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Reader Views is pleased to have Dr. Diana Kirschner with us today. Dr. Kirschner is a psychologist and author of Opening Love’s Door: The Seven Lessons, a romantic adventure that offers insightful relationship advice and seven life-altering lessons. The book is fast becoming a cult classic: female and even male readers have been giving Opening Love’s Door over-the-top five star reviews. Welcome Dr. Diana.Irene: What inspired you to write a novel considering the other books you have written were nonfiction?Diana: This book came as a gift to me--the story, the characters, all kind of magically came to mind. And writing Opening Love’s Door helped me digest many of the lessons I’ve learned, the healing experiences that have brought love and joy to my life. I was the fifth daughter born to old-world Sicilian parents who didn’t value girls. After I was born my father didn’t come to the hospital to see me—after all, I was a throw-away, a girl. So growing up I was disconnected from myself, shy, mute, had very few friends and was basically miserable. But I had a magical kind of healing experience with a brilliant man, who became like a surrogate father to me. He was my fairy godfather. And he taught me key secrets about how to find love, for myself and with a great partner—and how to help my clients create love and joy. This is the person that Raphaela Love, the fairy godmother figure in Opening Love’s Door is based on.Irene: So the lessons in the book are the ones that have transformed your life? Diana: Yes. My first lesson was to use my fear as a fulcrum for growth. I forced myself out of my shell, forced myself to speak up, to talk to people, first one on one and then to larger and larger groups. I went to graduate school in psychology, which I found very daunting and hard, but I forced myself to finish. Finally I wound up being on Oprah, Good Morning America and Sally Jesse Raphael as a guest expert. Panic attacks almost killed me along the way. But I did become free. In the book’s first lesson, Janna, the heroine, learns that Fear lights the way to mastery, that is, the very thing you’re afraid of is the thing you have to confront.Irene: I bet that one lesson has helped a lot of people.Diana: It’s so amazing. You can use your fear to catapult you into right action--to help you jump off the diving board and into the places you need to go. I get so many wonderful emails about it. One person was agoraphobic. She was actually afraid to leave the house and even had the windows boarded up. After reading Opening Love’s Door, she’s not only out there, she’s dating three men. Another woman stood up to her opinionated bossy husband and got him to apologize to her for being verbally abusive. And an executive who was afraid to pull the trigger on a huge initiative at work, launched the project and he ended up with a big bonus. When you face your inner and outer demons, you kind of swallow them and they give you power.Irene: You advocate confronting people that have done you wrong. Janna, the character in your book, confronted her uncle who abused her starting at the age of ten. Why do you feel facing the past and moving forward with life is an important process?Diana: The past becomes your future if you don’t deal with it. You need to confront your inner and outer demons. You need to feel what needs to be felt, whether it is anger, sadness or grief and say what needs to be said in order to let go of those issues and feelings from the past. Then you can be free to create the person you want to be.Irene: Your book, Opening Love’s Door, talks about the seven key secrets for creating love and happiness in one’s life. Out of the seven, which one is most crucial?Diana: You can go home again is by far the most important. This is the strategy that has transformed my life and thousands of others. What I’m talking about is getting a fairy godmother, or godfather, that is a mentor who gives you the positive, validating experiences you’ve missed out on. As Raphaela Love says, you can heal the wounds of childhood and create the life you’ve always dreamed of, if you create powerful healing relationships.Irene: But all the other self help books talk about how you can’t rely on other people to give you what you need—you have to do it for yourself, don’t they?Diana: Yes. And on one level that’s true. But you can move much faster on the road to love by getting someone who is like a fairy godmother to give you what you were missing as you grew up. Being helped by a devoted fairy godmother/father makes the ‘impossible’ possible in the world of love.Irene: How exactly do you do that?Diana: Figure out what you missed out on as a child. Unconditional love? Affection? Advice? Belief in you and help with your dreams? A kick in the rear end? Then find people who think highly of you who are successful at loving and living, people you admire. Good aunts, stepparents, therapists, mentors, ministers or rabbis can be fairy godmother/fathers. Pick one, build a relationship and ask for the tender or tough loving care you really need. Practice seeing yourself the way they see you: as a person with poetry in their soul, a person who is worthwhile, lovable and attractive. This self-love will turbo charge your love life. In my Amazon short, The Ultimate Guide to Getting The Love You Want, which is a companion e-workbook to Opening Love’s Door, I describe exactly how to go about getting a mentor like that.Irene: Raphaela Love is such an intriguing character. Where did you get that name?Diana: I was reading about the angel Rafael, who is an angel of healing. He is called the shining one. And I just saw this vision of a female Rafael, Raphaela Love, a being who is a magical healing presence but at the same time is an ordinary person.Irene: The second lesson in Opening Love’s Door is When you face loss, love blossoms. Tell us about that.Diana: Our greatest emotional horror and our most profound teacher is the fear of being separate, of being abandoned. It is this fear of being alone that we have to master. Otherwise we tip toe around other people, sacrificing ourselves in order to cling to them, to hold on to them. This keeps us in relationships that are abusive or destructive. We have to force ourselves to stand up for what we need, even if we risk losing someone. At that precise moment we are truly loving ourselves. And often because of that strength the other person will straighten out and become more loving too. Just recently, I had a case where a woman who was only getting crumbs of attention from her boyfriend decided she would leave him, if he didn’t change. He immediately asked her to marry him. When you face loss, love can grow.Irene: The third lesson in Opening Love’s Door is The Divine Awaits Your Daily Invitation. Tell us more about that.Diana: Spiritual connection is there for us all the time. All we need to do is to practice a spiritual discipline. This may involve prayer, reading spiritual literature, practicing yoga, or attending a 12-step program. The goal of spiritual practice is to make a connection with all that is around you, whether you call that God, Nature or your Higher Power as you experience her/him/it. When you feel that connection on a regular basis, you will feel less alone and needy. You won’t be desperate for love. You will experience being a “fragment of the divine,” a peaceful kind of rootedness. So, I recommend some kind of spiritual work every day, even if it’s just fifteen minutes. Do it for one week and see what a difference it makes!Irene: In Opening Love’s Door, Janna, the heroine, learns a spiritual practice called being-in-the-moment. How do you practice that?Diana: Being-in-the-moment is an outwardly focused meditation that is easy, fun and effortless. Think Japanese tea ceremony, where the placing of the teapot and cups, the pouring of the tea, the slow sipping, where each act is performed peacefully, deliberately and gracefully. For 15 minutes each day, take the time to do a being-in-the moment walk. Use your full attention. Initially put your attention on things you don’t usually notice, like a drainpipe, the asphalt of the roadway, blades of grass or a puddle of water. Walk slowly and with care, placing your attention on one object near you and once you pass it, let it go and choose another. Sense the object of your attention so completely that you become one with it. Gradually, you emerge from the mind-chatter that clutters your consciousness and enter the now fully. You reconnect with the All-that-is. When that happens, you realize that you’re never alone. You’ll be happier, brighter and more attractive.Irene: It seems that most people who have read your book just can’t put it down when they start reading it. What do you think holds their attention?Diana: I think it’s because they identify so strongly with the main character, they really seem to care about what happens to her. And there are so many twists and turns in the story.Irene: Opening Love’s Door is becoming a cult classic like The Celestine Prophecy. After publication it instantly hit the Amazon Buzz list and stayed there for many weeks. People have gravitated to the book in droves, using it for book clubs and buying ten copies at a time to give out to their friends. They say it speaks to them in profound ways about love and life.Diana: I’ve been truly blessed to learn so much from the many, many clients I’ve had over the years and it is their teachings that come through.Irene: Thank you for you time Dr. Diana. Is there anything that you would like to add to this interview that would be of interest to our reading audience?Diana: People can visit my website, http://www.openinglovesdoor.com for more information, articles, and relationship e-tips.