Elizabeth Gilbert — How to Set Strong Boundaries, Overcome Purpose Anxiety, and Find Your Deep Inner Voice (#770)
Illustration via 99designs“I am good at manifesting what I want, and I’m good at almost dying from getting what I want. So maybe there’s a better question to be asking than, ‘What do I want?'”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert (@elizabeth_gilbert_writer) is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love as well as several other international bestsellers. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her latest novel, City of Girls, was named an instant New York Times bestseller—a rollicking, sexy tale of the New York City theater world during the 1940s.
Go to ElizabethGilbert.Substack.com to subscribe to “Letters From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert,” her newsletter, which has more than 120,000 subscribers.
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Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#770: Elizabeth Gilbert — How to Set Strong Boundaries, Overcome Purpose Anxiety, and Find Your Deep Inner VoiceThis episode is brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements! Momentous offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, and I’ve been testing their products for months now. I’ve been using their magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine daily, all of which have helped me improve the onset, quality, and duration of my sleep. I’ve also been using Momentous creatine, and while it certainly helps physical performance, including poundage or wattage in sports, I use it primarily for mental performance (short-term memory, etc.).
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Want to hear the first time Elizabeth Gilbert was on the podcast? Have a listen here to our conversation in which we discussed the legs of truth, writing as a source of light, an “interesting” way to defuse drama and trauma, what present Elizabeth endures for future Elizabeth, staying true to one’s inner compass before making commitments, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Elizabeth Gilbert:Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Letters From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert | Substack City of Girls: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert | AmazonBig Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert | AmazonEat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert | AmazonElizabeth Gilbert’s Creative Path: Saying No, Trusting Your Intuition, Index Cards, Integrity Checks, Grief, Awe, and Much More | The Tim Ferriss Show #430The Celtic Prayer of Approach | Elizabeth Gilbert, FacebookJerry Colonna — The Coach with the Spider Tattoo | The Tim Ferriss Show #373A House of Prayer for All People | Washington National CathedralTao Te Ching: A New English Version by Lao Tzu and Stephen Mitchell | AmazonWelcome to Letters from Love | Elizabeth GilbertAn 11th Step Tool Rediscovered | Two-Way PrayerMarco Polo | The Genius of PlaySong of Myself (1892 Version) | The Poetry FoundationLeaves of Grass by Walt Whitman | AmazonThe Artist’s Way Morning Pages Journal: A Companion Volume to the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron | AmazonThe Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron | AmazonChip Conley — Building Empires, Tackling Cancer, and Surfing the Liminal | The Tim Ferriss Show #374A Most Beautiful Thing | Prime VideoA Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team by Arshay Cooper | AmazonWhat is Internal Family Systems? | IFS InstituteInternal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition by Richard C. Schwartz and Martha Sweezy | AmazonRichard Schwartz — IFS, Psychedelic Experiences without Drugs, and Finding Inner Peace for Our Many Parts | The Tim Ferriss Show #492Sharon Salzberg, World-Renowned Meditation Teacher | The Tim Ferriss Show #277The Self-Hatred Within Us | The On Being ProjectWhat is Calvinism? | Christianity.comHangman God | The Joyce ProjectMartha Beck — The Amazing and Brutal Results of Zero Lies for 365 Days, How to Do a Beginner “Integrity Cleanse,” Lessons from Lion Trackers, and Novel Tactics for Reducing Anxiety (#732) – The Blog of Author Tim FerrissGrowing and Caring for a Bonsai Tree | Bonsai EmpireWhy I Cut Off All My Hair by Elizabeth Gilbert | Oprah DailyBog Witch Aesthetic by Water of Whimsy | InstagramBrené Brown — Striving versus Self-Acceptance, Saving Marriages, and More (#409) – The Blog of Author Tim FerrissThe Revolution Of The Relaxed Woman | Prudence HenschkeEat Pray Love Author Elizabeth Gilbert Mourns Rayya Elias | The CutNewtonian Physics vs. Special Relativity | FuturismWhat is Sufism? | The Threshold SocietyHow Physicists Proved the Universe Isn’t Locally Real | Dr. Ben MilesRabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks on Powerful Books, Mystics, Richard Dawkins, and the Dangers of Safe Spaces | The Tim Ferriss Show #455The Paradox of Why by Andrea Mignolo | MediumPurpose Anxiety | Life CuratorOzymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley | The Poetry FoundationTitan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow | AmazonThe New Yorker Cartoons | The Cartoon BankJackass: The Movie | Prime VideoThink About Your Death and Live Better | The AtlanticYes, Social Media Really Is Undermining Democracy | The AtlanticLetters from Love with Special Guest Toni Collette! | SubstackLetters from Love with Special Guest Glennon Doyle! | SubstackLetters from Love with Special Guest Moe Miyahara! | SubstackLetters from Love with Special Guest BJ Armour! | SubstackStudio Route 29 | InstagramDid Einstein Really Ask If the Universe Was Friendly? | QuoraThe Problem of Religion by Emil Carl Wilm | Google BooksAnne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer | The Tim Ferriss Show #522Radio KFKD | HypergraffitiSHOW NOTES[00:07:14] No cherished outcomes.[00:12:27] Self-compassionate ownership of responsibility.[00:17:24] The daily practice of writing letters from love.[00:23:54] Two-way prayer vs. one-way prayer.[00:32:29] The male approach to this practice.[00:35:59] How do you feel toward yourself vs. about yourself?[00:38:25] Understanding self-hatred to foster self-friendliness.[00:44:52] Setting boundaries and dealing with those who refuse to honor them.[00:51:47] Why (and how) Elizabeth avoids big family holiday gatherings.[00:53:47] Comfort in solitude.[00:55:10] Much abuzz about Elizabeth’s new ‘do.[00:59:24] Boundaries, priorities, and mysticism: a relaxed woman as a radical concept.[01:05:34] What mysticism brings to Elizabeth’s reality.[01:08:58] A better question to ask than “What do I want?”[01:11:04] Elizabeth’s hard-ass approach to project commitment.[01:18:12] Creativity guidance from Elizabeth’s higher power.[01:22:40] How The Morning Pages influenced Eat, Pray, Love.[01:25:59] More productive questions to ask than “Why?”[01:27:48] The pointlessness of purpose anxiety.[01:32:31] Balancing presence with other aspects of a well-lived life.[01:37:49] Comfort with mortality.[01:41:53] What motivates Elizabeth’s Letters from Love newsletter?[01:43:01] What can potential readers expect from this newsletter?[01:48:05] “Is the universe friendly?” — Frederic W. H. Myers[01:51:01] Parting thoughts.MORE ELIZABETH GILBERT QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“I believe that I am loved beyond measure by a magnificent, complex, amused God who has given me power over practically nothing.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“Writing gave me the thing that meditation promised, but I could never have it happen in meditation until very recently where time stops or changes, and I’m here but not here.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“I’m basically a bog witch, just rattling around in a house by myself, talking to myself, watering my plants, shaving my head, and it’s so cool.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“What if I’m not on duty all the time? What if I’m only on duty sometimes and I have to follow a deep inner voice that tells me when that is and what that is, and everything else you all can take care of yourselves.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“Martial artists know that the most relaxed person in the room wins the fight.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“I’ve narrowed it down to three things that I need for me, for my system to be relaxed. It’s boundaries, priorities, and mysticism.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“I am good at manifesting what I want, and I’m good at almost dying from getting what I want. So maybe there’s a better question to be asking than, ‘What do I want?'”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“I think ‘It’s hard’ is a really good way to start with self-compassion.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“It’s a very difficult thing to have a human incarnation. This is not an easy ride. Even a good life is a hard life.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“Who told you you were supposed to get it right straight out of the gate? Who told you you were supposed to get it right seven out of seven days, or that you’re constantly supposed to be improving like a Fortune 500 company, constantly going in this upward angle direction, a certain percentage every quarter? There’s billions of systems operating within your body alone, hormonal systems and chemical systems and viruses and bacteria. We’re such a complex mechanism, it’s so hard to figure out how to operate one of these things. I do really well in solitude, I can get this thing humming. I can get this machine and this mind and this heart where we are at a beautiful hum, but the instant you throw another complex human mechanism into my field, then I’ve got to adapt to their chemistry, and it’s hard.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
“I’m much, much, much more afraid of people not liking me than I am of dying. And that’s what I have to suffer with more, is to try to figure out how to disappoint people, and say no to people, and set boundaries with people that they can survive it, and I can survive. This is my work in this lifetime. But death, to me, it doesn’t keep me up at night.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
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