If Someone Says "You Complete Me," RUN! by Whoopi Goldberg Read Free Book Online Page B

of adding to your life, he is subtracting. Getting to this point isn’t easy because it means telling yourself the truth, and that takes some practice. It’s all about the truth that you have to tell to yourself. It’s the hardest thing to do, because usually people just want things to work out. They don’t want to be disappointed. They are willing to settle. You only get one life, though, so I ask, why?
    Be honest with yourself and be patient.
    While it may seem that it takes a lifetime to figure this stuff out, that it’s an “ongoing process,” that you learn through experience and mistakes—I say that’s bullshit.
    People know what they need. When somebody says something and it kinds of hurts you, you know this might not be the person for you. Even a child knows when she doesn’t feel right, when she isn’t being respected or loved the way she wants to be. But we all want to be accepted, to be loved, sometimes so badly that we let things slide. But you let things slide for too long and soon enough you are living a lie.
    We’ve been talking about living your truth, which you know at the core of your being.
    We’ve been talking about how you have to speak honestly to yourself. If you can’t tell yourself the truth, who can you tell the truth to? Why should I believe you if you’re lying to yourself?
    Is this getting too deep for you?
    Are you still not sure about what I’m saying?
    Are you asking, “But how do you know?”
    The most important thing is that you have to listen to your truths, desires, and wants. And you have to believe you deserve all of it.
    Or you need to just be honest with yourself about your own choices and say, “Yes, I’m going to settle and just go with any Jane, Dick, or Harry.”
    Or “You know what? I’m going to wait. I’m going to see how this goes. I’m going to find somebody that really makes me say, ‘Hey, now,’ who captures my attentionand keeps me interested and stimulated for more than a minute.”
    One of the things I hear all the time on
The View
is that women think they either don’t have time or can’t spend time working on themselves or deepening their relationship with themselves. I’m writing this book in part as a response to a lot of that kind of nonsense.
    What are you talking about? If you’re not together as a human being, you’re not good for anybody. So you’ve got to take care of yourself. Take the time to get to know yourself. Who are you? What do you want? You have to commit yourself to answering these questions, even if it takes a while.
    Sometimes I just cannot believe my ears. The same issues keep coming up again and again in our discussions on
The View
, and the things coming out of people’s mouths are so weird.
    Like the reasons that some people get into relationships—which to me often seem like all the wrong reasons. Maybe these people were trying to be funny, but what I have heard is so consistent that it really started to bother me.
    I thought, “How can so many people have such wrong ideas about what is going to make them happy?”
    I kept seeing people behaving in ways that I knewwas not going to help them be happy in their relationships, acting in ways and holding on to ideas that weren’t helping them.
    By now I hope it’s clear that you’d better take time for yourself, you’d better have a strong relationship with yourself, and you’d better take care of yourself. Take care of your life. It’s the most important thing and it is from there, that core of your relationship with yourself, that all other relationships spring.
    When I’ve been in relationships, most of the time I was trying to find that point of “normal,” which I’ve already talked about. Everybody tells you that this is what you’re supposed to do. But what if you’re not that person? What if you are independent and evolved and willing to commit to your own truth? This is who this book is for: someone who has a lot of responsibilities and lots of