Treating With Affection Is Touching The Soul Of The Other With Respect

Treating with affection is the best sign of respect for others. It is synonymous with goodness, kindness, respect and love. Because, what sense would it make if we did not treat those people we love with affection? The answer is simple: none.

But this overwhelming statement is often not synonymous with reality. In fact, we easily forget the importance of treating with delicacy, of placing our emotional hands on others and dedicating acts and words of affection on a day-to-day basis.

How we connect emotionally

A word, a question, a gesture, a look, a touch … Any expression constitutes an attempt at emotional connection with which we come to say “I want to feel connected to you . ” Based on this we will receive a positive or negative response to our request.

If we stop to think, the frequency with which we ignore or give unpleasant responses to these attempts at connection is overwhelming. Hence the importance of learning to treat with affection, to touch with respect to others.

Thus, attempts at emotional connection would be much more fruitful if we knew how to recognize the emotional needs of others. Many fights are the result of misinterpretation and a sense of disconnection that can be avoided with conversation.

Responses to attempts at emotional connection

Complete and satisfying relationships are not achieved overnight, but need to develop little by little with multiple gestures that forge stability and affection in our interaction patterns.

Positive responses lead to continued healthy interaction. They constitute the master touch of a ping pong match in which both participants play with pleasure. However, negative responses cancel any connection attempts. In other words, if one throws the ball and the other does not move his paddle, the game is over.

In short, we have several options to respond to connection attempts and, according to them, we will play ping pong for more or less time. Let’s see what ways we have to respond to a gesture by others:

• : for example, when one person makes a humorous comment and the other laughs . If we encourage this type of connection, we will get long-lasting relationships full of good feelings as a reward.
• : People who respond with hostility can be called belligerents or argumentative. Using this type of reply denotes sarcasm and contempt. An example would be: ” I would like to buy a car” and the hostile response: “Don’t even dream of your salary.”

• : This is synonymous with ignoring the attitudes of the other, which obviously destroys our relationships.

So let’s get the batteries and take care of the answers we give in our day to day. Let’s not let bad gestures feed and attend to attempts at emotional connection as we should, with respect and tolerance.

:  If the reader wants to know more about this topic, he can read authors like John Gottman or Deborah Tannen.

Images courtesy of Puung and Claudia Tremblay