Love means different things to different people, influenced by personal experiences and upbringing. These varying definitions can lead to misunderstandings and unmet expectations in relationships, which is why it's important to recognize what love truly means to each person.

Understanding how our backgrounds and beliefs shape our view of love can help improve communication and connection. By learning about love languages and how to better empathize, we can build stronger, more meaningful relationships.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – What is Love?

01:45 – Words as Labels (NLP Concept)

05:07 – How Parents Shape Love

06:51 – Miscommunication in Relationships

10:00 – Communication & Perspectives

14:20 – Conclusion

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] So I got a question, another question about NLP, and I wanted to kind of go through and try to explain NLP in a little bit better way by just kind of going through ideas. So the question of what is love and first off, anybody who responds to that question with baby, don't hurt me. You're my people. Uh, anyway, what is Love? So we started thinking about it. What, what does that mean to you? Like, what was the definition of love to you and notice I said, what's the definition love to? Um, you know, it can be all sorts of things. It could be, um, you. Know the feeling of commitment and love and respect and honor and all those things, and that's fantastic that we can go through and define those. Um, yeah, you go, you look at the five love languages and you say, well, why is it that this person, you know, gifts or this person's love language? Well, maybe their father was a traveling salesperson. And when they would, the dad didn't like being away from his kids. And when they were out, they would bring back little knickknacks and give it to their kids and say, I love you. And so what ended up happening was that that child started to associate dad giving me this gift and then saying I love you. And means that you know when people give me gifts, it means that they love And so that's how it translates through, um, a lot of men, physical touch is what we associate with love. And we've been taught from birth that you only have sex with people that you love. And so we obviously associate love and sex together, which is why, you know, men's primarily in America men's number one or number two love language is physical touch.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:45] So things like that. So basically what NLP kind of teaches, and I think this is a great example of it. Is that the words we use are basically just labels on boxes. And inside that box, we put our own definition of what that word means to us. And this is one of those things that when you explain it that way, you go, oh, all right, that makes sense. This thing that I have this, I know what love feels like. I love my wife. I love. My husband. I love, my kids. I love I know. What love feels like. Yeah. Can you describe it? Is the way you, you think love is the exact same thing I do and everybody around you. And that's the issue. And so what NLP teaches is that you have to figure out before you can communicate with somebody, you have to figure it out. What their lexicon is, what their words mean, you know, those sort of like, what is the meaning? Like we both have this label love L O V E yep. Label on the box. Great. We both have that and we both had the same context around that, right? Like I love my wife. You love your husband, you love your kids. We all, you know, say the things, but the meaning of what love is to each individual person is a little bit different. And that's important to recognize because as you're going through and you're working with somebody, you're talking to somebody and this person says, well, I love, you know, my dogs love me because every time I come home, they're wagging their tails and are super excited to see All right. Great. Is that the same thing for your spouse? You just want your spouse to be happy to see you. Is that, is that the entirety of what the depth of what love is to you?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:21] And so this is one of those things that when you go through NLP, you start asking these questions. And so, like, for someone to give us, you know, you talk to someone and they go, well, everybody knows that you Okay, who's everybody? How do you know everybody feels this way? What makes you think that everybody feels? This way, and you have to actually go through and explain what it is. You mean, and it's amazing because again, Like I talk about, like, you know, when you're looking for purpose, you're talking to kids, you you're talking to them about their purpose. And I tell you, they just, no one's ever asked them the questions. This is what I'm talking about. And so when somebody says, well, everybody knows I'm stupid. Who's everybody. How do you know everybody feels this way? And what ends up happening is that you, well it's not everyone on the planet because obviously this person doesn't know everybody on the planet. So you narrow it down to, is everybody at your school? Well, no. Ted thinks I'm a nice guy and Susie Okay, so it's now everybody ends up being three people. Then you can start whittling it down. These three people, what makes you think this? And so you kind of go through it and you kind pick it apart. But this is one of those things that you can just ask, ask your friends, ask your loved ones, what does love mean to you? Or just ask them, what is love? And again, those who say maybe don't hurt me. When you start understanding that, you know, maybe your definition is very similar to theirs. It's 70% the same as theirs. And this is your spouse, right? This is the person that you live with that you say, I love you back and forth to all the time. Do you know exactly the depth of the definition of the word that you guys keep using with the other person? Or do they know yours? This is a very, very critical thing.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:07] So a lot of times what ends up happening is that we get to understand contextually what love is. From the people that we are supposed to recognize, love us, our parents. And so what ends up happening is that, the thing you have to understand, I think all the adults more or less understand this, especially with your kids, your parents are people, they're messed up. Like no one gave them the instruction manual, first of all. And second of all, they had a lot of issues going on when they gave birth to you or when they started parenting you. So that's a functional factor. But. What ends up happening is that the example for love is shown to us by our parents. And so as everyone's a little bit different and people have different vague things, that's one of those things that we can start to kind of look at and figure out. Oh, I get it. You know, this is what love means to this person. And so they're showing it to me. So when you're talking to somebody about anything, you know, it's you know, what is their worth? What is their purpose? What is, you know? What is these things? You know, what are what is duty and honor? Me, you know, somebody as well. You know, I felt offense to this thing. Like, what was it that made you feel that way? And so you start going through it. Would you find out is that a lot of times people have these very specific definitions of very important philosophical pre-substantial terms that are important, but their definition is different than somebody else's definition. And so when they are, when person a had a lack of what they needed to fulfill this checkbox, they then feel, uh, one of the negative emotions is feel sad. They feel lonely. They feel angry. They feel, you know, whatever it is.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:51] And so that's where this, this thing starts to happen. And this is where a lot of communication starts breaking down. You see this in relationships all the time. It's like, you now, person a tells person B that they love them, but this person's definition and this person definition are not exactly the same. This is the entire concept behind the five love languages. So if you guys haven't read that book, read that book, it's a fantastic book. It's real short too. And basically the concept is that is this exact thing. Is the words that we use, the labels we put on the boxes are all the same, but the information in the boxes, the definition, the things that make that word have meaning to that individual, the definitions of things in the Boxes are different. It's maybe slightly different, maybe substantially different, but that's where a lot of these things are and you can sit there and you can have a discussion and you guys can use the same words and this person and this person can both think they're thinking about the same thing or talk about the same thing, and they're And that's one of those big things that you kind of have to start to understand. And as you start to that, it kind of resets all those things inside the paradigm for the person. And so as you started to open up these different ideas and allow the person to recognize that it may be that this person, you know, the person down the street or their significant other or whatever does love them, but their words mean different things is you can start to eliminate that for these people. All of a sudden everything starts to change for them. That's kind of where NLP is. If that makes any sense to you guys, when you start walking through people, walking people through this, and you start just asking the questions of what does this mean?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:25] Like a lot of people, like, for instance, I bet you that a lot people, when I asked a question, what is love? You don't really have a solid definition. You night know for a fact that you love your kids and you love, your spouse and you, love your dog. And, you know, you love you car or whatever. You can't verbalize it. You can put it into words very easily. And that's one of those things, you know, again, the very important ones, the duty, the honor, the respect, the responsibility, like these types of things that we all use and we all say, Oh, this is, you know, this important, your respect is important. What does it mean? What, what is, what does that mean to you? Like what is your definition of that thing? Cause a lot of times that's where the issues are. And so when we start talking about NLP, we start talking about going through and doing NLP coaching. How it works in negotiations and how it works and, you know, working with your family members, how it radically changes your view of yourself and radically starts to change your view of your relationships and how everything works and how the world works with you. This is what we're talking about. When you start to recognize. I'm using words that mean something to me that means something different to somebody else when you can start to, that's just one piece of it. When you can sort to recognize that, then you can start changing the way that you communicate radically. And it's funny because like, you'll see this, like when we do this in group settings, um, someone will say something and Nathan or Christie in the class setting would be like, what does that mean to you? And in your head, you're like, well, that obvious. It means this, the person would say something to go, Oh, that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:00] That's, that's okay. I see what you mean. That's a different way of looking at it. And then it's like, all of a sudden, now that you recognize that this person is viewing this thing from this angle, because of their life experiences, what's been said to them, how they've lived through things, all that type of stuff, those things, you start to recognize, Oh, when you communicate these things, this is how you're viewing it. I'm viewing it from over here. Now that I understand. Your words better, I understand you better. And so I can help kind of reset that stuff with you. As you start to recognize that, you also start to recognize a lot of the words that you personally use. A lot of things you personally think you have to start recognizing that, oh, well, maybe some of the things that I'm saying, I'm not communicating properly to somebody else. Again, this is where we get the idea that, you know, it's not what somebody hears. Someone mishears you. If you say something and they don't understand it, the communication fault was on you, not on them, because you're communicating the idea. You have to form the idea in a manner which the other person can get what your words mean and then how to take action on those words, whether the words seem to be redefined for them or specifically, hey, I know that you think that this word has these five things in it, this is the one I want you to focus on, right? This is the big piece. So that's gonna be, that's me one of those things that is you start going through NLP work. That's the type of thing that we're looking at. Uh, anyway, that's the things that we're, that the thing that NLP starts to look at is trying to figure out, you know, exactly what the words that everybody's meaning to use are and how those words get used. Um, that tells a lot about how people are. It's funny because people make a comment like, you know, and you ask them like, how does that make you feel? You're like, well, it just makes you feel like I'm not ready. That's a giant thing. Makes me feel like I'm not good enough or whatever. Those are massive things. And when you say, when you, when people say that stuff, it's like, oh, it just kind of a throw away. I just don't feel like this. Okay. That's a major piece.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:12:10] We need to go back through and investigate that and take that piece apart because that's a limiting belief. The whole like, I'm not what I'm not good. Enough, uh, boils down to, and this takes time to explain to I'm just not enough. And you're like, okay, so you're not enough and then you have to go with that from and break all that down or There's other ways that you can, you can cut different things that people say, and you're like, okay, like, you know, I just don't understand. Okay, so you don't know what's going on. Like these types of things is you start listening to what people are saying and you start breaking them down and being like, what did you mean by this? Go into this. How does that make you feel like these type of things? What do you end up finding is that a lot of times people have this really specific piece of a word that they think and they believe, and they're not getting Like, for instance, love is, again, a great example. Like, this person thinks, well, if this person loved me, they would do these things because this is obviously part of love. Well, the other person doesn't have that list of things in their definition. And so what ends up happening is you have to go, okay, this list of Things is unique to you. No, no, it's not. No, it is not unique to me. Everybody knows that. Who is everybody? What makes you think everybody knows these things? Like that type of an idea.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:13:24] So. This is how NLP helps with all sorts of things. Cause in like in negotiations, if you start to recognize, you know, the idea that perhaps you guys are talking, using the same words, but talking about different things, you can then go through and start picking those things apart and figuring out, Oh, you want things that I don't care about so I can give you those things, but these are the things that you, you know, even though what you're saying, these are the things you actually mean. These are the thing you actually need. This is one of the things that NLP kind of helps you understand that neuro linguistic programming. It's, you know, when you say this word, it means these things to you, but that's not what it means to me or anybody else. So that's kind of how a lot of this stuff starts getting put together. And this is how it's easy to start breaking these things down and resetting all this stuff. Because when you start changing the way that people view the words they're using to communicate, you radically change communication.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:14:20] And if you can change communication, you change the outcomes that everybody's trying to achieve. So that's one of the big things in NLP is the way you're communicating might make total sense to you, but doesn't make a lot of sense to other people. So which I think is ironic coming from me who people always tell me that they don't understand what I'm talking Uh, it's one of those things that as you can talk one-on-one with somebody, you can start resetting all those things and putting this into verbiage that, you know, people can understand a little bit easier. So that's the big thing with NLP is trying to work with an individual to come up and be like, now that we both have the same definitions of the words we're using, now we can have a conversation where we both get the things that we need, um, without, you know, without frustration. That's one of those big deals. And it's, if you guys have any questions about that, drop them in the comments and we'll go over them. Thanks for your time.

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