Book excerpt: An Invitation From Gay HendricksI am thrilled and delighted to offer to you the new edition of Learning To Love Yourself. Revisiting and rewriting the book has been a pleasure from beginning to end. With its new elements, the book comes alive in a whole new way.Looking back over more than three decades to the moment of its conception, I can now see how writing this book changed my life in every way.I first wrote it as an act of love, to share an experience that feels as if it's still transforming me in my very cells. It was my hope that telling about the experience could inspire the same profound life-changes in others. The many thousands of letters, emails and spoken appreciations I've received since then let me know that my hope came true.The experience described in the book revealed the living mystery of love to me, allowing me to feel its sweet power for the first time. Because I suddenly knew what real love felt like, I was able to break free of my pattern of painful relationships with women. Ultimately it helped me find my way to Kathlyn, the love of my life and my wife for the past quarter-century.The new edition is ideal for giving to loved ones (including yourself!) who are on the journey to forgiving, accepting and loving themselves. It tells you how I came to an acceptance and unconditional love of even the most difficult-to-love parts of myself.My fondest wish is that you use it for exactly the same purpose, with exactly the same result.