The document discusses domestic violence and healthy relationships. It covers topics like toxic love vs healthy love, love languages, spiritual healing and recovery, forgiveness, and relaxation techniques. The agenda includes love confusion, forgiveness, and spiritual healing. It provides information on determining love languages, signs of healthy families, and how to learn a child's love language. Key principles discussed are that pure love is unconditional and our love language is how we most easily receive love.

1. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
SESSION 6
Facilitated by Natalie Rascoe

2. Agenda
• Toxic Love
• Love Confusion
• Love Languages
• Spiritual Healing Recovery
• Forgiveness

3. Dealing with Lies in a Relationship

4. Love vs. Toxic Love
Love- Development of self first priority
Toxic- Obsession with relationship
Love- Room to grow, expand, desire for partner to grow
Toxic- comfort in sameness
Love- separate interests, maintain meaningful relationships
Toxic- total involvement, limited social life

5. Love vs. Toxic Love
Love- ability to enjoy being alone
Toxic- unable to endure separation, clinging
Love- compromise, negotiation, problem solving together
Toxic- power plays for control, blaming, manipulation
Love- embracing each other’s individuality
Toxic- trying to change other to their own image/preference

6. Truths about Love
• Love is not supposed to be painful
• There is pain involved in relationships, but if it is painful most of the
time, then something is not working
• Expectations set us up to be a victim
• We must see relationships not as the end goal but as opportunities
for continual growth
• If our definition of a successful relationship is one that lasts
forever- we are set up to fail

7. Love is…
• Responsibility
• Hard work
• Pleasure
• Commitment
• Communication
• Honesty
• Compromising
• Closeness
• Recognizing differences
• Vulnerability
• respect

8. Love isn’t…
• Jealousy
• Possessiveness
• Violence
• Obsession
• Cruelty
• Dependency
• Intimidation
• Proving yourself
• Expecting all your needs to be met

9. Love Languages
• Words of Affirmation
• Words that build your mate’s self image and confidence
• Quality Time
• Undivided attention
• Gifts
• They don’t have to be expensive to send a powerful message of love
• Acts of Service
• Needs to be done with joy in order to be perceived as a gift
• Physical Touch
• Skin to skin contact, hand holding, back rubs, etc.

10. Determining your own love language
• How do I express love to others?
• What do I complain about the most?
• What do I request most often?

11. The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman

12. How to work with your partner’s love
language

13. A healthy relationship requires the following:
• Speaking and listening
• Accepting differences
• Negotiating conflict
• Self understanding
• Understanding of others
• Mutual respect
• Trust
• Unconditional positive regard

14. Six signs your family is healthy
• An attitude of service
• Intimacy between partners
• Parents who teach and train
• Children who obey and honor parents
• Husbands who are loving leaders
• Parents who learn their children’s love language

15. How to learn your child’s love language:
• Observe how your child expresses love to you
• Observe how your child expresses love to others
• Listen to your child’s frequent complaints
• Give your child a choice between two options

16. “Inside every child is an emotional
tank waiting to be filled with love.
When a child really feels loved,
he/she will develop normally. But
when the love tank is empty, the
child will misbehave.”

17. Key Principles
• Pure love is unconditional
• Just because love is sent doesn’t mean it’s received
• Our love language is the form of communication we most easily hear
and receive love
• We benefit from love received in all five languages, but especially
from our primary language
• We can hurt deeply when our primary love language is used against
us
• We all have love tanks that need to be regularly filled

18. Spirituality and healing recovery
• Spirituality plays an important role that is often overlooked in one’s
healing process
• Health necessarily involves body, mind AND spirit
• Clear distinction between religion and spirituality
• Spirituality has many facets:
• Awareness of the world that surrounds you
• Sense of wonder, love, gratitude
• Practice of kindness towards yourself and others
• Listening to your intuition and trusting your heart

19. Spiritual Health
• Spiritual health is demonstrated by an ability to:
• be authentic
• face fears
• lets go of the past
• develop insight
• forgive, peace, compassion, and love
• Spiritual health includes:
• Meditation and yoga
• Music and art therapy
• Breathwork, laughter, martial arts

20. Forgiveness
• “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past”
• It means we are to stop looking back and start taking responsibility for
today and our future behaviors and attitudes
• Forgiveness is one person’s moral response to another’s injustice
• Forgoing resentment or revenge
• The overcoming of wrongdoing with good
• Forgiveness is not:
• forgetting/denial
• Condoning/excusing
• Condemning
• Seeking justice or compensation
• As we give the gift of forgiveness, we ourselves are healed

21. Phases of Forgiveness
Uncovering Phase– becoming aware of the emotional pain,
confronting negative emotions, emotional distress
Decision Phase– realize that focus on the injury can cause
unnecessary suffering, a change must occur to heal, commitment
to forgiveness is necessary, forgoes revenge
Work Phase– active steps toward forgiveness, new ways of
thinking, seeks understanding, chooses empathy, does not pass
pain onto others
Outcome/Deepening Phase– emotional relief and new found
meaning, increased compassion, discovers the paradox of
forgiveness, as we forgive we ourselves are healed

22. Relaxation Techniques
• Autogenic relaxation- comes from within
• Progressive muscle relaxation- slowly relaxing each muscle group
• Visualization- calming and peaceful thoughts
• Yoga
• Tai chi
• Music
• Exercise
• Meditation
• Hypnosis
• Massage

23. How to Forgive and move forward

24. Discussion Topics