Elizabeth Gilbert's Blog, page 18

#TBT for REAL! Today the throwback is actually here in the flesh… I just pick…

#TBT for REAL!

Today the throwback is actually here in the flesh… I just picked up Luca Spaghetti at the Miami Airport! (THE REAL LUCA SPAGHETTI!) He's coming with me to this weekend.

When worlds collide —when Luca meets Oprah! WOW!

Sometimes la vita is too dolce for words.

LG

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Dear Ones – A story: Years ago I was on the midtown cross-town bus in NYC, in…

Dear Ones -

A story:

Years ago I was on the midtown cross-town bus in NYC, in evening rush hour, in January, in the sleeting wind and rain.

Yeah, it sucked.

The bus moved at a crawl, and everyone on it seemed depressed. It would've been far faster to walk across town, but the weather was too godawful to bear. Everyone was definitely hating their life that day.

When we reached 10th Ave, the bus driver made a surprising announcement.

He said, "Ladies and Gentleman, we are now nearing the Hudson River. I'm going to ask you to do me a favor. When you get off the bus, I'm going to hold out my hand. As you walk past me, I want you to drop your troubles into the palm of my hand. I'll take your troubles for you, and when I drive past the river, I'll throw them in. The reason I want to do this is because you all seem like you've had a bad day, and I don't want you taking all your worries and sorrows home to your friends and families now. Because they deserve better than that, don't they? So you just leave your troubles here with me to dispose of, and you all go have a wonderful night, OK?"

The whole bus — the whole grumpy lot of us — broke into laughter. (Some of us, myself included, might have even shed a tear or two.) And one by one, as we filed off the bus, we dropped our troubles into the palm of this good man's hand, and we stepped off the bus with smiles on our faces.

What that guy did? That's the best and most powerful example I've ever personally witnessed of TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ENERGY THAT YOU BRING INTO A SPACE.

The quote I've posted here today is from the great Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor, a neurologist who had a stroke, and who wrote about it in her beautiful book MY STROKE OF INSIGHT. (If you aren't one of the 15 million people who already watched her incredible TED Talk, here it is: http://bit.ly/1t6z1CM)

When Jill had her stroke, she lost all function in the part of her brain that distinguishes "self" from "other". She lost the ability to tell where she began and the rest of the world ended. There were no boundaries, no borders. All she could see was pure molecular energy. While she was recovering in the hospital, doctors and nurses would walk in and out of her room all day, and the only thing she could distinguish about them was their energy — the anger, or grace, or kindness, or resentment that each person brought into her presence. Some of that energy was healing and helpful, obviously…some of it was decidedly not. When Jill recovered enough to do so, she asked for a sign to be written, to hang outside her room: TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ENERGY THAT YOU BRING INTO THIS SPACE.

Oprah told this story the other night at The Life You Want Tour, and I loved it.

You've heard me talk before about BRINGING THE LIGHT to any and every situation. That's what it's all about. This is the same deal. That's what the bus driver understood that day on 10th Ave — that the crosstown midtown bus was HIS SPACE, and that he needed to take responsibility for its energy. So he turned that energy around, and managed to transform people's gloom into pure grace.

Wherever you work, wherever you live, wherever you shop, exercise, study, travel — wherever you go — take note of the energy that you bring. Pause before you enter into any space (from the dentist's office, to your cousin's house, to a cathedral) and ask yourself what you're bringing in there.

Identify your energy, and take responsibility for it.

Whatever needs to be thrown in the river, by all means: toss it.

And if you have good examples of watching people BRING THE LIGHT, share them here!

ONWARD,
LG

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The most wonderful and heartwarming story I’ve read in quite a while… (And fo…

The most wonderful and heartwarming story I've read in quite a while…

(And for those of us who are especially in love our devices, such a tale is balm to the soul.)

I thought you all might enjoy!

Heart,
LG

How One Boy With Autism Became BFF With Apple’s Siri
www.nytimes.com
How one 13-year-old boy with autism became BFF’s with Apple’s Siri

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DON’T WORRY ABOUT BEING ORIGINAL. JUST BE AUTHENTIC. Dear Ones — I must confe…

DON'T WORRY ABOUT BEING ORIGINAL. JUST BE AUTHENTIC.

Dear Ones —

I must confess that I don't really care all that much about originality. The older I get, the less I care about it. In fact, sometimes I get annoyed by people's efforts to be original, because it can feel forced and artificial.

What I love, though, is authenticity. Because it's RARE.

Let me give you an example:

Sometimes I'll be signing books after an event, and a woman will approach the table and say, "I'm afraid I don't have anything clever or original to say to you…and you've probably heard this a million times…but I just wanted to tell you that your book changed my life."

And it's true that I have heard those words before. Maybe even many times before. (I am very blessed, after all, that so many people care so deeply about EAT PRAY LOVE.) But there will just be something about THIS woman — something about the way she spoke those simple words, something about the purity of her intention— that will go right through me…and my heart will crack wide open, and my eyes will fill with tears.

She wasn't trying to impress me, she wasn't trying to be memorable…she just spoke from her heart, and thus she moved me.

(Meanwhile, at that very same event, somebody else might approach the signing table with the intention of being original and unique and clever, and there will be something about HER energy that just makes me want to hide under the table…for real!)

I often have this experience when I'm reading, too…that I am not necessarily swept away by a wildly original book with the cleverest language or the most innovative form. I often read inarguably brilliant books that don't reach into me at all — that never descend out of the cerebral realm and into the realm of the heart. Then I'll read something written by an alleged "non-writer", and I'll find myself bawling my eyes out because it touched me so deeply.

Sometimes a work will be both original and emotionally authentic, and that, of course, is the gold standard. But if I have to choose? Give me authenticity.

So whatever it is that you dream of doing (creating, traveling, loving, inventing, transforming) just do it. Don't worry if you're the 100th person to do it. Just do it, anyhow, and be sure that you bring the highest purity of intention to your pursuit. Act from a place of your deepest authenticity, and the rest of it will take care of itself…

And trust me, if you are authentic, you WILL be original.

ONWARD,
LG

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HA! This made me laugh. (I did some serious time in that joint, believe me!)…

HA! This made me laugh. (I did some serious time in that joint, believe me!)

LG

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Dear Ones — I never had princess fantasies as a young girl. I dressed like a boy…

Dear Ones — I never had princess fantasies as a young girl. I dressed like a boy forever. My first wedding dress cost $200, and my second wedding dress wasn't even a dress. But then my life changed, and suddenly I was invited to EVENTS, and I needed pretty dresses. I bought an Oscar de la Renta gown to wear to the premiere of EAT PRAY LOVE, and I had never felt so beautiful. I never even knew that I wanted to feel that beautiful. I have been wearing his dresses ever since, and each time it makes a special day into a SPECIAL DAY. I was so saddened today to hear of his passing. From all reports, he was not just a gifted man, but an extraordinarily kind one. Thank you, Oscar, for having made a lady out of me. Rest in Peace, LG

Rest in peace, Oscar de la Renta
Dear Ones — I never had princess fantasies as a young girl. I dressed like a boy forever. My first wedding dress cost $200, and my second wedding dress wasn't even a dress. But then my life changed, and suddenly I was invited to EVENTS, and I needed pretty dresses. I bought an Oscar de la Renta gown to wear to the premiere of EAT PRAY LOVE, and I had never felt so beautiful. I never even knew that I wanted to feel that beautiful. I have been wearing his dresses ever since, and each time it makes a special day into a SPECIAL DAY. I was so saddened today to hear of his passing. From all reports, he was not just a gifted man, but an extraordinarily kind one. Thank you, Oscar, for having made a lady out of me. Rest in Peace, LG

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YOU ARE ACCEPTED… The most difficult truth to possibly imagine sometimes. A…

YOU ARE ACCEPTED…

The most difficult truth to possibly imagine sometimes.

As a constant striver, I forget this one myself all the time.

You are already accepted. You are loved already by that which made you — even if you don't yet have a name yet or a firm concept of that which made you. You are accepted. You are, as Iyanla Vanzant reminds us, pre-approved.

Let's all try to hold this one in our hearts today, and to believe it.

What would it change, to honestly believe this?

Sending love to you all…

ONWARD,
LG

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You asked for French-speaking cats…here is a French-speaking cat, reading THE…

You asked for French-speaking cats…here is a French-speaking cat, reading THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS!

YOUR PETS, MY BOOKS…I love this album!

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THE WISEST THING MY THERAPIST EVER TAUGHT ME… Onward, LG

THE WISEST THING MY THERAPIST EVER TAUGHT ME…

Onward,
LG

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ULTIMATE FORGIVENESS Dear Ones – This weekend’s Oprah’s The Life You Want Tour…

ULTIMATE FORGIVENESS

Dear Ones -

This weekend's in Houston was incredible. THANK YOU to all who were there, for your energy, your passion, your open hearts.

As usual, I was in the front seat during the all the talks and workshops, leaning in hard to catch all the wisdom I could.

And as usual, it was who got to me — as in: She made me weep.

This is a photo of me clutching a scarp of paper upon which I wrote something she said — something that, if I can put it into practice, could truly change my life.

Yesterday, Iyanla was telling the story about how her husband of 40 years recently left her for another woman — for a friend of hers actually. She was talking about the anger, the indignation, the grief, the shame, the humiliation of this event. All completely understandable, of course, for such a large-scale betrayal.

Then she spoke in detail about all the steps she took to try to work her way out of her anger and back into grace — because she knew that if she held onto her rage forever it would only burn a hole of bitterness through her soul.

In the end — after all the crying and fighting and suffering, and after working hard to arrive at some model of forgiveness for both her ex-husband and the other woman — she had a revelation of love. She decided to love them. She decided to actually BE IN LOVE WITH THEM. Not just to forgive them, but to LOVE THEM — for their humanity, for their weakness, for their own strange grace, for their intimate role in her destiny.

She said that at first she thought she was going crazy, with this idea of loving them. ("Are you out of your mind, Iyanla? You're in love with the woman who took your husband?") But she knew in her heart that love was the only way out of this emotional hell for herself. Huge, holy, magnificent love, And she said this, about her husband and the other woman, which I wrote down (through tear-filled eyes) on this scrap of paper:

"My love of you — it's got nothing to do with you. I'm trying to save myself. So I love them. I get to choose my relationship with them. Doesn't mean I will invite them for Thanksgiving. But I can love them from my altar and from my prayer table IF IT MEANS MY FREEDOM."

I wept when I heard this.

Your forgiveness of people who have harmed you has nothing to do with THEM.

Your forgiveness is about YOU trying to achieve liberty from the prison of your own suffering, your own anger, you own grief, your own darkness, your own obsessive thoughts, your own indignation.

Love is the only way out of that prison. Radical, outrageous, nearly impossible, superhuman LOVE.

Please understand that — even as I write these words — I do entirely understand how to get there.

But I really want to get there.

Because I want and need this kind of love and forgiveness in my life so desperately, I can't even tell you.

And I believe in it, even if I don't always know how to do it.

I'm gong to cling to this scrap of paper for a long, long time.

(Actually, I'm going to more than cling to a scrap of paper. I should tell you that I just signed up already for an e-course that is teaching on forgiveness. Because I really need that shit — and there's something about the way this woman speaks and teaches that goes right through the spine of me and really works for me. I don't even know what an e-course is, actually, but I signed up for it, anyhow. Because all I know is that her e-course is called HOW TO FORGIVE EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING, and that's exactly what I need to learn how to do in this lifetime. What we all need, maybe. Here's a link to the course, if anyone wants to do it with me: http://bit.ly/1wdp8mf)

I just want to be free.

If anyone out there has had this experience — working through your anger and into forgiveness…and then even further into LOVE — please share it here. I want to learn all I can about it.

ONWARD EVER…INTO GREATER AND GREATER LOVE,
LG

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