What language do you speak?

Why do I ask?
Why haven’t you asked yourself that question before?
Have you ever given your language much thought?

Before you think I have totally lost it, I’m not talking about English, Afrikaans, Xhosa or any of our other eleven official languages here…I’m talking about the ‘language’ we use when communicating with loved ones.

We all have our own ‘language’ we use to communicate our feelings to those important to us. You might express your love for your mom by buying her nice gifts when in fact her ‘language’ is to express your gratitude with kind words.

Your partner might express their love for you by doing the dishes after she cooked you your favourite meal when all you wanted was for her to dress up a little to show you she takes pride of herself in your company.

It is important to understand the language you use when expressing your feelings to those important to you but it is even more important to understand and recognize the language they use in return.

So often I have found we don’t take the time to understand the various ways in which people express their love or gratitude for us and this has often lead to us feeling betrayed, used or unappreciated. We have often missed out on an opportunity where someone was trying to tell us that we were important to them because we were blind to their language.

So before you dismiss someone because they don’t speak the same language try and dig a bit deeper to find their language and you might just learn to communicate.