Optimisms
Cheering each other on
Vitamin Optimism: You, Dreambound
Your dose for the day…
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Well, look at that. Emerson was an optimist! He knew, as I do, how easy it is to get stalled in the pit of a place you don’t want to be. When you’re single, you know that pit, right? Feeling like there’s no hope for a future relationship. Fearing you’ll never meet anyone? That nothing will ever change? That you’ll have to watch each one of your friends marry off while you end up alone? If you want your dream relationship, do as Emerson said: Go confidently in that direction and live—really live—the life you have imagined.
Big love,
Some Traveling Gifts For You!
Machu Picchu: Insert me here.
For the next three weeks, I’ll be traveling with my husband through Argentina and Peru. (And if you’ve read Meeting Your Half-Orange, you know this was a goal of ours and on my Dream Board, so we’re making it happen!) Since we already have a house-sitter for our place, I thought I’d do something else for you while I was gone: Leave you with some presents! I figured you might not want a “My Dating Optimist Went to South America and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” shirt, right? So, instead, I’m leaving behind these two helpful treats:
1) One-A-Day Vitamin Optimism! For the next three weeks, I have arranged for you to still get your doses of positivity in smaller nuggets. I’m calling the posts Vitamin Optimism. And every day, you can check back here for a quote or saying from someone I admire to get you going for the day. (Or, if you have my iPhone App, Half-Orange Optimisms, you can just shake your phone for an original dose of inspiration the second you want it.) So tune in and let the words guide you when you need it.
2) A Dating Tele-Chat! When I return, I will be participating in a super fun Tele-Chat called “Girls Night In: Four Dating Experts Dish on Finding Mr. Right.” The class was created by Kira Sabin, the Dating Makeover Coach and YourTango.com, with fabulous giveaways from The Body Shop.
The tele-event begins while I’m gone, which is why I’m telling you now: Every Monday night for four weeks—from April 5th to April 26th—a different dating author expert will be providing free dating insight. The class will feature a different chat each week with myself, as well as experts Lori Gottlieb, Rachel Greenwald and Lisa Steadman. Save the Date for Monday April 26th at 9 pm EST/6 pm Pacific, when I will be offering my free insight to using dating optimism based on the neuroscientific and positive psychology research and personal successes that I write about in Meeting Your Half-Orange. Just sign-up for the Tele-chat at Kira’s site to get all the call-in details.
Have a great three weeks, and stay healthy will all your Vitamin Optimism! Then I hope you’ll join me on the phone April 26th when I return.
Big traveling love,
Come Up with YOUR New Story
There are two things I love most about posting on this site:
1) That once I started writing about all the optimism I saw out there in the world—on TV, in books, in speeches, in the actions of others—I found myself feeling even better about life, and more hopeful that we can all learn to be more optimistic.
Hilda (played by Ana Ortiz) on Ugly Betty
2) Hearing from you guys—especially when you find something that reminds you of the site. It’s proof of one major element about dating optimism: With practice, you can see the world through more positive eyes. And I wanted to thank one reader in particular this week for going above-and-beyond in what she found.
While watching Ugly Betty this past week, a reader named Andrea was so moved by a scene, she essentially wrote her own post on it in an email to me, and all I thought when I read it was, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Why? Because I want you all doing the same thing: I want you to practice finding the positive messages out there in your life and dating experiences, because the more you do it, the sooner it will become second nature.
Here then is (drumroll please…)
Our first Guest Blog Post from Andrea Rodriguez:
Hi Amy,
I just *had* to send this to you. One of my favorite shows is Ugly Betty and I’m sad that its being canceled even though I think its had the best episodes so far since season one. Well last week Betty dated a dude that was cute and smart, but there was a mystery about their relationship that Betty didn’t quite find out until it was too late, and it was extremely humiliating. Anyway, she stands up for herself, but afterward has this conversation with her sister, Hilda.
Betty: This whole time I thought I was the one hiding him, but he was hiding me. And the worse part on some level, I *knew* how this was going to end.
Hilda: Oh come one, come on. You can’t turn this into something that it is not.
Betty: It’s true. Every time I feel like I’m moving forward, someone reminds me that I’m still just the dork with glasses and braces.
Hilda: Yeah, but…those braces will be coming off any day now.
Betty: Yeah but what if nothing changes? Then I’ll have nothing to blame.
Hilda: Oh honey, you gotta stop. Somehow, you got it in your head that this is your story. But you gotta let that go. It’s time to come up with a whole new story for yourself. You are who you are, and the sooner you’re ok with that, the sooner that you see what I see, the happier you’re gonna be. I swear to God.
I just thought it was right up the Half-Orange alley. Not only did Betty, in the back of her mind think it was going to fail…but she kept wonder what was wrong with *her* and her sister points out that nothing is wrong and she has to change the way she sees herself…not the way others see her.
Anyway, everytime I watch it makes me all teary eyed because not only have my friends said this to me countless times, even my ex has said it to me. Before, I would have scoffed at it (“You’re just saying this because you love me”, but my best friend’s fiancé always points out to her—when she says something like this to him, he replies “You have the order wrong. It’s because of this, that I love you.” Sweet, huh?) But now…I’m finally starting to believe it and I suppose that’s why this was so powerful for me. I’m starting to see what all this positive stuff is doing for me and it feels great.
Anyway, I just finished you’re book, turned it over and began in again. It really is starting to work…I even got talked to at a bar yesterday while out with my roommate (nothing happened but it was a reminder that it can). That had never happened! =) I’m just that much closer. Thank you so much for being such a cheerleader for us…us who you don’t even know personally =)
—Andrea
Well done, Andrea! What a great way to express how we all need to take in the right message, and gift ourselves a more flattering story. The message was in Ugly Betty this week, but it might be in your office, or during your commute, or during a conversation with your friends during American Idol commercials. The fact is, if you start digging for the good stuff in yourself and in life, you will change in the right ways for the better.
Do as Hilda said, and as Andrea is starting to do slowly each and every day: Come up with a new story for yourself, a story where you are lovable and awesome and the right guy or girl will be swept away with how lucky they are to meet you. Before you know it, you’ll be getting talked to at bars all over town…
Big love,
The Rite of Leaving Behind
Sometimes, there’s one thing holding us back from moving forward into the futures we want: being tugged back by the past. I was recently reminded of this when a single woman named Kate won a free hour of coaching I’d offered through a raffle giveaway.
Where your painful past belongs
When I asked Kate about her dating history, one thing kept coming up again and again: her ex-fiancée. It had been years since they broke up, but she had a hard time getting past the pain of that failed relationship for so many reasons. So I suggested to her what I tell a lot of people, and what I offer you now: If you’re having a really hard time moving past something, a ritual can help to send a sign that you’re dedicated to moving forward.
One ritual that works: Write down all the things you want to say goodbye to on small pieces of paper and put the papers in a ceramic vase, dirt ditch, or firepit to burn. Put all the bad stuff on there: Your hurt over what happened, your fears you’ll be alone, your anger toward a person who hurt you. Put all those feelings that are sucking your hopeful future out of you into that bowl or ditch and burn them. Watch them shrivel up and blacken and disappear. Say goodbye to each of them as they wither away on the outside to make room for your new life on the inside.
This is what I suggested to Kate, and what she wrote about in her post, The Rite of Leaving Behind Part I. As she put it, it all began with admitting that the past had a hold on her, as it may on you.
“I confessed my doubts. That I just didn’t feel as if I trusted my judgment anymore. That I felt as if wanted what I wanted to give and receive in a relationship wasn’t justified. Wasn’t possible. Not after I’d failed, big time. In the end, that’s what kept coming up. That big-time failure. That horrible break-up. All the pain, all the fallout. . .But the bottom line is all that residual stuff is holding me back, and Amy knew it.”
You can also click on her site for Part II of the story, and for a chance to win her giveaway: a free copy of Meeting Your Half-Orange!
As wacky as a rite or ritual may seem to you, it is worth it to try. And I hope that Kate’s experience will help you take that step. You deserve a wonderful, happy, full future. But if you are still filled up with angst over your past, where on earth will your big future fit?
Make room. Say goodbye to your past so you can move openly toward your big great love.
You might also like:
Time to Un-Do an Un-Relationship?
Big love,
Giving like Gramma Ruth
My Gramma Ruth passed away two days ago at the age of 93.
Gramma with my baby Aunt in the 1940's
She was my last living grandparent, my Dad’s Mom, the matriarch of the Spencer family. She was never sick a day in her life, and lived her time to her fullest, until a ripe old age.
In the past few days, my family and I have talked a lot about what we’ll never forget about Gramma, who raised four children without raising a peep over how hard it was. My sister and I also planted pots of Forget Me Nots, and talked about a different memory of her as we dropped each seed. And the one thing that keeps coming up about Gramma was her way of giving. She took so little, expected so little and gave so much.
Every Christmas, she’d spend two days hand-making hundreds of cookies she gave out in Cool Whip containers to every family member, and she’d spend probably two months sewing original felt ornaments of ice skaters and camels and snowmen.
My favorite memories, in fact, are of Gramma sewing and teaching me to sew. One year, inspired by Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink, I took on a particularly big and public project: I set out to sew my own junior prom dress. I couldn’t afford the expensive dresses I wanted, so I designed my own dress that I hoped was going to look just as beautiful for a quarter of the price. I spent weeks working on it, and a few days before the prom, Gramma came to visit from Connecticut. She looked at what I’d done with the dress so far, and guided me through one of the last steps, a day of machine sewing the bodice onto the big ruffled skirt. The truth was, it looked pretty terrible. I went to bed frowning at how crooked and messy my stitches were, stomping at my stupidity for taking my own look into my own hands. This was my first prom! And instead of looking like the other girls in the beautiful Laura Ashley dresses I’d wished I could afford, I was going to look a right old mess. The next morning, I saw the dress laid out on the dining room table looking different than I’d remembered. In fact, it was absolute perfection. “Oh, I just fixed a few of the stitches for you,” said Gramma, waving her hand away. In truth, while I was sleeping, she stayed up all night, took the worst parts of the dress apart and sewed it back together for me perfectly. And all I remember from there is how pretty I felt on my prom day, how proud I was of myself and my dress, and how grateful I was to Gramma for giving me that gift.
My Mom said the same of her giving. Gramma, she wrote in an email, “was always understated, modest, humble, a gentle lady working quieting behind the scenes, never wanting or expecting praise or thanks. A true saint.”
It’s a reminder for all of us to look not at what we’re getting today, but at what we’re giving. Even when it comes to relationships, we’re more often focusing on what we want to get from our partners than on what we want to give. But love is a two-way street. Giving is half the work and half the fun. So don’t just think about what you deserve to get. Think about what you want to give in love: Your big heart? Your unconditional acceptance? Your sewing skills or cooking? Your ability to make people laugh and feel cared for when they need it most?
Gramma as I best remember her: smiling.
In honor of my Gramma, think about what you can you give someone else today without the need for praise or thanks. What can you give just for the joy of giving? Maybe a gift. A compliment. A phone call. An apology. A plate of cookies. An hour of your time helping them finish a task they can’t seem to get started. A shoulder to lean on. A birthday card. A cocktail. A hug. An “I love you” to the person who may know it, but needs to hear it. Whatever you have inside that someone else needs, give. Even after 93 years, life feels short, so give today, while you can.
Thank you, Gramma. I only hope we can live as generously as you did,
Big love,
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