Crystal Hefner has found a soulmate with her new boyfriend James Ward.

"With James, my feelings are valued, validated," she tells PEOPLE. "I am seen and I am heard."

This year, Crystal released her best-selling memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself, about her life as the girlfriend and widow of Hugh Hefner. She famously left Hugh at the altar before returning to marry the Playboy founder. Their nearly five-year marriage ended when he died in 2017 at the age of 91.

She says she's spent the last seven years healing from the relationship, which she says was emotionally abusive.

"I'm nurturing the real me, my adventurous spirit, my inner child," Crystal, 38, tells PEOPLE. "I feel like I've become the person I always needed when I was growing up."

"I feel accepted and more myself than ever before," she adds.

Ward, 41, who owns SeeThrough Sea on Kona, has run adventure and photography tours since relocating to Hawaii in 2013. According to a business website, Ward left Indiana and his corporate job to pursue his love of adventure in Hawaii.

He graduated from the University of Hawaii at Hilo with a business degree while playing college soccer and basketball.

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Crystal, whose confirmation comes shortly after posting about their recent trip to the Cook Islands, adds, "I feel accepted and more myself than ever."

The pair have been dating since being set up by friends in April, according to Us Weekly.

The Los Angeles-based model and actress, who got her real estate license in 2008, told PEOPLE in January that she had been "spending a lot of time in Hawaii."

Added Crystal, who now buys and flips houses, "It's challenging, creative and I really enjoy it."

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At the time, she also acknowledged that since Hefner's death, "I've been in a couple relationships and they've been pretty hard."

"I'm such a homebody, so I'm trying to get out more and meet people," she continued.

She was also hopeful about finding love.

"I would like to meet somebody," she said. "I would like to get married. I froze eggs, so maybe [I can have] children one day. We will see."

Speaking of her love life now, Crystal tells PEOPLE, "Things feel healthy. I am so lucky."