Loving Bravely
20 Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Get the Love You Want
The four parts to loving more bravely and deeply than ever before
You’ll discover how your past shapes the way you show up in relationships today — your strengths, your vulnerabilities, and the patterns you repeat without realizing it.
SELF-REFLECTIONBefore you can build a lasting partnership with someone else, you’ll learn to develop relational self-awareness and take responsibility for your own emotional well-being.
SELF-AWARENESSYou’ll learn to let go of myths about perfect, romantic love and understand what healthy relationships really need to thrive, including the internal work most people skip.
SELF-EXPRESSIONYou’ll get clear on what you’re looking for in love, not based on what you think you should want, but on what actually aligns with who you are and the relationship you’re ready to create.
SELF-EXPANSIONWHY I WROTE LOVING BRAVELYReal love starts with you
We've all heard "You can't love anyone unless you love yourself," but how exactly do you do that? Loving Bravely sets out to answer that question with a practical roadmap, not just platitudes.
Too many relationships end because one or both people haven't done the internal work to develop self-awareness and take responsibility for their own experiences. Loving Bravely offers twenty essential lessons to help you explore your personal history, understand your relational patterns, and build the foundation for healthy, lasting love.
Through a lesson in Relational Self-Awareness, I’ll show you what relationships actually require beyond fairytale notions of romance. You'll learn to become a good partner to yourself first so you can show up ready, resilient, and confident in the love you truly want.
“You can’t love anyone unless you love yourself”
A glimpse at what’s inside
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This lesson is devoted to helping you love more consciously by collecting fresh data. In other words, you are being invited and encouraged to talk about love with the people who raised you. Regardless of your age or relationship status, seeking fresh data from your parents and offering fresh data about your life to them will foster relational self-awareness.
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Real-life love stories don’t always look the way they do on our screens, and real-life love stories change over time. In this lesson, we’ll explore how real love in real relationships changes and evolves — and how we must change and evolve as well.
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A book about self-awareness in the service of love must make space for the body. Touch, affection, and sex are integral aspects of being human, and they are essential forms of communication within an intimate relationship. This lesson is about how to know and appreciate your erotic self — who you are sexually — in order to maximize your enjoyment of sex as a vital element of an intimate relationship.
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We hurt those we love. For all kinds of reasons. Looking at how we hurt people we love is really hard work, kicking up incredibly uncomfortable feelings as we confront discrepancies between who we believe ourselves to be and who our actions suggest we are. In this lesson, we look at a path to help us tolerate this painful dialect — I both love you and sometimes hurt you.
HERE'S WHAT FOLKS ARE SAYINGBUY NOWLoving Bravely
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Preview Chapter: Awaken to Your Life Today
BONUS RESOURCES
Stop letting old stories hijack your present. Your past shaped you, but it doesn’t have to control you. In this chapter, we will talk about how to live in the here and now of your life by working gently and lovingly with old stories that have a way of sneaking up on us
FEATURED TALKLoving Bravely: Creating and Maintaining Intimacy in a Long-Term Relationship
Dr. Alexandra is a dynamic speaker who is known for her ability to invite her audiences to explore the complexities of relationships with curiosity and compassion. In her Loving Bravely featured talk, Dr. Alexandra helps your audience explore how emotional and sexual intimacy relate to one another, and she offers tools and perspectives to help you stay connected to yourself and your spouse.
Related Resources
Continue building your Relational Self-Awareness with these resources from Dr. Alexandra and her Loving Bravely newsletter, with fresh insights and practical guidance that expand on the lessons in the book.
Take the quiz to get a personalized Truth + Dare to help you practice loving bravely.
THE LOVING BRAVELY CHALLENGE4 WAYS TO RECONNECT AFTER A FIGHT (EVEN WHEN YOU KIND OF DON’T WANT TO)When the dust settles after an argument, the real question isn’t who won, it’s “Are we still OK?”
WHY DO WE ALWAYS END UP FIGHTING ON FAMILY VACATION?Three conversations to help you protect your relationship and plan for how you’ll stay close in the chaos.
THREE SIMPLE WAYS TO SOFTEN YOUR LOVE (EVEN ON HARD DAYS)If stress is the main character in your conversations lately, here are three small, intentional ways to invite more ease into your relationship.