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Chapter 1 Lens on Love Ominamo Bhagavate Rudraya This mantra has an aspect of Shiva and it's extremely protective.
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It can help clear negative energy and negative situations.
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It helps in a crisis and it acts to protect and defend during challenges.
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Chanted 108 times.
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Let me take you back seventeen years.
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This was my first trip to the basement of Rock Bottom.
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I was in a three-year custody battle over my then three-year-old daughter, Morgan.
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She is my only child.
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I went into labor when she was twenty four and a half weeks, and if she had been born, she wouldn't have survived.
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Thankfully, after many fearful days, the contractions miraculously stopped.
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I was high risk and needed to lay in a bed on my left side for five months, at a time when there was no Netflix, cell phones, iPads, or laptops.
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I was so depressed.
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I looked out the window praying my baby would be okay.
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Morgan finally came two weeks late and I had a C-section with complications.
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I almost died because the team of surgeons couldn't stop the internal bleeding.
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The muscles that had contracted previously became so strong that the powerful grip on Morgan acted like a deathlock.
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The doctor said she felt like she broke her hand, pulling her out.
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I've continuously had this team of angels looking over me, a roster of staffers who most likely drank on the job.
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At the time, I had been out of work for almost a year and renting two different studio locations while my marriage was ending.
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There was a good chance we would lose our home.
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My world, as I had known it, had completely blown up, and my life was in shambles.
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Raw format.
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However, I knew one thing for sure.
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I was the comeback kid.
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I vowed to create a new life for Morgan and me when I could finally get out of bed.
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When I left the hospital, I was like Rocky Balboa, lacing up my sneakers, wearing a hefty trash bag, and running to the soundtrack Eye of the Tiger.
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As soon as I got my chance, I ran away from my former life as fast as possible.
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Filing for divorce with a baby while navigating a custody battle that mirrored the Baldwin Basinger split nearly killed me.
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Just enduring the agonizing process of a judge deciding whether or not you could raise your only child was excruciating.
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The very child you would sacrifice everything for, and so precious you would give your life to protect.
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But who knew that my next relationship would be the one that would nearly finish me?
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A pitcher said a thousand words.
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Filing for a divorce with the baby back then was unheard of, but what my ex-husband put me through, I have no words.
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I promised my daughter I wouldn't write about her father.
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I often wonder how I did it, working full time alone with a young child.
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After a long battle, I won my divorce and got primary custody of my daughter, the only thing I cared about.
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However, due to various rulings regarding the split, like many divorces, when you break apart, it usually financially breaks you.
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Sadly, our divorce was far from amicable and was the furthest thing from being equal or ideal.
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In most cases, you lose everything, or in my sad situation, I ended up with$130,000 in debt, which was suffocating.
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The debt I mostly accrued from my fancy lawyer because raising my daughter was something I couldn't bear to lose.
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I had a camera and two lenses, and I used my talent to bail myself out.
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I was thirty three, in the prime of my life, and the perfect prey for a person like my next gentleman suitor.
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I went straight from the frying pan directly into the fire.
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Looking back, I understand why I made the mistakes I did.
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At the time I was destroyed emotionally and I didn't have a shred of self-worth.
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This frequently is the case for most after an ugly divorce, as they are unfair.
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They are also incredibly painful and highly messy, leaving you a hot mess.
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Back then, people didn't get divorced with a baby.
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If they did, it was rare.
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There was a lot of shame, unanswered questions, a lack of support, and zero books or information on overcoming these challenges.
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I felt so alone, frightened to death about my uncertain future.
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I was so scared that I slept with the lights on every night, which didn't help my staggering electric bill.
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This is where people ask me how I did it.
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I'm just a regular person, a girl who sometimes got it right, but more often got it wrong.
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I did my very best and I did what I had to do to survive.
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That's the most honest answer.
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What I went through I wouldn't wish on anyone, but I'm going to make damn sure all of my suffering doesn't go without purpose.
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This book has many lessons and tons of advice.
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I share funny and preposterous stories of how I learned these painful lessons so that you don't have to suffer like I did.
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Focus Guru During those years in my early 30s, I was losing my mind and losing my religion.
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I needed to find salvation and fast.
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I searched the entire South Shore for a Shakti, shaman, soothsayer, snake oil salesman, yogi, mystic, or medicine man to heal me.
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My search to find Buddha led me on the path to Jill Jardine, an astrologer and psychic healer, now world-renowned podcast host of Cosmic Scene with Jill Jardine.
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During my first psychic reading, she spoke into a tape recorder.
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She accurately predicted my future, explaining that I could rebuild my life once I restored the light within that barely flickered.
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Once I did, I would find love again.
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She was right.
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How would I get there?
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I used to make Jill laugh when I told her I spent all of my time chanting my ass off.
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It was a bit sacrilege, but this was my reality.
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I gave new meaning to squeezing the beads.
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It was clear I would need the Holy Grail to help me, as I desperately needed insight, advice, and protection.
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The mantras offered me all of that.
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All I had to do was chant 108 times.
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That seemed reasonable to me.
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What are Sanskrit mantras?
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Mantra means man, which means mind, and tra means deliverance.
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Many use mantras to purify one's consciousness, gain spiritual enlightenment, and get closer to God.
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I just wanted to get closer to pulling in a new guy and have the universe deliver me a man.
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To this day, chanting is a big piece of my creativity, and it keeps me balanced as I have a bag of mantras, malabides, and jappas that help me do lots of magical things.
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I used Om Shippra Prasadaya to help mitigate my divorce, om dum dergaye to protect my daughter.
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On this one auspicious day, Jill, back in 2008, taught me my very first mantra, Ahamprema.
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The mantra ahamprema means divine or unconditional love.
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I used those two seed sounds to stop the derailment and pull in two dudes in one week.
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By the grace of God, this chant works miracles, I thought to myself as I drove to Jill's with two new prospects birth charts.
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We had behind door number one, a guy who was great on paper, and door number two, a guy with a guitar who was extremely good looking.
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You'll have to keep reading to see how this unfolds and find out who the big winner was and who would take me out for chicken dinner.
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Long exposure.
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Looking back, neither were viable leads, but the lessons came from all the misses and missteps, half-laid plans or abandoned dreams.
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The under or overexposed film are all the turbulent times I stood in an unstable position searching for a tripod.
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This was simply a portrait of a girl who wanted to find love more than anything else, who wouldn't give up looking for beauty within shadows or chasing the light in the golden hour.
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I hope my story encourages you to endlessly persevere, not give up and believe that love is possible.
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If I can do it, you can do it too.
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But you've got to believe in yourself and don't be afraid to take that shot.
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You don't have to be perfect to be amazing.
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I say those words solely for you.
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I know I'm the furthest thing from perfect.
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It's no secret that I'm a professional photographer with impaired eyesight.
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But what brought me to the eye doctor wasn't my eyes.
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It was because I couldn't see red flags.
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I never relied on my eyes and photography because I see with my heart.
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This was an amazing thing when creating impactful images, but it didn't work out so well when it came to the love department.
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I want to be your eyes and ears when it comes to finding love.
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And I want to share all that I've learned with you.
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I often joke that I'm the Ted Lasso of dating.
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Even long before the Apple TV series, I practiced the Lasso way and always believed.
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But I want you to believe too.
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As the famous coach Lasso said, I think things come into our lives to help us get from one place to a better one.
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I also trust that to be true.
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You can't get what you don't ask for.
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It's crucial to hold your value and believe in your worth.
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Remember that memorable Roy Kent moment when he yelled at Rebecca Welton when he wasn't impressed with who she was dating.
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Don't you dare settle for fine.
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Dare to bet on you, darling.
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It's important to take action, but consistency and follow through add up.
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Sometimes you'll feel like you have more issues than Vogue or won't know where you are or where you're going.
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In those hot minutes, stay focused on yourself and know that you can always download the Waze app, and soon you'll be on your way.
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Visualize your higher self.
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Slap on some lip gloss and show up as her.
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Look for the signs.
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They are everywhere.
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The sign is that you're reading this book.
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We become a product of our patterns and our daily decisions.
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Be mindful of how others treat you and pay attention to how you treat yourself.
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How you perceive yourself is how people will behave towards you.
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Let your gut be your guide and don't let these idiots run the asylum or ruin your mascara or your day.
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One of my favorite rules is thou shall not stress over inconsistent people.
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Never allow yourself to be someone's option.
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Opt out instead.
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Beauty is an inside job.
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What shines the brightest is being yourself and having a big heart.
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That inner work takes a lot of determination and strength.
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We've all lived through seasons that you thought only Stephen King could write.
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Trust me, I've been the lead character in the movie Misery many times, and I can't even look at a typewriter.
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Or dated guys who Charlie Sheen their lives, and I didn't need a lie detector to know these guys weren't hashtag winning.
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Mr Sheen seems to be doing great now.
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Go Charlie.
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Everyone loves a comeback story.
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By the grace of God, who am I to judge?
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No one.
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As a person who suffered endlessly for years, I would be the last person ever to celebrate someone's pain.
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In the past, we have made a multitude of mistakes or currently in the present moment are suffering.
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And those times when you think you can't go on, know that you can.
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Together, we can certainly do hard things.
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Or the memorable line from her book, Untamed, when she wrote about feeling trapped in her life like a caged cheetah.
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We can all harness our inner cheetah and run fast and free.
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Just like we've all dated men, we wish we could feed to a tiger.
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Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my.
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Alexa, play the song circle of life.
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These hardships are part of the circle of life, but it's time to stop waiting.
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You need to start dating and start looking for your Lion King.
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You can't change the story's beginning, but you can choose the chapters you read and change the ending.
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Don't be afraid to put yourself out there and pull up your seat at the table.
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Have a pull no punches attitude and put in some pretty fun and funny plot twists.
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When someone tells you that you can't do it, do it twice and take pictures.
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I promise you there's a bigger picture at play.
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Be the girl who just went for it.
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You've got this.
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Join the mailing list at shot at love.com.
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Don't miss your chance to win love.