The movies depict love as being so care-free and effortless.  People meet their soul-mates and live happily ever after.  They rarely show that in order to have a strong relationship you will argue, disagree and hurt the other’s feelings.  It is like a beer commercial that shows everyone having a great time, but they never show the reality of drinking.

Anyone who has ever been in a loving relationship can tell you that it is not always birds singing and sunshine.  There are occasionally those stormy days.  The true test of your love is in how you overcome those storms and what you learn from those experiences.

First off, being in a loving relationship means that both people love one another as they love their self.  It takes both of those people to make that relationship work, just one person is not strong enough to do it all.  You make it work through appreciation, listening and understanding.

To make the other person feel love you need to appreciate them just as you feel loved when you are appreciated.  Each of us feels appreciated differently.  We feel love from a compliment, a kind act, a gift, physical affection, or by spending time with the other.   These are all from a book that should be mandatory for all couples, “The Five Love Languages” by Dr. Gary Chapman.  The key is determining what makes the other feel love and how to go about accomplishing that.

Listening is the most important part of any relationship.  Without attentively listening to what the other is saying you can never truly connect.  Listening takes watching the body language as well as hearing the words that they say.  It is often hard to hear the things being said about you in an argument but it is important if you ever truly want to move past it.

Finally, understanding is the last key element of love.  You know that the person you love has faults, but did you also know that you do too?  Understanding and accepting that fact should help you in being able to fix any argument that you encounter.  It is much easier said then done.  Understanding is the first step in learning from your experiences and that is required so that the same mistakes are not made over and over.

These concepts of appreciation, listening and understanding are key to nurturing love.  It takes appreciation to feel loved.  When the other does not feel appreciated you need to listen and understand that you may be at fault.  Then together working through the problem and learning from the experience will help build a stronger bond between you.

Inspired by: my niece
Posted by: InspireTomorrow.com