5 Love Languages

So we had a really great Enrichment night tonight. We had a speaker who is a counselor come and speak to us. He is from Greece and really just says things like they are. He does not beat around the bush.

His name is Dr. Elia Gourgouris. He does counseling, lifestyle coaching and presents at BYU Education week in Provo and Rexburg as well as MANY other speaking engagements. He's really easy and fun to listen to.

Tonight he told us many things. Here is a random sampling of various things he talked to us about. His main topic was the Five Languages of Love. Referring to the 5 languages of love talked about in the best-selling book by Gary Chapman.

The Five Languages of Love are as follows:

Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

You can read more about the love languages here. I definitely have the language of love that is Quality Time. My husband definitely has the language of love that is Physical Touch. Dr. Gourgouris said we tend to give the love that we want, instead of what the other person wants. We should find out our spouses love language and show them love in the way that speaks to them. I'm intrigued by this. I think I'm going to buy the book and read more about this.


He also talked about good communication and how important feedback is. He said feedback is the breakfast of Champions, not Wheaties. Body language is more telling than speaking, when communicating.

He said the words "You're Right" is the anecdote for pride. Whenever a spouse is being prideful they can combat and overcome it by telling the spouse, "You're Right," when they are. He said it really does something for the prideful spouse. It also helps the "non-prideful" spouse.

He said that LDS women often times get hard on themselves because they feel they don't measure up. He said, from his experience he has learned that LDS women do a lot more, on the whole, than most other women. Lighten up! And give yourself more credit!!

Dr. Gourgouris has also spoken before about comparisons and how the most detrimental thing for a person is to compare themselves to someone else. That is not a fair comparison. We can only compare ourself, to ourself. That is IT! If we do that, it will greatly help our self-esteem.

This reminds of a really great quote I heard last week on Oprah. It was her "The Secret" follow-up show. One of her guests said, "Mediocrity always attacks Excellence." I have done so much thinking about this. It is true. I had not thought so much about this before. But really when someone criticizes you (and Dr. Gougouris says there is no such thing as constructive criticism, that that's an oxymoron) they are jealous and they criticize because they are in a low state themselves and so it helps to elevate them if they can put you down.

He went into detail about how when one spouse criticizes another spouse how it tears the spouse being criticized apart. He told how about 15 years ago he counseled a couple. He said it was the most awful, evil spirit between the two of them in the room during the 1 hour they first spent in his office.

The husband said that he was sick of his wife threatening divorce every single day. Then the wife burst into blubbering tears saying that if he could quit criticizing her then she would quit threatening divorce. They had been married, somehow for 21 years at that point. So the counselor said he wanted him to quit criticizing his wife for 7 days. AND he also wanted the husband to count and keep a log of how many times he wanted to criticize his wife.

The husband said he couldn't quit criticizing his wife. It was too hard. After much more talking and coaxing, the husband said he'd try it. The wife agreed to not threaten divorce for 7 days either.

The following week they reported back. He met first with the wife, then with the husband. When he came out to get the wife from the Lobby he did not even recognize her. She had come in at the first appointment looking all haggard with deep circles under her eyes. This time she was bright and cheery and looked so completely different in her countenance even though her hair was the same as before. But the difference was so great he thought he had a different appointment!

As he met with the wife, he asked her how it went and if she threatened divorce. She said no, she never once threatened divorce. So then he asked how the husband did (wanting to find out from her first, before the husband came in)? She said the husband never criticized her one time that whole week!!!

When the husband came in, he gave his good report. He said how difficult it was for him. He said it was THE MOST difficult thing he'd ever done (not criticizing his wife). So Dr. Gourgouris asked him to show him his log of how many times he wanted to criticize his wife, but didn't. The counselor said he was expecting 50-60 times. Instead, it was 280!!!!

With the guy working full time and running kids around and several other things he had going on, Dr. G figured it out that he was criticizing her 10 times an hour, or once every 6 minutes! Long story short, the couple worked out their differences because they were BOTH willing to change and work on their shortcomings. Dr. G said if this guy could quit criticizing, anyone could!!!

Anyway, it gave me some really great food for thought. So, what is your Language of Love? What about your spouse?