Loving Bravely Quotes

“Research shows that couples therapists rank a lack of love to be the most difficult problem to treat—more difficult even than addiction or infidelity”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“The happiest couples I know are the ones who are able to create and inhabit love stories that are good enough. Not perfect: good enough.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Family dysfunction is like fire in the woods that rolls generation to generation taking everything in its path until one person has the courage to face the flame. That person brings peace to her ancestors and spares those who follow.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“She feels compassion for him and sees the learning that would be possible within this relationship, yet she is just not interested in “signing up” for this learning. She doesn’t need to label him as a bad guy (blaming him for the relationship not working), nor does she need to beat herself up for being closed-minded (shaming herself for how she “should” be). She honors the infinite mysteries inherent in love and chooses another path.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“What I also like and value about Gilbert’s perspective is that rather than viewing a relationship that has ended as a failure, she opens the possibility of viewing a relationship that has ended as a completion. The relationship did what it was created to do, and now it is complete.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“according to Gilbert, soulmate relationships are vital and time limited. No “till death do us part” here! A soulmate relationship creates a crisis and a crucible for transformation, allowing us to experience, in the next relationship, a more conscious love.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“A Soulmate Is a Fellow Traveler “People think they have to find their soulmate to have a good marriage… Anyone you meet already has soulmates… Their mother, their father, their lifelong friends. You get married, and after twenty years of loving, bearing and raising children, and meeting challenges, then you’ll have ‘created’ soulmate status.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“To me this perspective feels pragmatic, loyal, and without angst. Here, there’s no churning about the existential, the metaphysical, the unknown. There’s no “Are we?” or “Aren’t we?” It’s just you and me, moving through days, months, and years together, continuing to show up because we are an “us.” Lovely.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“You don’t have to know whether he or she is your soulmate by the second date! What matters is whether this person is a worthy travel companion—someone with whom you can build that “relationship of constancy.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Moving through space and time together creates the soulmate bond. The research project that highlighted greater relationship dissatisfaction among those who see soulmates as the perfect match also found that those who view soulmates as fellow travelers tended to have more adaptive perspectives on relationships.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“If, for example, I begin to wonder what a relationship with someone else would be like, or if I begin to flirt with others out of curiosity or boredom, I can use this soulmate perspective to reconnect with what I value and what I believe. This first soulmate perspective invites faith and surrender.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“A soulmate is the one person whose love is powerful enough to motivate you to meet your soul, to do the emotional work of self-discovery, of awakening. —Kenny Loggins”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“keeping passion alive is the long-term work of love, and it is the work of both partners. However, a lack of love is different. It usually indicates that a relationship was built initially for pragmatic or strategic reasons”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“As feminist scholar Dr. bell hooks says, “Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. No one can rightfully claim to be loving when behaving abusively”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Embrace the both/and.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Tie the present to the past.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“There is a back-and-forth dynamic between trust and intimacy: intimacy grows trust, and trust paves the way for deeper intimacy.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Become aware and make a choice.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Name it to tame it. The mere act of identifying (naming) a pattern or tendency changes your relationship to the pattern or tendency”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“In that place of brave love, both partners are committed to a “relationship of constancy,” as M. Scott Peck calls it, showing up again and again for the relationship because it feels worthwhile and because you promised you would. People in this chapter of love enjoy the benefits of security but may also struggle to maintain a passionate connection.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“When we are attached to each other, we value feeling safe, trusted, and trusting.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“The relationship is now fueled by the chemicals of attachment—oxytocin and vasopressin”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Because when couples survive the fall from grace, they end up in a pretty amazing chapter: Brave Love. Brave love is an authentic and deeply connected place in which both partners get to be imperfect and worthy of love.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“the shift it creates in a relationship can feel quite upsetting, disappointing, and confusing.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“The fall from grace may come in the form of your first fight or the first time you face a crisis together (such as the loss of a job, a health scare, or a family member’s death).”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Idealization is an untenable biochemical stew inside of your brain.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“As we fall in love, we tend to be obsessive, yearning, craving, and prone to ruminative thinking about our beloved.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“Research has indicated, in fact, that the brain of someone who is falling in love resembles the brain of someone who is addicted to drugs or struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want

“We will never transcend our cultural context, but our self-awareness is our trusted guide as we figure out how to live well among a bombardment of noisy and often-conflicting messages about love.”
― Alexandra H. Solomon, Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Find and Keep the Love You Want