The way you express love to others and to yourself and the ways in which you have received love from those most important to you are critical to your identity and they are also form a ‘love language’ that a Celebrant needs to learn in order to serve you well.
What makes humans different from other animals is our use of language. With it we connect to others and communicate our needs. We also connect to ourselves and that shapes our inner life and our relationship with others. When we want to mark a key life change, maybe the forming of a new life partnership or the laying to rest of a loved one, we use language. However, language is far more than just words, it is also symbol, actions, music and countless other things.
If I asked you to think of the most loving things you have experienced in life, you aren’t necessarily going to think of words. You’re much more likely to think of a moment shared, maybe a meal, or a day out, or a loving embrace. For a huge number of families I speak to who are marking the death of a mother, they will talk about how the cooking of Sunday Lunch was a key part of mum's love language. Couples will speak about little kindnesses, little quirks that seem to bind them to their partner with an intensity that's out of all proportion to the size of the act.
So whether you are celebrating a marriage or honouring a departed loved one, you will need to connect with that love language in order to make it real.
Here are some things to think about:
How do you like to receive love? In Any ceremony, you need to feel loved, so you need to think about how you like to receive love. What do others do or what do you do for yourself that makes you feel truly loved?
How do you give love? Similarly, you will want to express love in your own way. You’ll want to think about how you show love to others in a way that feels right for you. (By the way, giving love often makes us feel most loved ourselves!)
What kind of love do you need when life changes? Whether you are expressing the joy of a new marriage or the sadness of loss, you are in a moment of change. Humans often need a special focus to the love they give and receive at times like this that are all about feeling safe, feeling connected to others and feeling hope for the future.
What needs healing for your love language to be authentic? Healing old wounds is essential to allowing our love language to flow unhindered. If we are hanging on to difficult memories, people or events, it will hamper our ability to express love clearly. However hard it might be, this is always worth the work involved and you’ll never regret the effort you put in!
Your love language is as unique to you as your finger print or exact eye colour. Learning your love language is a key part of my role and if you’ve done some work to understand it yourself, then we can do great work together!
