Starting with Me: Knowing Myself Before Finding a Partner

Whatever your age or life circumstances, Starting with Me helps you prepare yourself for marriage and lay a solid foundation for your future. It offers uncommon wisdom from the Bahá’í teachings, time-tested guidance from relationship and character specialists, insights from everyday people on this journey, and transformative questions and exercises.
Starting with Me will empower you to:

• Live a full and happy life that includes service to others
• Learn from past relationships, and move forward
• Conquer your fears and doubts, and avoid those nasty pitfalls
• Know yourself and your character—and be able to study a potential partner’s character
• Form realistic expectations and wishes for a partner
• Form friendships that may later become a great match!

While you’ll start with yourself, we give you plenty of ideas for involving others on your journey, and Starting with Me also lends itself to group study. Whether you’re excited, nervous, doubtful, or optimistic, take a deep breath and smile, for help and hope are at hand!  One reader shared:

“The unique ideas in each chapter, and the profound quotations from the Bahá’í writings opened my eyes to new and helpful ways of viewing marriage. The benefit I got from Starting with Me really skyrocketed when I began to complete the exercises that help us tailor the concepts to our lives.”

Susanne M. Alexander is a Relationship and Marriage Educator, author, coach, and character specialist, as well as President of Marriage Transformation® (marriagetransformation.com; transformationlearningcenter.com; bahaimarriage.net). She is certified to conduct marriage readiness assessments with couples through Prepare-Enrich (prepare-enrich.com), and the Character Foundations Assessment with individuals through Peirce Group (peircegroup.com). She received a BA in Communications from Baldwin-Wallace College. Susanne meets with clients globally to help them prepare for relationships and marriage or strengthen their existing marriages. She serves as the department chair and lead faculty member for the Wilmette Institute's online courses about relationships and marriage (wilmetteinstitute.org/ourcourses/marriage/). As a journalist, Susanne has written hundreds of articles, including many pieces on relationships and marriage as a contributing writer for bahaiteachings.org and bahaiblog.net. Susanne has been single, in dating relationships, engaged, married, divorced, and widowed. She is a daughter, stepdaughter, mother, stepmother, and grandparent. All of this has given Susanne a diversity of experience to share! She is originally from Canada, where she embraced the Bahá'í Faith, which has guided her life ever since. She is married to Phil Donihe in Tennessee, in the United States. To contact Susanne please email her at susanne@marriagetransformation.com.

Johanna Merritt Wu, Ph.D., is an organizational psychologist, who has focused her career and current consulting efforts on organizational development and human resources management. Her work includes executive coaching, team-building, leadership training, and career development, for corporations, non-profits, and start-ups. Johanna served as a human resources and Six Sigma executive at General Electric and as the department chair of the Human Resources Management program at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio. She served at the Bahá'í World Center in Haifa, Israel, in the 1990s, and she has lived and worked in a number of different places around the world. With Susanne M. Alexander (see above), she co-authored 2 editions of Marriage Can Be Forever-Preparation Counts! In addition to her professional work, Johanna is involved in the community-building activities in her local area. Among other services, she has spent 10 years mentoring local youth and 15 years hosting gatherings for collective worship and reflection; she also serves on Bahá'í institutions. Johanna, her husband Steve Wu, and their daughter Haley Grace currently live in Indiana, in the United States. To contact Johanna, please email her at merrittwuassociates@gmail.com or through her website at johannawu.wordpress.com.

Jeremy Lambshead is a writer, editor, and teacher who collaborates with youth and adults to release human potential and promote the advancement of society-especially through interdisciplinary learning and the arts. He received a BA in religious studies from Carleton College and subsequently worked for the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and as a writer at the U.S. Bahá'í National Center. He has since recruited and trained youth to serve their communities through the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program, worked as an instructor of high school students, and served as a staff editor for a blogging website. Jeremy has written and performed original songs and poems, and has written blog posts, essays on various topics, and this, his first book-Starting with Me. He has volunteered as a founding board member of Crossing Borders Music, and with Alternatives to Violence Project, the Interfaith Youth Core, and other organizations. Jeremy has served on local task forces and committees, and as a protagonist of the Ruhi Institute's community-building activities. He speaks conversational Spanish, lived in Ecuador for five months, and has traveled in India, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Turkey, and Israel. To contact Jeremy, please write to him at jeremy.lambshead@gmail.com.