Showing love to your family members is something that every family needs to master in order to remain happy and feel fulfilled on a daily basis. Expressing your love to your family members becomes even more important as you embark on a life of sobriety.
As you return home and start to reintegrate into life, your family will likely feel a desire and some pressure to help you on your journey. Because of this, it is vitally important that you learn how to show your love to your spouse, kids, and parents. Outwardly showing love will help open healthy dialogues and will go a long way in making your life and your loved one’s lives easier.
How to Show Your Love
Though we all have different family dynamics and we all serve a unique role within our family there are still many over-arching ideas that will work for just about anyone. Take a look at the ideas below and use them to inspire yourself to grow your relationship with your family.
1. Tell Your Family Members You Love Them
The simple act of telling those close to you that you love them will go a long way in showing your appreciation for everything they do. To ensure that you are properly showing your love you should tell your family members you love them both after they have done something to show their love and when unprompted. If you only use it as a thank you or say it after they say it to you it will not be as powerful of a gesture as it can be. So start trying to tell your family members that you love them on a daily basis.
2. Compliment Your Family Members
Similar to telling those close to you that you love them, showering them with compliments is also a powerful tool to show your love. Telling your partner, parents, or children that they look nice, cooked a great meal, or reached a professional or personal goal will show that you are in their corner and truly care about how they feel on a daily basis.
3. Be Involved and Available
In order to properly express your love, you need to be both involved in your family’s lives and also available to them when they need you. It is exceptionally important to ask your family about their work or their hobbies and try to be a small part of what they like to do. Often relatively simple gestures like letting them rant about a coworker or driving them to their hobby will go a long way in showing that you care.
Similarly, being around and available to talk to when they need to get something off their chest or need guidance on something will show that you love them. It will also reinforce that the things that are important to them are also important to you.
4. Share Meals Together
Blocking out time for a proper sit-down family dinner has been proven to help families remain close and involved in each other’s lives. This simple act of having a meal together just about every day promotes communication which in turn helps all members of the family feel involved and important.
Another positive side effect of this shared mealtime is that you will have time to learn more about them which will help you express interest and show you care.
5. Maintain Open Lines of Communication
Mirroring the ideas mentioned above, maintaining open lines of communication ensures that everyone in your family feels included, heard, and understood. Sharing a meal together, remaining involved, and telling your family members you love them will go a long way in helping you keep these lines open.
Meanwhile, from a personal standpoint, you need to ensure you are less stubborn and more patient so that your family members know they can come to you for solid advice and problem solving no matter the topic.
When your family members do not have to worry about getting a snappy answer or upsetting you then the lines of communication will continue to be more and more open.
6. Make time for yourself
While showing love for your family usually involves how you treat those close to you, it is still important to make time to reflect and focus on yourself. Remaining aware of how you are feeling will help you promote your best self to your family members, which in turn will help them feel loved.
An effective way to do this is to block out time to do things that make you feel at peace. When scheduling these times make sure to properly communicate with your family members what you are doing and why doing it makes you feel better and lets you be more involved. They will understand that you need your own time and will appreciate being included in the planning.
Implementation
While family will always be tricky, using the above checklist will help you and those close to you remain happy and fulfilled. For some, opening this level of dialogue will be effortless and a natural progression of your relationship with those close to you. However, for many being openly loving to those closest to you will feel a little forced and uncomfortable.
It is important to remember that you don’t need to do everything above perfectly right off the bat. If the entire premise feels intimidating and foreign then ease into it with whatever feels the most natural and achievable for you and your family.
Things like a weekly dinner or just starting to chat while hanging out in the evening often lead to more quality conversations, open expressions of love, and overall better communication. There is no right or wrong way to implement all of the above ideas, it is far more important to approach it from your own angles and maintain an open mind.
