Showing Affection Is Showing Respect

Showing your affection towards someone is the best way to show respect. It is synonymous with goodness, kindness and love. Why not show our affection to the people we love?

It seems obvious, but the fact is that we quickly forget how important it is that we treat people subtly. Bad answers, disrespect, always having a rebuttal, yelling, demands… each of these reactions is surely all too present in our relationships and the way we interact with each other.

Establishing an emotional connection

A word, a question, a gesture, a look, a touch. Every expression is an attempt to establish an emotional connection with someone. With this we say ‘I want to feel connected to you’. Depending on how others perceive our gesture, we will get a positive or negative response to our request.

When we stop and think about how often we actually ignore or negatively take these attempts at bonding, it is truly overwhelming. That is why it is so important that we learn to touch others with affection, to touch them with respect.

Our efforts to bond would be much more fruitful if we knew how to recognize the emotional needs of others. Many quarrels are the result of misunderstandings and a certain distance that is experienced. We can prevent this by talking.

By not treating others with respect, our relationships will wither and deteriorate. When we ignore the importance of commitment, we usually encourage our own isolation, discontent and instability.

Responding to Emotional Approach

Complete and satisfying relationships are not established overnight. No, they are gradually developed through multiple gestures that form the foundation of the stability and love in our behavioral patterns.

Every day and with every small gesture we expand our castle a little further and of course these exchanges are the pillars of emotional information that feed our affection.

Positive reactions lead to continuous and healthy interaction. They are like that striking blow in a table tennis match in which both sides are happy to participate. Negative reactions, on the other hand, cancel any attempt at commitment. That is, if you toss the ball and the other person doesn’t move his bat, the game is soon over.

In short, we can react in different ways to people who connect with us and sometimes the ball can go back and forth for a while before the connection is finally reached. Let’s see how we can react to gestures of others :

• Respond empathically to the other person. For example, laugh at the person who makes a funny comment. If we foster these kinds of commitments, we will be rewarded with lasting relationships and filled with good feelings.
• React hostile. People who react hostilely may well be on the warpath. Using this kind of response shows sarcasm and contempt. An example would be: “I would like to buy a car” and the hostile response: “In your dreams yes, with your salary.”

• Ignore the other. This is tantamount to ignoring the other person’s attitude, which will obviously destroy our relationships.

Showing our affection to the people we value should not be an exception, but a rule. Often, however, we neglect these kinds of details and weaken our relationships, eventually causing them to inevitably deteriorate.

So let’s be aware of how we respond to others in our daily lives. We should never nurture negative interaction and we should approach those who try to build an emotional connection with us the right way, with respect and tolerance.

NB: Want to know more about this topic? Then read the books of authors such as John Gottman or Deborah Tannen.

–Images courtesy of Puung and Claudia Tremblay–