In her new book Choosing Me before We: Every Woman’s Guide to Life and Love Christine Arylo shares the story of the heart-rending, soul-shifting on-the-verge-of-thirty breakup that opened her eyes to the fact that she had been mirroring her parents relationship, and settling for a love union that required she be less than her outright radiant self.

She shares her story to inspire other women “to eliminate the “shoulds,” “the musts” and “the cannots” that bar their way to creating the kinds of lives and relationships they truly desire.”

Just as she watched others and listened during her healing process until she understood that she needed to love herself before she could “fully and wholeheartedly” love another person,” Christine now offers the wisdom and empowerment jewels she picked up along her seeking journey to great love — love both for herself and for the man who would become her husband.

Making a Conscious Choice to Love

On this expansive and conscious journey of looking beyond her “normal” horizon, Christine encountered the law of attraction, body work, a new relationship with God and a reconnection to her spirit. She realized that she had been living on autopilot and needed to workout and develop her faith muscles and trust muscles.

Developing these muscles allowed her to begin making conscious choices such as: the conscious choice to love again, the conscious choice to quit her corporate job in Chicago and move to California, the conscious choice to quit her job and become a life coach.

As she says, “It’s not that life is not too short…it’s that life is too fantastic to not live fully.”

Balancing Your Independence and Vulnerability

Arylo believes that for many women societal and family expectations create “robes of repression” that prevent women from fully expressing their true selves. As a woman, she found that she needed to “dare to be loved,” and to get in touch with both her “sovereignty and her vulnerability.”

Combining deep self-understanding with unbounded passion for her new life purpose, Arylo’s goal is for every woman to dare and choose to be FREE to be deeply loved, starting with unwavering love to self.

Soul Mates and Soul Partners

“Every person wants to be loved, deeply seen, deeply accepted,” says Arylo. She defines “soul mates” as friends and others who see your soul, and “soul partners” as people that “hand-in-hand help you create the life you’re meant to live.” As she sees it if your romantic partner is not helping you to grow and to be better, you’re settling for less than a soul partner.

Throughout her book, Choosing ME before WE, Arylo offers “Me Reflections” questions and exercises that enable women to delve deeper in self-knowing, until they are able to take “Vows of Self-Love and Happiness.”

Along this conscious self-discovery path to self-love, Arylo also helps readers get really clear on what they want in a man, a soul partner. She calls this the “core four.” According to Arylo, she choose the core four because “4″ means “enough” metaphysically.

Love and the Law of Attraction

“You can’t focus on more than four, without dispersing your energy,” states Arylo. In her book she writes about how the Core Four works with the law of attraction. “Based on one fact — what you focus on, you will attract — the Core Four is the power of intention put to work to attract the partner you want…Focusand express the four core essences that your heart and spirit — not your mind, ego, or fear — want in a partner, and you will attract what you desire.

Arylo says that the core four also helps woman get past the “packaging hang-up.” According to Arylo, we push great people out of our lives, by fixating on something irrelevant like a small chin, because we can’t handle the love.

“When considering the partner we want to attract, we can’t be in our heads thinks about him; we need to be in our hearts, feeling the answers to questions like: Who is this man at his core? What does he stand for? What does he bring to the world just because of who he is? We must be able to feel his spirit and yearn to know his soul, not his resume,” writes Arylo.

If learning to embrace yourself and going deeper into discovering what constitutes you soul partner resonates with you, then I highly recommend Choosing Me before We: Every Woman’s Guide to Life and Love. If learning how to make more conscious choices and practicing the law of attraction to attract a mate resonates for you then definitely get this book!

Melissa Wadsworth is a self-help author, inspiration speaker and personal potential coach specializing in intuitive dream boards.