Love, Admiration and Reverence

"Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love."  - Thich Nhat Hanh

"… The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness. Our parents may be able to leave us money, houses, and land, but they may not be happy people. If we have happy parents, we have received the richest inheritance of all."  - Thich Nhat Hanh

Whenever you think about self-love, try picturing yourself making a mistake. Forgiving your own mistakes instead of overreacting to them is what self-love looks like.

Sell-love is deeply connected to our relationship to the ones around us, as we are definitely shaped by our experiences. On the other hand, we have what we call self-sufficiency and self-reliance, terms that define the relationship one has with himself or herself, without involving anybody else.

"Self-love is less about the ability to withstand loneliness or establish independence and more about awareness and acceptance of our incompleteness. It’s about letting others love us even when we feel unlovable because their version of us is often kinder than our own. "

Much can be learned from how you each deal with conflict, and avoiding it keeps you from that knowledge. 

An inability to resolve conflict is a major reason why in-love feelings fade away.

Ask the important questions -- about values, money, children, religion/spirituality, past relationships.

If you are afraid to be forthright in your questions, then the fear itself is letting you know that your fear of rejection may be in charge -- which means you have more inner work to do.