Excerpt
from Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love
by Diana Kirschner
Introduction
When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you, believe in him. --Kahlil GibranYes, believe in him.
Who am I to suggest such a leap of faith? Good question. I am a person who knows love: how it works, how it heals, and how it hurts. I know how it fills hearts, how it fails and empties them. And how it can return. I study love, talk love, live it and breathe it. Most importantly, I help it spread and take root in the sweet birth of new relationships every day. I help love to come, surprise, and delight people like you.
It most definitely wasn't always this way. I was not born into love or a joyful welcome. My childhood, adolescence, and early dating life, to use a technical term, sucked. Loneliness and disappointment were my middle names. But that hard beginning led me to hunger and look for the secrets of love. And I've been on the mission for a long time.
Here's a flashback from 1986. I was sitting in the sunny spot in my office at a Philadelphia-based psychotherapy center when Jill, a striking woman with a mane of copper-red, waist-length hair, rushed in. She threw the latest Newsweek on my desk so hard that it went flying over into the trash basket.
"It says a single forty-year-old woman has only a 2.6 percent chance of ever marrying," she blurted out.
Jill was thirty-nine. And single.
"Absolute bull!" I said. "The program you are on is working well for our single clients. Besides that, I feel confident that those stats are all wrong."
Jill flashed me a grin as she settled on the couch. After her session, I checked the files on our single women clients. They were doing quite well, thank you very much. In fact, no matter what their age, they were happily dating and getting married more often than not, if that was what they wanted. The next thing I knew, I was on Good Morning America insisting on the good news: The possibility of committed real love was alive and well for women of any age.
The above is an excerpt from the book Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love by Dr. Diana Kirschner. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.
From the book Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love by Diana Kirschner, PhD. Copyright © 2009 Dr. Diana Kirschner, Ph.D. Reprinted by permission of Center Street, New York, NY. All rights reserved.