Thank you for being awesome!
Five words that redirected my day!
They came through on text from a professional relationship, a relatively new friendship. I had been going about my day riding emotional waves. My mind was swirling with the continuous thought: “I wonder if I am having an impact on anyone in this season of life?”
My friend sent it to me after we did a short interview with another professional. As I read her message, I felt refreshed and uplifted. In an instant, her encouragement gave me energy to shift my thoughts to gratitude and positivity about myself and my work responsibilities.
This experience reminded me of the tremendous impact of our words. They have power! Power to build up or tear down. It can be a battle between criticism and affirmation. We get to choose which one; daily.
The following day, I decided to do a personal assessment of my words with the intention of increasing my awareness of others' state of being. This assessment reminded me of the Five Love Languages by Gary Smalley; a book that had a huge impact on the parenting of my quadruplets and personal relationships.
He explains there are five main ways people receive love. Words of affirmation are one. There is physical touch, quality time, acts of service and gifts. I have always scored highest on quality time with words of affirmation and gifts a close second. As a family, we did the assessment and discussed each of our love languages. It became key as the kids grew up and had an awareness of the best way to communicate love to one another and how they needed to be loved.
For example, my daughter loves gifts! When we would return from a trip, the first thing she said was; “What did you bring me?” My son wanted to spend time together. And another son thrived with words of affirmation. I integrated their specific love language into celebrations and daily life. Now, as they venture into adult life, I see them using this knowledge in their relationships, passing on the ability to express love to others.
As our seasons in life change and our relationships grow, I want to remain connected to my love “bank”. My assessment after the “thank you for being awesome”, revealed a depletion in myself. I needed quality time and words. At this point, I was able to fully receive her compliment and its impact and be grateful, but I wonder how many of us are able to take in compliments, or do we put up a guard or receive with skepticism, therefore not allowing ourselves to be genuinely loved. Or maybe we need to examine ourselves and find out what our love language is and communicate that to at least one other person.
One amazing fact I learned in my training as a coach and a positive psychology practitioner is: the greatest human need is to be loved.
My conclusion: it’s all about love.
So tell someone today“Thank you for being awesome!”
It will make a difference!
Three things will last forever-faith, hope, and love-and the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13.13