If we care about people we love, we need to care that we love them the way they feel loved.
We think we love people. These people could be our partners, parents or whoever they are. But what is the objective of that love- that they feel loved and cared for. If they don’t feel loved and cared for, what’s the point of that love?
Yeah, it’s meaningless.
Yeah, love is hard, and it is quite hard to love people like they want to be loved.
We are all different as people, and we feel loved differently. So many relationships break everyday around the world because people don’t feel loved, even when their partner or their children, or their parents feel that they love them.
We need to find ways to love people so they feel loved, or else all love is futile, isn’t it?
Let us think about how to love people so they feel loved?
1. Ask them how do they feel loved
If your partner says that they are not feeling loved, while you are struggling to understand, what has been missing at your end, there is no way you would get the answer unless you ask them.
Ask them, what’s missing at your end. What are you doing wrong, or what is it that you are not doing?
If they are in a terrible state of mind, you may not get the answer easily. But, if you care and you persist, they are likely to tell you what’s missing in your approach to loving them.
2. Try all 3 approaches to love- visual, auditory and Kinesthetic
The three are essentially learning approaches, but they can be applied to the emotion of love and how to love.
The Visual love approach
Different people have different senses that are dominant for them. Some people need to see things to discern them. They are visual. If your partner or the person you are trying to love are visual, show them that you love them. You could do so by buying them things they like, or simply, by showing up. If you show up and they see you, they are likely to feel loved, then when they don’t see you. Perhaps they need to see you often to feel loved. Ask your partner if that’s what they need, and if they need to see you more often than you are showing up for them.
The Auditory love approach
Perhaps they need to hear you more often to feel loved. You could say “I love you” more often. Or you could say that you are there for them no matter what. Of course, you love them and take for them, or else you wouldn’t be reading an article on how to love people. Say what they care about hearing so they feel loved and cared for.
Compliment them and say nice things about them. Nobody hates a genuine, heartfelt compliment.
The Kinesthetic approach to love
The Kinesthetic is the physical approach. Perhaps your partner is irritated with you or they are not feeling loved because you haven’t really touched them in a while. You need to touch them. It is possible they are craving a kiss, or a hug, or sex.
Whatever it, if your partner prefers the Kinesthetic approach, ensure that you approach them accordingly.
In case of your parents or your friends, you could still touch them in ways they feel loved. You don’t have to commit incest, although I don’t care if you have friends for benefits. Jokes apart, you can hug people. Hugging is not a sexual act. You can place a hand on their shoulders that makes them feel that you care.
We all crave touch. We are not being touched enough in the ways we want to be touched, with love, and care.
3. Listen to the person you love attentively
Listen to someone with complete attention is an act of love. When they are talking, keep your phones aside and pay attention to what they are saying carefully, without judgement to understand what they truly mean.
We speak to be understood, and we listen to understand.
When you listen, listen completely. That way, you make people feel loved.
4. Allow people you love time to heal
When people are hurt, they need time to heal. That includes you and everyone else. If they are hurt, they can’t help but be irritated with you since they are in a messed-up state of mind and heart.
If they need time to heal, give them time to heal. You can’t make up with people when they are hurting. They need time to heal while knowing that you are about and that they can come to you when they feel better.
5. Be patient- it’s hard to love people so they feel loved
It will take time and, in most cases, far longer than you had anticipated. If it’s been a long time since they have felt loved, and you have begun the process and making these efforts, it will take some time for the loop to be closed, in corporate parlance.
You can’t fix problems that took years to build up in a few days. So, give it time and continue to make efforts because you care. If you care, you will wait. If you don’t care, you won’t wait, and the relationship would likely fall apart.
6. To love people so they feel loved, commit to making it work
Look, they say it is easy to give up. It’s not easy to give up either. You spend years doing something and when it doesn’t work out, it’s quite painful to give up also.
That being said, if you don’t want to give up because there is so much invested, and you do really love the person you are reading this post for, you would commit to making it work. You will find a way, or create new ways, and will succeed and then, perhaps you will write an article about how to love people so they feel loved.
7. Ask people you care about if they feel loved on a consistent basis
If you want to love people so they feel loved, you need to constantly check-in on them and ask them if they are feeling loved. You don’t even need to necessarily ask them. You could instead just check if they are being who they are, if they are talking naturally or they look a little disturbed.
You know how people you love behave when they are fine. When they are not fine, you should know. If you don’t know, you don’t care about them. If they tell you and you don’t do anything about it, you don’t care about them either.
8. Be honest with yourself about your actions to love people deeply
Have you been honest with yourself about what you have done to make them feel loved? Have there been some misses, or did you care enough? Could you have dealt with the situation a little differently?
While you are trying to love people the way they want to be loved, you would need some reflection to understand the course of events and perhaps places where you could have behaved with a little bit more kindness and understanding.
9. While you are trying to love people the way they feel loved, don’t forget to take care of yourself in the process
It will get frustrating. It is extremely hard to live with people, especially when there are challenges in compatibility. All of us are different and most of us are not bad people, at least in the civilized world.
You will get frustrated quite often and wonder if the whole thing is worth the effort. While you have committed to make it work, and you are working hard at it, ensure that you take care of yourself during the process.
If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of anyone else, forget the person you love. You need to be in control of your emotions while you are trying to help the person you love with their emotions.
10. Is love worth it
Yes, love is worth it. It is extremely hard sometimes, to love people the way they want to be loved because it gets vague quite often, and you end up beating your head wondering if the whole thing is worth it. You may feel you may be better off alone, then breaking your head wondering how your partner or parent or sibling wants to be loved, that is if you love them.
However, the alternative is loneliness. You can only have so much solitude. Also, you don’t want to be lonely. You don’t also want the person you love feel lonely.
So, the effort you are making is trying to save your relationship.
Love is hard, but it’s worth it.
Why is it so important to love people the way want to be loved?
Alright, we are done with the list. But, why do we need to make so much effort? Love is one of the most important values of life, and there is no happiness possible without love.
You want to love people they feel loved. Yes, you want to love people deeply, intensely. Love, that is not felt by the receiver doesn’t mean anything to them. If it doesn’t mean anything to them, it doesn’t mean anything.
Relationships are the most important and the hardest part of life. Love is at the foundation of all relationships, besides professional relationships, which are built on business needs.
Being loved is an emotion that is generated by the action of love. The action of love could mean having sex, giving a hug, listening, asking how the person you love feels, extending a caring hand, or anything else that they find meaningful. What is meaningful is what makes them feel loved and care for.
It is critical that we love people the way they feel loved. Or, love has no meaning.
Hopefully, the article would help you in taking some new actions to make people you love, feel loved. That would be worth the hours I spent in writing this.
In Conclusion
All of us are different and we have different needs from love. Think about yourself. How do you feel loved?
Your ways to feel loved could be different than those of the people you want to love. If you care enough for them and you want your relationships to be meaningful, you will make the effort to figure out, what does feeling loved mean to people you want to love.
When you do that, they would open up to you, and be happy. They would be the best selves they can be to you. When people are loved, they feel strong, and powerful. Love is a strong force. It makes us believed cared for, and believe that there is nothing that we cannot achieve.
There are other things in life which are trivial, like the pursuit of materialism, and adhering to the whims of the society, which make life boring and meaningless.
Love shouldn’t be one of those trivial things. It is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and all of us have the means to love, and in return, hopefully, we might be loved as well. Even if that doesn’t happen, to love itself is a privilege.
Why do I write this blog?
The purpose of this blog is to help you find your happiness. Please read the other posts on the blog, and follow so that you get updates when new posts are published. Please share the post with your friends so that they can also find their happiness. If you have any feedback for me, please leave it in the comments and I would be happy to work on it. If you would like to support my writing and this blog, you may please send a donation through PayPal here.
I appreciate the time you spent in reading the blog and wish you happiness.
Love,
Amarvani
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