Elizabeth Gilbert's Blog, page 28
September 11, 2014
#TBT Today’s throwback: Sweden, 1991. I was 21 years old, and my mother and I…
#TBT
Today's throwback: Sweden, 1991.
I was 21 years old, and my mother and I decided to spend a few weeks in Sweden, visiting our distant relatives (my mom is an OLSON, after all!) and tracking down our ancestry. But what we were really doing was being together — mom and daughter — for a long, sweet, uninterrupted period of time.
A lot of picnics. A lot of talking. A lot of long drives through beautiful countryside. A lot of moose. A lot of midnight sun.
My mom is still one of my favorite travel companions. She has that perfect balance of being super well organized, while also being willing to throw the plan away on a moment's notice.
Feeling the love,
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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An ad for THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS in Romania! SO cool!
An ad for THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS in Romania! SO cool!
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
Billboard I saw in Romania
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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September 10, 2014
A little clip from the Oprah weekend…hope you enjoy! http://huff.to/1qMiaCz
A little clip from the Oprah weekend…hope you enjoy!
Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Really Weird' Advice About Following Your Passion
http://ift.tt/hFWySe
When Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert embarked on her famous journey across Italy, India and Indonesia, she had been feeling lost. Her marriage had ended, she was emotionally shattered and she was desperately in search of fulfilment and solac…
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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YOU CANNOT FORCE OUT THE DARKNESS; YOU CAN ONLY BRING IN THE LIGHT. Dear Ones —…
YOU CANNOT FORCE OUT THE DARKNESS; YOU CAN ONLY BRING IN THE LIGHT.
Dear Ones —
I've been asked again today how to find light in a time of hopelessness.
I am always daunted when I get asked questions as heavy and important as this. But I feel I have to take a swing at it, too. If somebody asks for your help, after all, you are duty-bound to try.
So here goes:
When I was in the worst of my depression and despair, a friend came to me with this simple idea: "You cannot force out the darkness; you can only bring in the light."
She could see that I was fighting the darkness with everything that I had, and that it wasn't working so well. She asked me to imagine that I was in a small, darkened room (not difficult to imagine, at that moment in my life) and that I had a broom, and that I was trying to sweep the darkness out. Was it working? No. Of course it wasn't working. When you try to sweep out darkness, it is instantly replaced by only more darkness. When I punched at the darkness, did it diminish? No. I was only taking wild swings into the eternal black night.
"Stop fighting the darkness. Stop pushing it. You have to bring in the light," she kept saying. "No matter how small."
The tricky question when you are suffering, of course, is: How?
But her words resonated with something in me, and I began a practice, first thing every day when I woke up. I would always wake up in pain and sorrow during that time (as if depression had been sitting on the edge of my bed all night, waiting for me patiently) but I started doing what I called an emotional CAT-scan on myself, first thing every morning.
I would lie there in the silence and scan my entire being, just like a radiologist would. But unlike a radiologist, I was not looking for disease. I was not looking for dark spots; I was looking for spots of light within the vast darkness. Could I find even one molecule of goodness or grace or ease within me? Was there any person who, when I thought of them, brought a sense of gratitude? Was there any task I could imagine doing that day that seemed remotely pleasant or rewarding? Was there some item of food I could imagine eating (not binging; not "assault-eating", but just enjoying) that brought me a tiny glimmer of imagined enjoyment?
I would pore through the darkness (and there was plenty of it, believe me) and I would scan and scan and scan until I could eventually find even one tiny cluster of light cells within me. I was looking for the opposite of a tumor; I was looking for a minuscule pinpoint of goodness.
Once I found it (usually in thoughts of love or kindness, or in some extremely modest pleasure, like "It would be nice to wash these sheets today so that tonight I have clean sheets on my bed") I would ask myself if there was anything — ANYTHING — I could do that day to build upon that tiny cluster of light cells within me.
Because that is what you need — you need to figure out how to help that tiny cluster of light to grow a tiny bit bigger by the day. And the only way for that to happen is if you help the light increase, through some sort of distinct action on your part.
If it was love for another person that lifted me somewhat, could I do some act of kindness that day toward that person? Write a letter to my grandmother, maybe? Call my young nephew and sing him a funny song on the phone? If it was thoughts of my best friend that uplifted me a bit, maybe rather than calling her (yet again) to cry on the phone about my sorrows that day, could I bring a surprise cup of coffee and some flowers to her while she was at work? If it was general sense of human compassion that stirred something alive in me, what if I went to the bakery and bought two dozen bagels and spent the morning distributing them to homeless people? If thoughts of a merciful god — no matter how distant — encouraged me, could I pray? If I could come up with nothing better than the dinky little thought that clean sheets might be nice, then why stop at the sheets? What if I also mobilized all my powers and gave myself the gift of a clean bathtub, as well? (Oh, heroic! A clean bathtub! This is no small task when you are depressed, but sometimes I could pull it off.)
I tell you, there were days when I REALLY had to reach. But I reached. I reached for the light, and wherever I could find it (no matter how teensy) I worked on growing it.
I can't say that I got better by the day in any regular, quantifiable manner. Emotional recovery doesn't work like that. It's not a grid and we not machines. Our minds and our lives are too messy for steady incremental progress to measured in any scientific manner. Some days you inch forward; other days you fall back. But I got better by the month. I got better by the year. The clusters of light within me grew because I tended to them and I fed them. Whatever you feed, grows.
I didn't push out the darkness, because I could not. I don't have that power. Instead, I brought in the light, and the light pushed out the darkness for me.
I hope this helps.
Fight for your lives, dear ones. Fight for your lives.
ONWARD.
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS in one of my “hometowns” on earth: Ubud, Bali!
THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS in one of my "hometowns" on earth: Ubud, Bali!
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
With love from Ubud 
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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September 9, 2014
LAST NIGHT IN PORTLAND… Dear Ones — Thank you to all the big-hearted souls w…
LAST NIGHT IN PORTLAND…
Dear Ones —
Thank you to all the big-hearted souls who came out last night to the 30th Anniversary celebration of Literary Arts — what a beautiful evening it was.
I just want to say two things about public speaking:
1) 90% of it is about the shoes.
2) The other 90% of it is about the audience.
OK, so maybe I'm not so great at math, but you get the point: If you are lucky enough to have great shoes and a great audience, it's gonna be magnificent night.
And that is 180% true.
ONWARD!
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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Dear Ones — A friend of this page named Rachel Weingarten has written this lov…
Dear Ones —
A friend of this page named Rachel Weingarten has written this lovely book, which is coming out in a few weeks, and which you can pre-order right here…
It looks to me like a volume that might appeal to some of you seekers out there!
All love,
LG
Ancient Prayer: Channeling Your Faith 365 Days of the Year
http://ift.tt/vggwU1
Available in: Hardcover. Find Daily Comfort in Ancient Prayer Kol Hatchalot Kashot.All beginnings are difficult. New graduate, newlywed, first-time mother, or new job. Every single new beginning is difficult. Not ju
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Anybody want to buy Sandy’s ticket to Oprah’s The Life You Want Tour in Michigan…
Anybody want to buy Sandy's ticket to in Michigan this weekend? SEE YOU THERE!
I have a ticket to Oprah's tour in Auburn Hills, Michigan this Friday and Saturday, Sept 12-13. Message me if interested. Ticket was $315 and I would love to get full price, but message me and I am willing to take leas, even much less, once we chat.
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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September 8, 2014
SEE YOU TONIGHT, PORTLAND! 7:30 at the Schnitz! http://bit.ly/1lNNZvI :) LG
SEE YOU TONIGHT, PORTLAND!
7:30 at the Schnitz!
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
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LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR. I can’t stop thinking about a woman I met at the Oprah tour…
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.
I can't stop thinking about a woman I met at the Oprah tour this weekend. She was an audience member who shyly approached me, and asked if I could give her some advice. She was African-American, in her 60s, humbly dressed, with a face full of worries.
She wanted to know how to reconcile the deepest problem in her life, which is that she is secretly gay, but that she belongs to a church in her small town in South Carolina where she has been taught forever that homosexuality is a sin, and that homosexuals will burn in hell.
Because of these teachings, she has had to hide her true self for years, and the suffering is killing her.
She said, "I'm 62 years old. I have a secret partner, and we have loved each other for 30 years. But that church is the center of my life. It's my community. I love my neighbors there. I'm a deacon. I teach Sunday school. I believe in God. I need my church. I don't want to go to hell. But this secret is destroying me. I'm too old to lie about my life. But if I tell the truth, I'll be exiled from my community and condemned. What should I do?"
There are times when people ask me questions that make me just want to crumble into a heap on the floor in humility and grief. I wanted to bow down and kiss her feet. I wanted everyone to line up and kiss her feet — this beautiful soul.
Then I was hit with a spike of rage: How DARE someone tell this beautiful, kind, loving, grace-filled, faithful, decent, suffering woman that she is going to hell?
I don't even believe in hell, but I believe there's a special place in hell for people who tell other people that they are going to hell.
It enrages me.
Who do we think we are, to condemn our sisters and brothers to burn? For shame, for shame. (And don't anyone dare throw scripture at me here, to defend their condemnation of a suffering fellow human being — I won't take it. I won't buy a word of it.)
And how could I advise her? I live in a big shiny liberal Northeastern United States bubble. Gay rights are so assumed where I live that I sometimes forget (shame on ME) how people suffer elsewhere. For heaven's sake, I know a straight 17-year-old boy who took his childhood best friend and neighbor (who happened to be a gay teenager) to the prom this year — not as a romantic date, but a gesture of solidarity, because the straight boy wanted his gay friend to be able to enjoy the experience of prom. So they dressed up in their tuxedos, took photos, got in the limo, and danced all night and had a blast. Do you get that? I live in a community where STRAIGHT 17-year-old boys are perfectly comfortable bringing their gay friends to the prom with them, just because they love their friends…
That is not how it is in this woman's small town in South Carolina.
And what could I tell her? Could I blithely tell her to just stand in her truth, to stand up against her entire community — where she was born and raised, where she has lived and prayed and loved and shared grace for decades? What's it to me to make such a comment? ("Yeah, just be yourself." — as if that would be easy. As if she would not lose her entire community, the core of her being. And maybe her job.)
I asked her, "Would nobody come with you, if you were to tell your truth? Would nobody, even in privacy, whisper in your ear that they believe in you, that they love you, that you are still their friend, that they don't condemn you?"
"Nobody," she said, tears rolling down her face. "They can't."
"Do think there are other people in your church community who are suffering for the same reason?"
"Yes," she said.
"Could you somehow reach out to them?"
"It's not safe for any of us," she said.
"Do you believe that you're going to hell?" I asked. "Do you really believe it, in your heart, that the God you love and worship would condemn you to burn in hell because of your 30-year relationship with a woman you adore?"
"No," she said.
This was my only relief in the whole conversation — that at least she doesn't believe it. She hasn't digested the poison. She knows it doesn't make sense.
"You know there are other churches — churches who would welcome you?" I said.
"Not where I live," she said.
And I believe that.
Nobody should ever have to choose between their community and their truth. Nobody should ever have to choose between their faith and their heart — between their neighbors and their partner.
I wanted to take her home with me. I wanted to bundle her up and fly her away — she and her partner, both. I had no idea what to tell her to do. I felt ashamed and embarrassed and unworthy, that this dignified woman in her 60s would even be reduced to having to ask advice from ME. I held her, and we wept, and I told her that she was beautiful, and that I would pray for her freedom and her peace and her truth — and that she is so, so, so loved by God.
I couldn't let go of her. I didn't want to send her back there.
I can't stop seeing her face.
I'm tired of it, you guys. The world is changing, but for people like this woman, the change is not coming fast enough. The change hasn't reached her — or hundreds of thousands like her.
We have to move faster on this. People's lives hang in the balance.
It makes me feel helpless and I can't stop thinking about her.
Today — in the name of this beautiful woman — I made a substantial donation to an organization called the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which works tirelessly on behalf of LGBT individuals and families.
If you would like to join me, and also make a donation, here's their website:
Elizabeth Gilbert - The Official Website | ElizabethGilbert.com.
