Love Action | LQ010

Crystal Clark: 00:00:03

Welcome to our love space today, it's still love month, which, you know, we are chatting about all things love, I'm super excited about it. But that's pretty much kind of our jam here. So, you know, I guess I'm excited all the time. If you've made the tweak this year, to forgetting about Valentine's Day, and thinking about the new V that's in town, which is vulnerability, then hurray for you. We'll give you a little clap there. Because that is, you know, that's even a practice and vulnerability itself, taking that time to pause and say, Hey, actually, let's try something new and different that we've never talked about this thing called vulnerability. I've been listening to this podcast, and it made me think these things. So if you did, congratulations, great job. You're doing awesome. If you didn't, no worries, you still lost them, okay? Because everything, everyone's different, every relationship needs different things at different times. But if you haven't, do go back to Episode Nine, it's, I think, called, forget Valentine's Day, or forget Valentine's. And it's all about vulnerability. And really, that's what you want more of, in your relationship, it's, that's the thing that's going to bring you more intimacy and more trust, it's going to bring you the things that you want more of in your relationships. So it's crazy not to write it's crazy not to go back and have a listen to that one. Because, you know, it's not gonna grow intimacy. And connection in your relationship is like exchanging some flowers and some chocolate, even though I have a flyer sitting next to me today. But anyhow, if you are a couple though, or a person, and, or a single, whatever you are, and you would like to work on that vulnerability piece, because sometimes it's like, you know, a little bit of you might want to dive deeper, a little bit deeper and a little bit one to one with me than we can in that podcast, then definitely DM me find me on Instagram, I feel there's like a link in the show notes to my Instagram, it's at sparked forever. And you can message me there and we can get you set up. And we can connect on there. I'm also on tick tock, I believe it's at sparked underscore forever. And you can always find me on my website. And there's like that one of those little, you know, connection pop up things that you can send me a message on. And that is sparked forever.com because we can always dive deeper than anything we do on the show. So or on the podcast. So in celebrating some new ways to think about love. But that was a little bit of our vulnerability piece. Last episode, I was thinking about how often we talk about it as a feeling, which is great. We want to talk about our feelings, as we learned in last podcast. But really, for our big picture idea, we should be thinking about love more as an action. And some of you might have already heard that. In some places, it's not a total big surprise. But we want to think of love as an action. And actually, if you think of love, love would almost be for us. Our biggest big picture piece right? Is that love that love kind of is like the whole cake. You know, we talk about our cake Well, love is like the whole cake part. But today, we're going to take out a few slices of cake. And we're going to think about love as an action. And that's really going to bring forward our affection, please. So our a and cake and our energy piece. So that E part and our cake model. And those are kind of the two, the two pieces we're going to focus on today. So the reason why we want to think about or rethink love as an action rather than just an emotion is that is going to help feed into our positive experiences in our relationship. It's going to be easier to find things to tweak and think about and, and like rev up in your relationship if things are in action, right. It's hard to just rev up a feeling. But then we started to get in more of that, you know like meditative I can make myself feel my own feelings, that kind of thing. And for you know, for some of us beginners out here, that piece is far off but actions, solid, observable things that we can do in everyday life. Those are the things that are going to start us up again, those are the tweaks that are easier to make. And we're going to notice a really big difference with those. And they're great because both people in your relationship both people in your little collaboration can do them. Okay. So that So we want to rethink love as an action. One is that, you know, we all know the old saying that actions speak louder than words. And this is, you know, really true. Because oftentimes, it's super easy to just come out and say words, right to just come out and say, I love you, or whatever you want. It's easy for that part to come out your mouth, but the doing part of the actual actions that we do to show that or to carry out that feeling in our day to day life that takes energy and effort. And so if we think about that affection piece and our love languages, we can see how that energy and effort takes shape in our little affection. Big Picture piece. So you know, and if you think about it, all of the love languages are observable. Even if you think about words of affirmation, I know you're probably like, ah, Crystal, what about words of affirmation? Well, I've got you there. Because words of affirmation, you're still taking that action, you're still taking that moment to pause to notice something about your partner. And then to share that with them. Now, you might be sharing it with your words verbally, but that's an action that's showing the person your love toward them in an action. So I was actually working with a couple. And this is one of the couples where, you know, we're probably quite below our Okay, point. So we're trying to just get back up to Okay, and then before we start to build on top of that, but they were, you know, when they talked about the relationship, they were always saying, like, I love us, right? They were always exchanging that. Okay, so lots of I love these, if we add, if I ask them separately, or ask them together, how do you actually feel about this person? Are you still in love? Do you still feel love for them? 100% reported, we still feel love for each other, but things are still falling apart. So how, why? How does that happen? Well, the feeling was there, or at least, their belief in the feeling was there. But none of their actions were going towards that feeling or going towards showing each other that feeling or going towards creating the energy for that feeling. So and actually, it was interesting, because even when we got down to a lot of their actions, were actually worked opposite of their relationship, or like our sorry, of their Yeah, of their relationship and their love languages. You know, so like, if someone was saying that they weren't quality tempers, in which one of the people in the relationship was if they're like, oh, yeah, I'm a quality time person. That other person was not making any quality time for them was not prioritizing any quality time. They didn't have any quality time plans. And it's actually really interesting. Because they were actually the one partner was actually doing things that were opposite, which is not only not prioritizing quality time, or some low moments throughout the day, where you and your partner to connect, but that person was also actively planning other quality time moments with other people and prioritizing those in their life. So you know, that's got to send a confusing message, right? I love you, I totally want to be in this together. But I'm doing all of these opposite things that actually could even be hurtful, right? If someone's like, I'm a quality time person, and you're like, cool, but I've booked up all my quality time with 101 other people, that is kind of can be a disconnect there. And so you know, so being able to see that those actions, and you know, for that couple, we had to do a lot of tweaking, because they had really fallen out of sync, and we had to do a lot of tweaking towards getting them back into that synced part and getting them back into doing the actions. But it was those steps towards the actions that created that positive energy or those positive interactions that actually allowed them to keep going and building and getting back up to that. Okay, line. Wow. Wow. And the other thing that was actually, I mean, not totally shocking, but maybe like a little bit surprising. Is that when we would after we were kind of back up out, okay, and then we were working at just, you know, even tweaking things even more was that they said they felt a different feeling towards each other. It was different so like they felt more bonded and connected, and that when they were thinking back about it, they weren't even really Now they weren't even really sure what that feeling is that they kept reporting, they were having a meeting, while things were not going well, so that feeling where they're like, Oh no, we do love each other, we're in love, we're in love went now at the spot there. And when they go back and look at that feeling, they're not even sure that that's, that's what love was because now they feel something so much more different and energizing it and wonderful. You know, and that means that these things work that these, these big picture ideas, and then coloring in coloring them in with your own details. That means that that works, that works, that's going to get you to the spot you want to go. So and you know, like, again, that's how you color in these things, right is you get to color in what language, what love languages you have, and even how you like the details of those love languages to be used and shared. And if you're neuro spacey, there's like a whole different list of neuro spicy, like possible love languages, I still because I'm a big picture thinker, I still think some of the neuro spicy lists are out there can actually be grouped under the other love languages. And that's not to dismiss them. That's just to have like those big bigger picture ideas, right? Because some of them are very specific. Right, like, there's the penguin pebbling. I don't know if you guys are familiar with this. But that's like a love language where you like to collect little, like trinkets or little things and gather them up together, and then sort of gift them or share them with your partner. And you know, I could I would probably put that under gift giving but maybe to someone who's neuros By seeing doing it, maybe it's more of the act of collecting, like maybe they find it's like an act of service. But again, then it could be an act of service. So I always I'm always interested with those very, very detailed ones. Whether they fit under a bigger picture, but you know, whatever it is like in our household. What are the love languages? Oh, I love this. It warms my heart. Okay, so one of the love languages in our household is is broking. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the term croaking I think it's actually a Middle English or like a medieval English word. And it's for is to describe, I think it's medieval anyhow, notice that's not an important detail for him. Okay, so it's used to describe a person who's kind of like staring and eyeballing your food. Because they would like to eat them, or like have a try have a taste of it. But they're not really like outrightly asking like, Hey, can I try that they're just kind of like, oddly staring over at you. You're like, Oh, would you like some of this? So that's actually a love language in our household. So my food gets groped at and I go, Oh, would you like some of this, and the other my partner because guess I would. And the fact that I have noticed that he was groping, and I have noticed or and then I have offered to share my food with him as it is something that makes him feel loved. And beyond that, and oddly, is that he feels he I think it feels a little extra special. If it's like the last bite or even like the second to third to last bite. And I don't know if that has to do with like, you know, like, Ooh, there's not much left. And if that person shares it with me that's more meaningful or what not. But that's definitely a love language in our house, for sure. And it makes me smile. And I just love it. So the second reason so the first reason we want to make our love into an action is because it makes it visible observable, it allows us to like to experience those positive feelings, right? Because we could be thinking or saying I love you, but again, if it's not matched up with and don't get me wrong, saying I love you super important. Let's not drop saying that. Now remember, like our vulnerability piece. We're sharing our feelings and our thoughts with each other. Okay, so don't so definitely keep saying I love you. But if that's the biggest thing we're doing to show our love then we definitely need to tweak that and make it an action because and I guess this kind of jumps into a to our next part is that you know that actions actually are energy right? They take energy to do and we all know you can't put what is it is you can't destroy or create energy. It's just there with just changes different forms. So we can take our actions, right, or low positive exchanges, or lovers actions. And we can change that in To energy for a relationship, and that's where our E piece of cake comes in, is that energy piece. So we can build our real relationship energy from that. So I know how we all know about new relationship energy, or that honeymoon phase, or things like that. Now, that's a part where in our relationship where things are new and fresh, and we get that giddy excited feeling. And a lot of that feeling is actually from the chemicals that are being released in our brain. So we get a lot of, you know, dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, those are like kind of the three big hormones that come out when we're in a new relationship, and those can last anywhere from six months to two years. So that's like a big chunk of time where we could be in that honeymoon phase. And that's great, because that starts our bonding process. So that's really, really important for us, is to start that bonding process. So it's not that there's anything bad with that new relationship energy, but we know how it fades after a while. And that's okay, because we're going to make our real relationship energy with these actions of love, or affection. Okay, these love actions are affection, that's what's going to keep driving the relationship, that's what's going to keep, you know, switching our energy from those positive into positive feelings for each other, right. And to positive moments for each other into motivation to collaborate with each other is going to be it's going to help us with our kindful lens, like it's going to help keep that kind of lens going with each other, it's going to help us participate with each other. It's gonna start my cat and my cat just interrupted. So yeah, so it's going, our new relationship energy is going, or sorry, our real relationship energy is going to be fueled by these actions. And these actions, like I said, they're going to go in to our motivation to collaborate with each other, they're going to go into our energy to spend time with each other, they're going to go into our motivation to problem solve our motivation, choose our kindful. And they're going to build all of that energy. How exciting is that? That little everyday actions we do towards each other, let our little everyday actions that we do towards each other, help bond and connect us they help give us those positive moments and feelings? Well, that's pretty easy. That's pretty easy to keep that spark going. We just have to keep some of those actions going. Perfect. Okay. And I understand it can sometimes be difficult when we're in the midst of it, to see, uh, oh, my gosh, you know, and this is, this is another episode totally is like, how do we get that energy? Right? Because sometimes we might be in a funk or sometimes we might be like, Oh my gosh, there's so much on my plate. How do I do this, how to do that, oh, bla, bla, bla. Now, remember, our thing, all of these ideas feed into each other, right? Remember, I love those two furs, those two for ones, right? That's all gonna feed into each other. But I understand her when you were, you know, kind of in the mix of your relationship. Or even if you were like a bit of a mix, couple like a neurotypical and neuro spacey person. And sometimes, you know, your communication styles, or your languages of love are a bit different and might not be as intuitive to each other. I can understand that it can be a little bit difficult to see where and how you're going to put those actions in. But that's why you've got me, right. That's why we're here. That's why we're exploring these things together. So don't fret, don't worry about it. Remember, DME catch me on Instagram at at sparked forever. Because, you know, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to for some of you. Like I know, you know how to color in your own details, but you just might not know, you know, and that's what I'm here for. Right? If you need to deep dive a bit deeper into this idea of how to make love into an action and how to think about it as an action. That's what I'm here for. You know, and to like, drop me a little comment. Let me know you know what resonated with you out of this today. Maybe let me know what action what love action you think you're going to try out? Let me know how that vulnerability piece of going. Let me know what you're going to think about or what you're going to do to make love and action so that you can be sparked.