of all the things that you need to do – yes, it includes everything you randomly thought of, the things you have put off… everything that you were thinking of doing and kept procrastinating (I’m talking to myself here btw!).
2. For every act of service you do for yourself, give yourself credit and note it down. It’s actually pretty satisfying to see how much you have done for yourself!
3. Make a list of 10 things that you want to do during the next month, and then prioritize those things from 1-10 (with 1 being the most important, and 10 least important).
4. Give your room a makeover – the book’s initial idea was to do an act of service while your S.O is away, but since it’s kind of tricky to surprise yourself with something you’re doing for yourself, give your room a makeover as if you’re someone who is about to be surprised 🙂
5. What about the act of service that has been bugging you consistently? If it has been bugging you, it’s obviously important to you right?
6. Switch our mindset from the things that we have to do to the things that we get to do. Sounds cliche, I know, but it’s pretty crazy on how a simple mindset shift can change the way we act towards ourselves and others.
7. Do some major acts of service for yourself, note it down, and give yourself some credit. This major act could be a car wash, painting your room, cooking a meal (I’ve done 2/3 of these activities).

Be Kind to Yourself

Take one step at a time when implementing any of these applications of love languages. I know how overwhelming it was for me to try to apply all the habits that I wanted to build, and it was the same with implementing these self-love and self-care techniques into our lives.

It’s easy to get caught up in the perfection of it all, and I promise you that it doesn’t matter! Take it one step at a time, and even though the difference it could make to your life is not noticeable, it’ll become noticeable in the long-run.

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