Guilt for Not Loving Enough

I recently worked with a lady who had huge guilt over not being loving enough towards her husband before he died.  She hadn’t said “I love you” very often in their marriage, certainly not for a few years, and didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye properly before he passed.  I used EFT to clear the guilt, but I also talked to her about Dr Garry Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages.  He points out in the book that there are five different ways we give and receive love and we aren’t always speaking the same language as the person we are in a relationship with.  The languages are:

1. Words of affirmation (like saying “I love you”, giving complements etc)
2. Acts of service (doing things for the other person)
3. Giving of gifts
4. Touch (hugs, kisses, rubs etc)
5. Quality time

My client’s language was not words of affirmation. She was not inclined towards saying ‘I love you’ to anyone but I pointed out that didn’t mean she wasn’t loving.  In actual fact she’d been holding him and stroking him at the end of his life and showing her love that way (touch).  She had done a lot for him over the years (acts of service) and had always been there keeping him company (quality time).  Once she realised that she had loved and cared for her husband in her own way she was at peace with herself.  In conjunction with the EFT, we had achieved a cognitive change from “I wasn’t loving or caring enough” to “I was really caring and loving”.  A great result to be free of guilt and at peace with yourself, all in one hour.