Communication - noun com·mu·ni·ca·tion \kə-ˌmyü-nə-ˈkā-shən\ : the act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc., to someone else
I have chosen to redefine how I think about being multilingual. Not in the sense of different regional dialects such as Spanish, German, or English. I am thinking more along the lines of much of we do in permaculture – talking hydrology, animal systems, plant nursing, forestry, soils, etc… All of those disciplines have their own language.
In order to speak someone’s language (hence the people care) we need to have an understanding of how they feel appreciated. Often times we say something like: what makes that person tick?, or what floats their boat?
It would benefit us greatly to be communicatively multilingual in the area of people care. Here are five ways people feel appreciated and five different communicative dialects 100% worth learning. A pattern of human appreciation has emerged and been put into a framework created by Gary Chapman called “The 5 love languages” that we can understand and categorizes like this:
Words of Affirmation
This language uses words to affirm other people.
Quality Time
This language is all about giving the other person your undivided attention.
Acts of Service
For these people, actions speak louder than words.
Receiving Gifts
For some people, what makes them feel most loved is to receive a gift.
Touch
To this person, nothing speaks more deeply than appropriate touch.
Many of you may have already heard of these and that is awesome. However, after you know your primary love languages, the trick is to be able to find out the love languages of others for effective and meaningful communication. Here are three methods:
• How does he/she most often express love to others?
• What does he/she complain about most often?
• What does he/she request most often?
(This patterned language of communication was derived by Gary Chapman, counselor and author of The 5 Love Languages. You can take the 5 love languages self test “here” to find out the major appreciation languages you and the ones around you speak)
Read Permaculture People Care Part 1 Here.
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