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When I was growing up, there was this song
we used to sing on the playground,

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and it went like this,

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"Tracy and so and so,
sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g,

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first comes love, then comes marriage,

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then comes baby in a baby carriage."

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And I'm like,

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"OK, that's it! That's how you do life.
That's how you do a relationship.

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Love, marriage, baby carriage. OK, got it!

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(Laughter)

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Then I grew up, and this is
what my life turned out to be.

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(Laughter)

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Slightly more complicated, right?
(Laughter)

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Love, marriage, divorce,
dry spells, love, marriage,

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co-parenting, another marriage,
another divorce;

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you got the picture.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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So if you're good at math and/or
a fast reader, what you've got there

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is that I've been married three times.

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Yep, three, and divorced.

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What that is supposed to mean is
that I'm a total failure at relationships.

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And that is one way
to look at it, but not the only way.

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Because what I think really happened
is that I kept marrying the wrong person.

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No, it's not that I didn't--
it's not that I chose bad guys.

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My first two husbands were amazing men

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who are now married
to wonderful women who aren't me.

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(Laughter)

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And my third husband, well,
we're friends on Facebook now.

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So, all is well that ends well, right?

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After the collapse of
my third marriage in 2005,

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I realized that I've been marrying
everyone in sight,

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except the one person
that I really needed to marry

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in order to have a great relationship

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and that once I married that person,

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all of my relationships would be
successes, even the failures.

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The so-called failures, actually.

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Since we're talking today
about women inventing,

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I'm going to talk about
inventing relationships.

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What I've found through a lot of trial
and obviously, many, many, many errors,

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to be the thing that has
transformed my life and love,

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and that is this idea
of marrying yourself.

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So what does it mean to marry yourself?

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It's a big idea.

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It is as big as marriage itself
except, if I could just summarize it,

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it would be that you enter
into a relationship with yourself

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and then you put a ring on it.

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(Laughter)

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In other words,
you commit to yourself fully.

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And then you build
a relationship with yourself

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to the point where you realize
that you're whole right now,

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that there is no man, woman, job,
circumstance that can happen to you

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that is going to make you more whole
because you already are.

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And this changes your life.

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By now, I'm sure at least
some of you are wondering

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why you should be listening
to a three-time divorcee

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talk about marriage?

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(Laughter)

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Even to herself. And I understand that.

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Here's what I have to say about that:

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what I've learned and my experience is

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that the places where you have
the biggest challenges in your life

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become the places where you
have the most to give

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if you do your inner work.

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I kind of want to say that again:

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the places where you have
the biggest challenges

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are the places where you
have the most to give.

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So let me tell you a little bit
about the person I truly needed to marry:

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myself.

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I am from Minneapolis. Wooh!

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(Laughter)

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My mom was a prostitute and an alcoholic.

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She put me in foster care
when I was three months old.

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My dad was a criminal;

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he was a drug dealer and a pimp
with a heart of gold

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- actually, they both had hearts of gold -

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and he spent more or less
my whole life in prison.

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He just got out of prison
after his most recent sentence

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which was 20 years.

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Until the age of nine, I was probably
in two dozen foster homes.

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The thing you need to know
about this story

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- there are a lot of details, obviously -
but the thing you need to know

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is that I came out of that childhood
with one goal: to never be left.

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The way I was going to do that
is that I was going to get married.

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That was the way I was going
to accomplish that goal.

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So I got married the first time
to a guy I met when I was 17.

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We got married a couple
of years later, when I was 19.

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He was a really good guy
from a great family, he had an MBA.

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I mean, it was like,
you know, marriage material.

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You know, I was thrilled.

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I was like, "I have a family.
I belong somewhere. This is wonderful."

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And then after five years I left him.

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Then ten years later, I got married again
to another wonderful guy,

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who is the father of my
now 16-years-old son.

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We still have a wonderful relationship.
He is a really good guy.

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But after four years I left him, too.

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And I am not proud to say that I did that,
but in order to really marry yourself,

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you have to get sometimes
very painfully honest with yourself

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about what it is that you've done.

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So I'm not proud of that.

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Then eight years later,
I got married again, when I was 40,

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and I was like, "OK, this feels right!"

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Let me tell you what felt right
to a girl who was in 24 foster homes:

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a guy who started to date
after nine months of marriage;

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essentially, he started dating
a 21-year-old girl.

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OK, I mean, it would be funny,
if it weren't so tragic.

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You have to have a sense of...
that is why we're Facebook friends.

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So, here I am looking
at this person that I just described

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with a terrible track record
of relationships,

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and I'm like, "I'm supposed to marry her?

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This is the woman
you want me to marry?"

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And the answer is yes.

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Because here is the deal:

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the thing about marrying yourself
is not just like cohabitating.

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You're not just going to date
for a while and see how it turns out.

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You are going to do this
till death do you part.

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You are going to take vows.

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So here are the vows.

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Number 1:

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you are going to marry yourself
for richer or for poorer.

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This means you are going
to love yourself right where you are.

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You don't say to yourself, "When you get
to the corner of Hollywood and Vine,

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then I will marry you."

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You don't say, "When you lose
ten pounds, then I will love you."

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And you don't say, "If you hadn't
married that loser, I would love you,

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but since you did,
I'm sorry, I think it's over."

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When you marry yourself,
you walk yourself down that aisle

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exactly where you are.

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And paradoxically, I found
that loving myself exactly where I am

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is the only way to get where I am going.

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Number 2:

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you are going to marry yourself
for better or for worse.

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What this means is that most of us
are willing to love ourselves for better,

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I mean, sure, I am having
a great hair day today.

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I love me.

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(Laughter)

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That's not what I am talking about.

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I'm talking about for worse,
you know, the big life disappointments.

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Maybe you don't own a home,
you didn't get the career you wanted,

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maybe you didn't graduate from college,
or get the relationship you wanted.

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Maybe it hasn't turned out--
maybe you fight with your mum,

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maybe you watch too much reality TV,

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whatever it is, it doesn't matter anymore.

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Because when you marry yourself,
you agree to stay with you no matter what.

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Third,

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you marry yourself
in sickness and in health.

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What this means is that you forgive
yourself for your mistakes.

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A mistake isn't actually a failure
unless you don't learn from it

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and unless you don't grow.

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There is a saying, "You ask for patience,
and what you get is a line at the bank."

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(Laughter)

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What that means is that life
does not give you what you've asked for,

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it gives you the people,
places, and situations

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that allow you to develop
what you ask for.

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And the thing is if you don't get it
right the first time,

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life will give it to you again.

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(Laughter)

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Because life is very generous that way.

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It's like I didn't get it the first time,
in the first marriage,

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and I didn't get it the second time,
maybe the third time I'll get it.

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So inside that terrible experience
of that third marriage,

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I learned something
about "in sickness and in health".

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What I learned is how to sit
by my own bedside,

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and how to hold my own hand,
and how to nurse myself,

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and how to comfort myself.

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What I learned is that I am
a person that I can count on.

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Last but not least, you marry yourself--

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when you marry yourself,
it's to have and to hold yourself.

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What does it mean to have and to hold?

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Well, I think it means
that you love yourself

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the way you want
someone else to love you.

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I had always been going
through life with this sense of lack.

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I felt like I was kind of half a person,
and that I was missing something.

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I went into my relationships

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hoping to solve this feeling
that I had my entire life:

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that I was not whole
unless someone loved me.

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The truth was

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that I wasn't ever going to feel whole
until I learned to love myself.

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So this business of marrying yourself
transforms every area of your life:

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your business, family relationships,
kids, social relationships, friends.

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Because when you marry yourself,
this huge thing happens:

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you become able to love
in this whole new way.

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You become able to love other people
right where they are, for who they are,

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the same way you're already
loving yourself.

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And of course, this is
what the world needs more of.

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So when I married myself, and I realized
that I already had everything I needed,

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I started seeing it as my job

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to basically just light up
my little corner of the world.

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That's my new job.

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Because I don't need anything,
I already have it.

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So when I take meetings,

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it's all about how can I help
this person achieve her goal?

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When I'm in my social communities,

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it is like what can I bring
to this that only I can bring?

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When I go on dates,

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it is like how can I just discover
another person maybe for just one hour

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which, of course, brings me a full circle.

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Because people always asked me
about my love life; they want to know.

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(Laughter)

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You know, the answer is,
I am still working on it.

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Aren't we all?

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So this is where I am right now.

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About three months ago,
I went on a first date.

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About 30 minutes into the date,
I found myself paying attention

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not to whether he liked me,
but how I felt in his presence.

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I noticed that I was light, happy, joking.

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As I reflected on the date afterwards,
I was like, "Wow, I got really excited!

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Look, this is how committed
I am to myself."

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I am not even on this date
trying to get someone to like me.

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I am more interested in how I feel
about me than how he feels about me,

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not because I am selfish,
but because the only relationship

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I am ever going to have
with another person

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is the one that I am
already having with myself -

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just going to have it with them now.

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So it turned out he liked me,
and we are still together.

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It's cool and amazing,
but I've been married three times,

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so slow down!

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(Laughter)

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The thing is that I am not trying
to get security from him through marriage,

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and, God forbid, a baby carriage.

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I am only here to
just be in a relationship.

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I am not dying to hear the words,
"Will you marry me?"

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Because even though
those words are very powerful

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- and very powerful to a person like me -

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I don't need them to hear it from him

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because I have already
heard them from myself.

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The way I see it is like I took myself
to the top of a mountain,

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or maybe to the bottom of the ocean,

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and I got down on one knee,
and I said, "I'll never leave you."

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And now I am married to the one person
I really wanted to be with all along,

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myself.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)