Dexter and You: Take Your “Leap of Faith”

October 18th, 2010

Gosh, how I love Dexter. And if you haven’t watched it yet, it’s worth a Netflix Season One rental because you will—against your better judgment—find yourself rooting for this serial killer with a big heart. Especially because, in between stalking his next prey, he even provides us with insightful love advice.

Dexter's nanny takes a leap of faith

Last night, two characters talked about taking the “leap of faith.” First, Dexter’s new nanny, who agreed to give Dexter’s household another chance after quitting, if only to take a leap of faith that it would work out better this time. Dexter, in turn, told the girl who witnessed his last kill—Lumen Pierce, played by Julia Stiles—that the he would let her go, in the hopes that she wouldn’t tell others what she’d seen. “It’s a leap of faith,” he said.

And that is what it takes when you’re looking for love, too. Sometimes in life, there’s just so much you can do to make things happen. In love, you can plan dates, initiate contact, beg for set-ups, hit events, introduce yourself and be proactive in meeting potential love interests. In life, you can make that call, submit that application, try alternative therapies, reach out to your network, beg for help and be proactive in getting what you need done. But then there’s a point in both love and life when when you need to take a deep breath, throw out your arms and give the dating or the project up to the universe. You need to let go and take the leap of faith that the universe will carry you a little further in the right direction. And this is what we should all do today.

Give yourself a break for a minute. If you want love or something in life badly enough, I’m sure you’ve been working your butt off in different ways to get it. So today, I want you to throw it out to the universe, which is larger than yourself and all of us. Take the leap of faith that if you are focusing on what you want with all of your heart and glowing with your authentic happiness, then what is meant to happen for you will happen. Your path will become clear. Ideas will spring to mind. People will pop up in your life. Opportunities will come.

I’m going to do it, too, in my own way. Let’s take the leap of faith together today. At least for just this one day, let’s give it up to the universe and have faith that it will take care of us. It’s not easy, but, hey, that’s why they call it a leap.

The Fork

October 8th, 2010

I was talking to a single friend of mine who brought up the fork in the road that so many singles hit. Her fork went like this:

You have two choices when you're single. Choose the path of "more." (Image by Amy Spencer)

“I haven’t been able to find what I want in love, so I guess I’m wanting too much.”

“The road you should take isn’t the one in which you want less,” I said. “The road you should take is the one in which you want more.”

“More?” she said. “But I haven’t gotten any of it yet, so why would I ask for more?”

What I told her is what I’ll tell you: If you take the road in which you ask for “less” in love, you’ll be less excited about getting it, which makes you more negative and less hopeful in life—less of yourself. The less you are, the less you get.

But if, on the other hand, you start upping your wants, you start getting excited about getting it all, which makes you more positive and hopeful in life—more of yourself. And the more you are, the more you get!

Dating optimism is about using your energy for the best and creating a buzz inside of you that radiates out to all the people you meet, drawing in the most positive things around you. The stronger your buzz, the more you’ll be led in the right directions: You’ll want to pop into the smoothie shop on the way to work, and you’ll want to get together with that new friend for a glass of wine, you’ll want to hit that lecture you got a mailer for at work. The greater your buzz, the more you’ll feel inspired and hopeful, and the more you’ll choose the experiences that will lead you toward your healthy relationship.

So. If you ask for less than you want in love, how big will your buzz be? Not very. But if you ask for more in love, you can build off your excitement and bring you all you want. Choose the path of more: Ask for a partner who listens, likes you, makes you laugh, and thinks you’re brilliant and sexy at the same time. With buzz like that, you’ll be heading closer to love, not further away.

You might also like:
10 Reasons Not to Settle In Love

Big love,

Posted in Being yourself, Optimisms

“Half a Life”: How To Get Past Your Painful, Terrible Love Scars

October 5th, 2010

Most often, I write about peppy things. I encourage you to focus on the bloom not the thorn, the sun not the clouds, the healing not the injury. But last night, I was reminded it’s also important to address those injuries sometimes, because we all have scars in varying shapes and sizes. Especially in love.

The new novel by Darin Strauss (McSweeney's Books). It's up to us to find hope through the pain.

This all came to mind last night during an event at Skylight Books in L.A. where my friend Darin Strauss read from his new book Half a Life.

I’ve known Darin for over twenty years (we lived just a few miles from each other growing up) and if you don’t know his work yet, you’d be wise to check it out. He’s published some very successful novels (Chang & Eng,The Real McCoy, More Than It Hurts You) and this, his first memoir, is getting rave reviews. (He read from the book on This American Life, GQ magazine excerpted it, and here’s the review from The New York Times.) In a word, it’s incredible.

Half a Life is the true story of a painful incident in Darin’s teenage life when his car hit a girl on her bike and killed her. It wasn’t his fault, but he spent the next half of his life dealing with the guilt and judging his life through the glasses of the tragedy. In the book, Darin writes:

“The accident taught me this. Things don’t go away. They become you. There is no end, as T.S. Eliot somewhere says, but addition: the trailing consequence of further days and hours. No freedom from the past, or from the future. But we keep making our way, as we have to.”

It makes me think of all the hurts that happen to us in love and relationships that we also have to keep making our way with—for weeks, months or decades. Maybe it’s a partner who cheated or lied and you wonder what you did wrong to deserve it. Maybe it’s a love that unraveled over time and you keep replaying what you could have done differently to stop it. Maybe it’s emotional or physical abuse that scars your heart like a gash can scar a face for good. Or maybe it’s a death or a loss that makes you question if it’s worth loving at all if things hurt this much when it ends.

As Darin’s book reminds us, the painful, terrible scars on our bodies and in our hearts will always be there. But it’s up to us to learn how to live without blaming the people or things that have hurt us, and without blaming ourselves for how long it’s taken to get over it. Life is not about denying the scars from our past, but about weaving them into our present lives and making what good we can of it.

Bad things happen to good people all the time. It’s not fair. But if you can learn to see it from the right angle, those injuries, over time, can become vehicles for something greater for you. Let your scars make you stronger, wiser and more empathetic. Let them deepen who you are as a human, not shield you from wanting to feel things in your future. And let them build you a better life not confine you to a ruined one. We’re stronger than we think, and as our scars heal, so should we.

If you like Half a Life, Darin is blogging about his book tour on Powells.com—and today he gives a shout-out to Meeting Your Half-Orange and how optimism can help.

You might also like:

Wise Words from an Undone She

Big love,

Tags: abuse, cheating, Darin Strauss, Half a Life, scars, surviving set-backs, you can control your attitude
Posted in It is written

WIN a FREE copy of Meeting Your Half-Orange!

October 1st, 2010

Happy Friday, people.

If you’re a single parent, I contributed to a new Parenting.com story that’s chock full of my dating advice for you. Even if you’re not a parent, there’s some insight here about where to meet the right partner and just how honest you should be on your online profile (it’s all about where you focus the lens as you tell the truth). I think it’s pretty good stuff, but check it out and see what you think.

Just click on Amy’s Dating Tips for Single Parents or click the image of the story below to be directed there.

Plus, if you don’t yet have a copy of my book, or you really want another to give to a good friend who could use a dose of the orange buzz, check out this fun Parenting.com Book Giveaway. Just share your worst or funniest dating disaster and you’ll be entered to win.

And while you’re at it, enjoy the dating success story of single mom writer Christine Coppa. But I warn you, her posts are addicting…

You might also like:

Live, people, live.

Big love,

Posted in Being yourself, Optimisms

An Optimist Tosses Her Dating Books!

September 30th, 2010

I wanted to share this story I just came across from writer Abigail Pickus, who writes a column for The Jewish Week about her dating life called “Abigail in Love (maybe).” In this column called “Am I Still a Dating Optimist if I Throw Away All of My Dating Books?” as she talks about reading my book as well as others, I think you’ll appreciate her frustration with not just dating, but dating books that tell you how to do dating right.

In the end, Abigail says she’s decided that because even Meeting Your Half-Orange, which she liked, doesn’t have the formula for love, she’s going to live her single life without dating books from now on. As she writes:

“In other words, people, I am done with all the dating books. Even the nice ones. From now on I am only reading books that are going to engage my mind and imagination – not give me another formula for finding love. That I will just have to leave to fate.”

What do I love so much about a cool woman who isn’t saying, “Run and buy this book”? That, inadverently, she’s come to the conclusion to live her life in the way I want all of you to. She’s not going to obsess over her dates and her single status. She’s not going to scan online for advice on how to flirt her way to marriage. And she’s not going to buy a book a week on how to change herself for the right guy. Instead, she’s going to read and do things that engage her mind—in other words, she’s going to engage in what Meeting Your Half-Orange readers know are “gratifications,” those activities that make you feel smart and strong and fulfilled. Follow Abigail’s lead and make those same day to day choices for yourself that lead to eudaimonia, the gratifying happiness of being satisfied as your true self.

If you’re feeling like this writer and want to just toss your books into the trash, go ahead and do it! (Be gentle with mine, though, would you?) Then start fresh by living your day to day the way you want to. Read the books you want. Watch the movies on your Netflix list. Make the vacation plan you’ve been putting off until you met “the right person.” The more you live life as your true self and the more truly, eudaimonically happy you are, the better the energy you’re putting out there, and the easier it will be for your half-orange to recognize you as the happy, kick-ass person you are.

Big love,