Using the 5 Love Languages to show oneself love

Welcome to this week’s roundup of three things I’ve been enjoying, and some chat about what’s on my mind. This week, I’m thinking using the concept of love languages in how we look after ourselves (this is a long newsletter and some email services will cut it off - you can always read online or through the app).

• 📱Forest app. Part of the continuing quest to put my phone down and do some dang work/ read a dang book/ write my dang Morning Pages (etc), I’ve remembered how much I like the Forest app. Essentially, you plant a tree, and a little timer shows up on your phone screen, and if you use your phone during that time, the tree will die. I’ve been using the app for at least 9 years of its 10 year life (I remember using it in the library of my study-abroad university in Germany, where I was for the 2014-15 academic year) and it’s genuinely excellent. The picture below is my ‘forest’ for May. You can use my code 5VKTZQ9SG to get 500 coins to start you off (‘coins’ accrued in the app buy you different trees and ambient soundtracks).

• 📕 The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen (ad - Amazon affiliate link). This book is described as being fantasy romance - and I guess it is - but not in what I think of as a ‘romantasy’ dragons and elves kind of way. The central conceit to this is the ‘You’ve Got Mail’ unknown penpals idea - just like in Rebecca Ross’s Divine Rivals, which I also loved. There was a fun scene which was almost identical to the scene in You’ve Got Mail where Tom Hanks shows up at the cafe, his friend says ‘if you don’t like Kathleen Kelly… you ain’t gonna like this girl… it is Kathleen Kelly’, and then he makes fun of her book and leaves, feeling terrible about it. Just wonderful.

• 🥜 Whole Earth Drizzler. I’m a big fan of peanut butter - and Whole Earth realised that they could blend theirs to be thinner and put it in a drizzly bottle. Just wonderful for adding some PB to my granola-and-yoghurt, or drizzling some over apple wedges.

At one point a few weeks ago, a friend and I were discussing the concept of the ‘Five Love Languages’, and then I read this journalling prompt from

Katherine May

all about how we give and take care. And then, somehow - I can’t remember why - I started thinking about using the concept of the ‘Five Love Languages’ to describe how we might look after ourselves.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, these are the things which are one step above the basic ‘have you eaten - showered - slept?’ things which checklists like the one at youfeellikeshit.com help to work through.

In the context of relationships, writer Gary Chapman argues that all five love languages (words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, physical touch) are important, but that they can be ranked. I think it’s the same for how we look after ourselves. All five of these are important - but I find it useful to use the idea of the love languages to help me figure out what it is I need in any given moment.

Words of affirmation

The concept of standing in front of a mirror and saying words of affirmation to yourself is fairly old hat at this stage - as is writing out affirmations in a journal or notebook. Another thing I do is save positive feedback on my work in a specific folder in my emails, so I can get to it and re-read it any time I want.

Quality time

In the now-finished Call Your Girlfriend podcast, the hosts Ann Freedman and Aminatou Sow once used the phrase ‘mother yourself’ as a substitute for ‘treat yourself’, and that concept lives in my mind to this day. Quality time is the place where this translates the best, I think. When the world feels too busy and frantic, I like to drink a cup of tea while soaking in a hot bath, or sit next to a body of water and enjoy the sounds and light of the ripples. Sometimes filling my ‘quality time’ need can also look like arranging a board-games session with friends that weekend or comparing calendars to set a date for a pub quiz night in the future. Just having that in the diary is great.

Receiving gifts

Get a little treat! I’m a fully signed-up member of ‘little treat’ culture.

@katiesworldofbeautyMy toxic trait 🙊🥲 #toxictrait #tiktoktrend #treatyourself #foodie #foodtiktok

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

I’d love to hear what your little treats are?

Acts of service

For me, this one is about ‘what can I do now, to make life easier for my future self’ - and often that goes back to those eating - showering - sleeping basic life concepts. I’ll put fresh sheets on the bed, or plan out the next week’s meals and put in a grocery order to match. Or for a more immediate act of service, I’ll make myself a meal that involves more hands-on time and less thinking - a risotto, for example.

Physical touch

This is a tough one when you’re by yourself, obviously. I have a giant Percy Pig stuffed toy (which now comes as a hot water bottle, adorably) which is fantastically satisfying to curl up and hug. Physical activity also helps fill this need, for me - 30 minutes thrashing to pop music on the cross-trainer machine or a good hard strength workout will help me feel properly in touch with my own body, in a way that’s sometimes hard to remember when I spend so much time in my mind.

Having been thinking in line with this framework, I find it a lot easier to identify the thing that will ‘fill my cup’ when things aren’t going to plan. Before the pandemic, I’d been pretty good at arranging time with friends and events to go to to fill my needs, but with all of those out of the question for months at a time, I had to get really good at self-soothing (this comes up whenever I mention to someone that I lived alone through the lockdowns!) and that’s a practice that I’m still continuing to evolve.

What about you?

Speak soon,

Lily