Being yourself

Well, I’m finally back from my vacation to Japan, and must admit, I’m still a little woozy over it. Maybe it’s the crazy hoofing my husband and I did all over Tokyo and Nagano and Kyoto. Maybe it was the time-traveling flight home, the first I’ve taken where we landed three hours earlier than we had taken off. Or maybe it’s the heat wave hitting L.A. and compounding it all.

Like the snow monkeys we saw in Kyoto, they can help each other because they're capable themselves. (Image: by Amy Spencer)

Either way, as foggy as I’m feeling, I still wanted to share a quote I came across this weekend from author Tom Robbins (he wrote Jitterbug Perfume and Even the Cowgirls Get the Blues). He said something so wise about what people should and shouldn’t look for in relationships.

“When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on–series polygamy–until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimension to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.”

I know it can sound like a broken record sometimes to point out out that we need to be fulfilled in our own lives rather than looking for someone to fulfill us, but we still look for short cuts. Smart, successful people do this all the time. We feel we have great lives of our own, and yet we sneak in these lazy little wishes. You know the ones: Wishing for a healthy partner who will kick you in the butt to be more active and exercise more. Wishing for a rich partner so you can take a break from worrying about bills. Wishing for a social partner who will make you more outgoing.

But like Tom Robbins points out, looking for someone to fill those voids never, ever works. Because we’ll always find new voids and new reasons why this one person isn’t fixing or filling in where they should. The answer? Fulfill yourself.

We all need to create the lives we want for ourselves—be it full of money, adventure, exercise, travel, drive, family—and then, once we feel great about who we are and what a good partner we’ll be for someone else, then we look for the partner to share life with. We’re responsible for our own fulfillment. A relationship is about joining two fulfilling lives together, where each person can share and be a part of the great lives they’ve built and will start building together. The more together you are, the more you can bring to the relationship. How can you be strong for your partner if you don’t feel strong within yourself? How can you support your partner if you’re not in control of yourself? How can you help your partner laugh if you’re not already smiling yourself?

Tom Cruise had it all wrong in Jerry Maguire when he said, “You complete me.” Your half-orange shouldn’t be the person who completes you. You should complete yourself. Let your half-orange complement the fulfilling, wonderful life you’ve created for yourself. The more fulfilled and happy you are, the more right your relationship can be.

Big love,

Last week, I hit the beach in Montauk on a stormy day for a walk along the water. I was having so much fun splashing my feet in the water, I took a few photos of my toes in the surf. But what was the first thing I thought when I looked at the cool shots later? “Ugh, look at my cankles.”

Look at the essence, not the flaw! (Image: Amy Spencer)

Yep, I have cankles. Essentially, this means my calves hit my feet without slimming down into adorbly skinny little ankles like girls I’ve admired. My legs are more like, sorta, two big tapered logs.

Of course, when I showed the pictures to my friend Todd, he said, “What are you talking about? What cankles? All I see is cool water and a cute foot.” Ya gotta love Todd.

So…how can this help your love life? Recognize that we all do this. We find the little parts of ourselves we don’t like—the cowlick in our hair, the mole on our cheek, the bulge of our thighs, the waddle in our neck, the lack of dollars in our wallet, the bummer in our attitude, the job we don’t love—and we think that this small part of us is the first glaring thing that people see. If you’re single, you might think: “What person is going to like me when I have this cowlick, this mole, this waddle, this job, this attitude?” The answer is: The right person.

Because that cowlick or mole or waddle or job or attitude is not all of who you are. You are—and I know this to be true—a profoundly complex, interesting, wonderful, beautiful human being despite or perhaps because of all the small things that make you different. So you have a cowlick, awesome. So you have a waddle, big whoop. So you have a job you hate, you’ll work on finding one you love. Those little things you don’t like about yourself are just that: little things. Big deal! A little thing only becomes big when you set the magnifying glass in front of it.

And if a guy or a girl you like is so lame that they don’t like you for some little part of you like that? My word, why would you want them around in your life a second longer? You want and deserve a person who runs their hand along your hairline in love with the little ‘lick, who kisses the mole on your cheek, who wants to grow dollars in both of your wallets together.

And you do realize, those “issues” are only obvious to you. The other people you think are fixated on your “glaring” issues are actually too focused on the flab on their arms, the chip in their teeth, the bald spot on their head and the rust on their car to notice the things you think are problems about yourself.

I have cankles. It’s a fact. But instead of pointing it out to people (uh, after this one exception), I’m going to start loving them for being mine. They’re my cankles on my legs and if I’m using them to kick up sea water on the sand, then that’s a pretty great place for them to be.

Please, do the same for yourself: Stop pointing out your supposed “flaws,” and start looking at yourself from a larger place. In the big picture, you’re perfectly balanced and miraculously wonderful. Your dings and scratches are what make you special, and without them, you’d be a plain old average bore with no marks to signify you’re unique and living life some. Love who you are from head to cankle, every last bit.

Tell me, what are you going to stop magnifying and start accepting and loving from now on?

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Big love,