welcome everybody to today's presentation today we're going to continue talking about
relationship skills but we're going to move on to discussing love languages i'm your host dr
dr dawn elise snipes as always please feel free to interact with me in the um comment section and
in order to you know make this a little bit livelier i will ask you some questions a little
bit later in this presentation just to get you to you know kind of put on your thinking caps but
first let's talk about what are love languages and why are they important to know for mental health
well love languages describe methods through which we communicate and understand love so one of the
things that we need as human beings is love you know think about maslow's hierarchy that baseline
is food and shelter and all that kind of stuff then safety then love and belonging
we need to feel loved so in order to you know avoid or prevent depression and anxiety
and abandonment anxiety and those sorts of things we need to be able to experience love
people need to start by learning their own love language and use it to show love and
compassion to themselves and as we talk about the love languages i want you to think about
what is it that people do for you or you wish people did for you that would help you feel love
most people use their own love languages when communicating with others which can be great
if the person that you are interacting with has the same love languages but if they don't
then it may be kind of like talking in a foreign language it's important to communicate
with other people using their love language you wouldn't expect someone who speaks only spanish
to understand you when you talk to them in english you know so it's important to recognize
that other people may experience love differently and a lot of times we learn our love languages
from our initial interactions from our primary attachment from our family of origin and
that really shapes a lot of how we communicate how our caregivers showed us love is often how
we seek to be shown love love languages are also somewhat variable kind of like dialectics
so it's important to define what terms mean and we're going to talk about that in in just a minute
like i said earlier learn your own love language by being mindful of what you want
others to do for you and then guess what don't wait do it for yourself if you want somebody to
do acts of service for you well then figure out how you can do acts of service for yourself
and maybe that means taking yourself to the uh to the barber the beauty shop or taking yourself
shopping or you know whatever it is that would make you happy you know acts of service are often
things we do for others to make life easier on them uh or make them you know feel happier
so it's important to define what these love languages mean and remember i said
love languages can be kind of like dialectics where or dialects sorry where in one place
you talk a certain way um and like and in another place the language is still the same you're still
speaking english but the words people use are somewhat different and it's important to
recognize that you know not everybody defines acts of service the same way so when you're talking to
someone whose love language is acts of service for example you want to understand what that means to
them and one of the ways you can do it as i said was by observe them you know what do they do do
if you're if you've got a roommate and their love language is acts of service and they are regularly
cleaning up the kitchen and trying to keep the house tidy
that might be a way that they communicate love and respect gifts you know what does that look like
are you if your love language is gifts or if your significant other's love language
is gifts what does that mean does that mean you know really big expensive ornate gifts
or flowers that you picked from the side of the road touch is another one that is you know
dependent on people's definition for some people touch means holding hands or an occasional hug
for others touch is more like a massage or something that is more prolonged and maybe
intense so you know talking with people about you know how they experience how they experience love
words of affirmation you know what does that mean to you what would you want somebody to say to you
in terms of words of affirmation and when would you want those things to happen and quality time
now this is probably of all five love languages this is probably the one that is most ambiguous
you know what in the world does quality time mean to you does that mean sitting in the same room
watching tv and you know not saying boo to one another does that mean going on a hike together
and talking or going out to dinner where you're actually interacting going to a movie again where
you're just sitting there and not communicating what does quality time look like and i encourage
people to identify and you know we'll just start with quality time because we're right here
you know make a list of things that they would like to do with their
friends with their loved ones that would represent quality time do they want to you know
would they think that hanging out with somebody around a bonfire would be cool or
camping or you know what is it that you would really enjoy doing with other people that would
help you feel closer to them that would help you feel more connected and loved by them
and like i said that that's different for every single person so it's really important not to
assume that your other people's love languages are the same as yours and it's important to us not to
assume that they define these love languages the same as you do so observe what do they do for
you my daughter for example um is big on words of affirmation and even when she was knee-high
to a grasshopper she would leave little notes around you know just encouragement notes if i
had a big meeting or if i was getting ready to go take a licensing test or something and
words of affirmation were always something that that she she would use so when i communicate with
her i make sure to use those words uh use words of affirmation to let her know that i love her she's
not big into gifts you know that's not one of her love languages so i could buy her things from now
until doomsday and she'd be appreciative but that's not how she experiences love
acts of service are kind of the same way what kinds of things could people do for you
and when would you want them to do them that show that they love you that show that they care about
you you know you don't probably want somebody doting over you 24 7 and you know constantly
at your beck and call you know that probably is not what you're looking for it could be
um so what do acts of service look like and again make examples of them so if your roommates friends
significant others want to do acts of service what kinds of things can they do that make you feel
loved and appreciated and respected for me keeping the house tidy is a big one if people actually put
their dishes in the dishwasher and don't expect me to always do the dishes uh that's a big thing
you know dishes in the sink is one of my big pet peeves so when people help make sure that
doesn't happen you know that communicates love and respect to me so that is and i know
acts of service is one of my big um primary love languages followed by probably uh quality time but
what my love languages are are sort of irrelevant what are your languages think about you know
make a list you can do five columns or five pages whatever you want to do and in each column
identify the people in your life that
communicate that their love language is that thing so you know under acts of service who in your life
can you think of that you know when you start thinking about really how they show you love
and affection and appreciation you know it's like you know they really do a lot of acts
of service so that's probably one of their love languages so put them in that column
that way you're identifying you know how different people are responding and you can make an effort
to respond to them in their love language make sure you put yourself down too as i
said it is so important to love yourself if you want somebody to
you know nurture you how can you make that happen what can you do to nurture yourself what kinds of
acts of service can you do for yourself that you know you're being your own best friend so to speak
what questions do you have about love languages they're pretty straightforward but it's really
important to recognize them because when people don't understand that you love them then they
may fear abandonment so it's important to make sure that you're communicating in a way that they
understand
alrighty everybody now remember love languages was the five love languages was written by gary
chapman uh so if you want to get back to basics and learn you know a lot about that
you can go to fivelovelanguages.com and that's his website and obviously you can buy the book
if you are interested in learning more about love languages but i do encourage
you to start being curious about how the people in your life express and experience
love