Love Language or Emotional Conditioning?

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I remember a few months ago while I was still serving in Ilorin, my phone decided to go for a swim in the toilet and, well… it didn’t survive. Suddenly, I was living phoneless  cut off from the world.

My only escape from boredom became my laptop, and somewhere in that silence and stillness, I had an epiphany that shook me to my core.

I was watching a Korean series, Gyeongseong Creature - action, romance, heartbreak, all rolled into one. The main characters were literally fighting for their love, sacrificing everything. I was deeply moved, almost teary-eyed, and as I watched, I said to myself,

“Now that’s love - love that serves, love that sacrifices.”
After all, my love language has always been acts of service.

But right there, in that moment, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper,

“Maybe the reason your love language is acts of service is because you’ve had to work to be loved. And that’s why you expect others to prove their love through work too.”

Boyyyyyyy, when I tell you I gasped - hands on my mouth, frozen for a good fifteen minutes - I’m not exaggerating. Because it was true. It was so painfully true.

I spent the rest of that week (thankfully phoneless) doing deep reflection.
I began to trace the pattern  in my family, in friendships, in past relationships. I realized I’d built a belief system that love must be earned. That to deserve affection, I had to do something show up, fix, serve, perform.

For the first time, I began to question what I’d accepted as truth.
Was acts of service really my love language, or was it my emotional conditioning talking?

Psychologists often say our love languages; the ways we give and receive love, are heavily influenced by childhood experiences.
When love felt conditional (“you’re loved when you behave well,” “you’re good when you help out”), we subconsciously learn to perform for affection. That’s how acts of service can become both beautiful and burdensome; it is true that it’s not always about love, but more so about earning safety.

Likewise,

• Words of affirmation can come from a need for validation after growing up unseen.

• Physical touch might come from a longing for closeness that was denied.

• Gift giving can mask fear of abandonment — “if I give, you’ll stay.”

• Quality time might be rooted in the ache of emotional neglect.

It’s not anyone’s fault at least not entirely.
Our parents loved us the way they knew how, often from their own unhealed places. But it becomes our responsibility to interpret, heal, and redefine love for ourselves.

Once I realized that my “acts of service” might be a emotional conditioning, I had to ask,

How do I begin to love differently?
How do I unlearn the idea that love must be earned?

The answer wasn’t instant.
It meant slowing down and allowing myself to be loved without doing.
It meant sitting with discomfort when someone helped me, without rushing to “return the favor.”
It meant letting kindness reach me without the guilt of not deserving it.

And in that process, I realized that’s how Jesus loves.

Not because of what we do, but simply because we are.
His love doesn’t need to be performed for, it just is.

That’s the model I’m learning to accept.
That love isn’t a transaction - it’s a presence.

So I’ll leave you with a question that changed me:

Why is your love language your love language?

Maybe it’s pure, or maybe, like me, it’s something you learned to survive. There’s no shame in whatever you discover .There’s no shame in whatever you discover, self-awareness is the first step toward healing.

You can start healing by allowing love to feel easy again.
Not earned, not proven  just received. Because sometimes, the love we think we crave isn’t really what we need  it’s just what we were taught to chase.