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THANK YOU, JENNIFER! Can’t wait to bring the book out to EVERYONE!
THANK YOU, JENNIFER! Can't wait to bring the book out to EVERYONE!
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
Oh, my gosh! I just finished reading The Signature of All Things and am left to ponder so many, many stunning thoughts inspired by you, Elizabeth. You are a remarkable author with an extraordinary gift of creating visual images and understanding of your characters. You are wise beyond your years! Thank you for creating a most remarkable saga that is sure to be a best seller for years.
First thing tomorrow morning, my command center (hidden in my top secret underwa…
First thing tomorrow morning, my command center (hidden in my top secret underwater volcano!) will be sending out another LizNews Email Newsletter — with the chance to win an early copy of "The Signature of All Things"! Are you signed up?
If you don't want to miss a thing (EVER) do sign up for the newsletter by clicking the LizNews link at the top of this page! Or go to the first page of my website, right here, and sign up there:
Things are heating up, people. HEATING UP!
(Which is just what one would expect from the inside of an underwater volcano.)
Heart,
Liz
Elizabeth Gilbert | Elizabeth Gilbert – The Official Website | ElizabethGilbert.com
www.elizabethgilbert.com
Home to the writer Elizabeth Gilbert. Her new book, The Signature of All Things, coming soon!
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you guys believe in this idea? For the most part, I do….
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you guys believe in this idea?
For the most part, I do.
Though I think you have to be a BIT careful with this notion, to make sure that you don't drift into "blame the victim" territory here. There are limits. Horrible things happen to people, out of the blue, for which they are not themselves to blame. As the great Martha Beck once said, in response to the widespread fad of easy self-actualization homilies: "I do not believe that crack babies on ventilators in hospitals are there because they 'manifested' that trauma their own lives."
TO BE SURE, MARTHA. To be sure. And we must never relinquish our compassion for the suffering of others by blaming them for their own hard and sometimes tragic destinies. People struggle terribly in this world, and often randomly. All deserve our love and care.
But then there's the other stuff. The stuff we bring on ourselves. The stuff we perpetuate. The stuff we repeat. The dark stuff we keep seeking out. The bad company we choose to keep (in our minds, and in our lives.) The self-destructive thoughts and actions and vendettas and sorrows that we nourish almost lovingly. The anger we won't release. The crazy stuff we keep doing to ourselves even when, technically, we know better. The (frankly) really stupid shit that we keep raining down on our own heads, year after year, because we haven't figured out how to get out of our own way. Or because we keep waiting for somebody or something to change our fates.
I do know this for certain — NOT ONE THING of any consequence in my life ever changed until I personally changed it. This doesn't mean I did it all on my own. I don't believe in stoic individualism. (There were a few years there, in the really bad times, where I had a TEAM of people propping me up and cheering me on through my struggle — loving family and friends, a great therapist, all sorts of spiritual advisors, basically every self-help book known to man, and all kinds of wise thinkers, living and dead. Not to mention GOD.) I leaned on ALL of them. I needed all of them. But they didn't turn me around. They couldn't. They could only encourage me — give me tools.
Ultimately, my life began to finally turn itself around only when I took complete responsibility for it. When I got sick of blaming everything else and everyone else. And every single problem I've had since that day has been fixed only after — once again — I took complete responsibility for it.
As my dear and brave friend Rayya Elias (author of the beautiful addiction/recovery memoir "Harley Loco") always asks, "At what point do you finally accept accountability for your own path? When do you finally stop waiting to be saved?"
Have you done it already?
Have you adopted your own life, in your own hands?
Could it be today?
ONWARD,
Liz
So sweet…
Sometimes we just need somebody to BREAK IT DOWN into the simplest possible term…
Sometimes we just need somebody to BREAK IT DOWN into the simplest possible terms.
For our mutual self-edification, then…a helpful flow-chart!
Heart,
Liz
