A successful relationship has two very important components: learning to love yourself first, and then learning to love another person. Too many people ignore the first part, and then wonder why it’s so hard to love another. It’s like expecting to water a plant with an empty water pitcher. Or trying to put on your child’s oxygen mask when the airplane cabin pressure drops, but passing out from lack of oxygen before you can get it on.

Self-love, self-care, nurturing your own soul – that comes first. How do you do that? There are inner and outer ways of self-love. Both are important. The inner way includes meditation or prayer. Feeling gratitude is a powerful practice, not just for the “good” things, but also for the tests and challenges that can bring deeper compassion. In Risk to Be Healed, we wrote about losing a baby before birth, and how the pain and grief eventually transformed into the profound gift of a new spirit guide, Anjel. Gratitude was the key. In Light in the Mirror, we wrote about the 1989 earthquake which destroyed our home but also opened the door for us to buy the land on which we now live and work. Again, gratitude was instrumental.