Blog Post

How to Express Love in a Skillful Way

Oct 23, 2018

What's a good way to express love? And what isn't?

Picture this scenario:

A man rushes to the airport to pick up his new girlfriend. He stops at a grocery store to buy flowers because he’s been taught that women like to receive flowers.

At the airport, his new girlfriend gets in the car. The man beams at her and tells her: “I got you some flowers.”

His girlfriend responds unenthusiastically: “I actually prefer potted plants. I think it’s a waste to cut down nice flower.” Secretly, she thinks that his attempt to get her flowers shows that he doesn’t know her at all.


Like this man, you might have had experiences when you tried to do something nice for another person and got shut down. If this happened to you, it probably felt disorienting or perhaps even infuriating.

You were just trying to help or do something nice, so why did the other person react like that? And how is it possible that an act of love can backfire so much that it creates tension in the relationship?

Being shut down in this way typically leads to one of two reactions: either one continues doing the same as before (likely with the same dismal results), or one gives up trying to do something nice. Whichever path one chooses, it’s a losing situation and leads to feeling disappointed in relationship.

However, there is a better way to express your love

It requires learning something that our culture doesn’t teach people: how to give love and care in a truly skillful way.

When I first started coaching people, I had to figure out how to offer guidance and support to people in a way that worked for them.

In order to become an effective coach, I needed to learn to express my care for the client in a skillful manner. I discovered that the most important secret to that was to honor the other person’s invitation.

Depending on what the other person actually wanted in that situation, the same advice could be a welcome gift or a total nuisance.

And, even though I first learned about the concept of “honoring invitation” from my work with coaching clients, I soon realized that it applied to all types of relationships.

In any relationship, the most important aspect of giving love and care in a skillful way is learning how to honor other people’s invitation.
Simply put, if a person gives anything (such as advice, a hug, or a gift) that isn’t appreciated, it is often because they have overstepped their loved one’s invitation.

These following four principles can help you to show your love as skillfully as possible.

1. Become aware of the level of invitation


The first step in learning to honor invitation is to become clear on what that means.

Typically, it’s easiest to notice when somebody else has overstepped your own invitation.

Assume, for example, that you are having the.worst.day in a long time and you are now interacting with a friend.

You may want that person to compassionately listen to how you’re feeling. However, you might not want to have your friend try to change your perception, analyze the situation, or get you into a different mood.

In this situation, if someone simply listens to you, that person gives you an invited gift of their time and attention. If they start analyzing the situation, they give you uninvited feedback instead.

When somebody oversteps your invitation, you may feel anger or frustration. You might also not feel heard or seen. Whatever the exact reaction is, it generally doesn’t feel good.

No matter how positive our intentions are, we create a similar reaction in others when we overstep their invitation. ⚠️

2. Ask the other person for permission

The easiest way to make sure your act of love is an invited gift is to ask the other person for permission. While you'll find many general suggestions for how to express love, not all of them might be welcome all the time.

For instance, I sometimes ask both coaching clients and friends or family members: “Would it be okay if I ask you some questions?” or, “Would you like my feedback on this?”

When you do this, it’s important to be non-attached to the answer. When you’re okay with receiving either answer, it gives the other person space to be honest about their feelings. Otherwise, the person may give you the answer they think you want to hear.

If they say “no,” we can simply follow up with another question: “So what could I do that would be helpful for you?” Sometimes the answer can be quite surprising.

3. Ask questions

People often think that it’s important to have the answers. However, great questions are typically much more powerful because they empower people to find their own answer.

I once got to participate in an exercise designed to demonstrate the power of great questions. In this exercise, the only thing we were allowed to do to help someone in our group was to ask them questions.

To make sure the questions were worth asking, we could only speak if it would “improve upon the silence.”

The result was that everybody created unusually deep breakthroughs in a brief period.

What questions are appropriate to ask your loved ones depends on the situation. Generally, you should avoid asking leading questions.

A few examples of potentially helpful questions are: “What would your ideal outcome in this situation look like?” “Have you ever felt this way before, and if so, what did you do to overcome this?” “Is there anything you could learn from this?”

4. Check your perception

People often assume that they know how somebody else is feeling. However, their perception of another person’s inner landscape could be way off. And those false assumptions can then lead to tensions in their relationship.

Thankfully, there is an easy cure for that!

You can repeat back to the other what you heard them say, or what you observed in them. Then you ask if your perception is right. This gives you loved ones the chance to correct you.

To check your understanding of what a friend said, you might ask: “What I heard you say is that you are frustrated because your partner didn’t listen to you when you went on that trip, and you are feeling disrespected because of it. Is that correct?”

If you want to make sure that you observed your loved one’s situation accurately, you can ask: “It seems to me that you are overwhelmed because you are handling a number of projects at work and also need to take care of your parents. Is that true?”

What it really means to express your love in skillful ways

By applying these four simple (not necessarily easy!) principles in your relationships, you can support your loved ones in an even more skillful way than before.

Honoring your loved one’s invitation might mean driving potted plants to the airport, refraining from giving them spot-on advice when they’re in distress or doing other things that don’t necessarily make sense to you.

However, showing your love skillfully means that it isn’t about how you (or some other people) would like to be treated, it’s about how your loved one wants to be treated.

A version of this article was first published on Elephant Journal here .

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