While It’s So Fulfilling to Give and Receive Gifts

According to Dr. Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages (1995), gift-giving is one of five of the most important and common ways individuals not only use in relationships, in order to communicate love to their partner or loved ones. Chapman pushes for the idea of knowing your individual love languages and your loved ones, can help improve your understanding of each other, encourage a deeper love for one another while discouraging arguments. The list includes other love languages like words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, and physical touch. Gift giving, however, is one of the most misinterpreted and misunderstood of them all. 

 

Receiving gifts as a love language does not mean you focus on the gift itself, but the sentiment of it. The article, “What the Receiving Gifts Love Language Means for a Relationship”, by Wendy Rose Gould explains what it means, through the eyes of a licensed mental health counselor. 

 

Mark Williams states, “‘If you or your partner’s love language gifts, that means you feel loved [or that you’re demonstrating love] with a tangible item,” says Williams. Whether that item is a tiny trinket from a thrift store or a 50-foot sailboat is inconsequential. Either convey the same message: I was thinking about you when I saw this. You’re always on my mind.’”

 

When you give a gift, the person receiving it feels loved and seen. As Williams said, they enjoy the sentiment of you bringing them something. It doesn’t have to be big. It can simply be stopping by and grabbing a pastry from your loved one’s favorite bakery on the way home or bringing them something they’ve been wanting. At the end of the day, they’ll not only be happy because of the physical gift but overjoyed about the sentiment behind it.

 

In giving gifts, you also feel good. The question we’re trying to figure out and answer is: why?

 

Giving presents benefits everyone, yourself included. According to a study done at the University of Zurich, planning to spend money on another person encourages movement in areas of the brain that are associated with altruism and happiness. Individuals who were partaking in the study were told that they were going to be given $100 to spend on someone. It was found that dopamine, a type of neurotransmitter that makes us feel happy, is released when thinking and planning on spending money on your loved ones. In interacting with memory centers, the chemical helps to reinforce a lasting and positive notion of the individual giving the gift, which in turn creates a healthy and well-built bond. 

 

So to put it simply: making plans to gift someone you love with something they’ve always wanted makes you happy due to the anticipation of it, as well as doing something positive, impactful, and caring.

Need ideas on what to give them? Check out Charmlet; you choose your loved one’s gift, based on their unique style, a greeting card with a message from you and there you have it! Your Charmlet is assembled on-demand and shipped to their doorstep. 

Back