This fifth love language is not only about the words you use in your relationships with other halves/children, but also how you say it.
Everyone knows the boost a kind word or compliment can give, so why not increase the ones we dish out to the people around us?
Allah even talks about the long lasting fruitful effects of these words: “Have you not considered how Allah sets forth a parable of a good word (being) like a good tree, whose root is firm and whose branches are in heaven.”
In Kerbala, the most poignant of examples of using words of affirmation is when Jon bin Huway – a freed black slave whose love for Imam Husayn (as) knew no bounds – was fatally wounded. Imam took him in his lap, affirmed him and prayed for him, and a sweet fragrance began to emit from the blood-soaked body straight away as the Imam’s supplication was granted.