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QUESTION OF THE DAY: How did you get over your guilt at leaving your marriage?

This is a hard one.

Hello friends —

A reader named Laura asked me this question the other day and I've been pondering all week how best to answer it.

First of all, for anyone out there who is suffering right now within the suffocation-machine that is guilt, I offer you my most sincere condolences. It sucks. Truly, I am sorry.

Secondly, as painful as guilt can be, we certainly don't want to be people who are incapable of feeling it. That would make us remorseless sociopaths, and we don't want to be remorseless sociopaths. So there is a level at which this emotional response is both normal and needed in our lives.

Thirdly, though — while recognizing that guilt has a certain societal/psychological function, we must never give our lives over to the dedicated worship of our shame. Because anything that you devote your attention to for 24 hours a day, you are worshipping. It took me a long time to realize this, but it is true. I held my guilt so close and nourished it so constantly that I made it into my deity. And I did not want the god of my life to be a dark cloud named Guilt.

I suffered enormous guilt for leaving my marriage. But I simply could not stay in that relationship: That became a non-negotiable truth. I was dying in there. Still, I was deeply ashamed and remorseful for needing to leave. I was never forgiven for leaving, either. Therefore, I had to learn how to forgive myself, or my life would have been over. My life would have been a monument to shame.

Listen — if you have sincerely tried in good faith to make amends with somebody, and that person will not accept your remorse, you must move on. I have always admired the Jewish tradition on this subject. According to Jewish religious law, you are required/allowed to ask forgiveness three times from a person whom you have harmed. They must listen to your plea, and then they can decide whether to forgive you or not. After three attempts, you are done. You are not required to ask a fourth time. You are permitted (indeed, required) move on, and so are they. You cannot force anyone to forgive you. I think this is a humane and realistic system. As Coco Chanel famously said, "Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door."

Then you must work on forgiving yourself. For me, self-atonement took time and care and therapy and prayer. I recommend all these things to help you through it. Also, exercise, sunlight, good friends, and nourishing reading. Most of all, forgiving myself required that I stop regarding myself as "Liz" (this person whom I knew so well and judged so fiercely), and start regarding myself as a random human being who was suffering deeply. How would I comfort a random human being who was suffering deeply? Would I mock her and defame her, for having made mistakes? Would I scorn her as an idiot, a failure, a loser? Would I condemn her to be tormented forever for having been young, human and uncertain? Or would I reach out my hand to her and say, "Nobody walks this path of life without failures and confusion and errors. You, too, are a child of God. Let it go. Everyone deserves the chance to live."

EVEN YOU.

Even you, with all your faults and stumbles and missteps and mistakes. EVEN YOU deserve a chance to live. Invite yourself to come back into the light. Start today.

Blessings,
Liz

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

LET'S TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

Everyone, will you help me (and a fellow seeker) out with this?

A visitor to this page has just asked me whether "unconditional love" means staying in an abusive relationship and learning how to love the person despite how he harms you.

This question makes me want to cry.

Dear one, dear friend, dear heart — the answer to that question is very simple: NO.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Also:

Never, never, never, never, never.

The wisest teaching I've ever heard about this came from a dear monk friend in India who told me, "We must love everyone. That is what God asks of us. But some people can only be loved from a safe distance."

And in regards to some people, that "safe distance" may mean: Never See Them Again. Never Take Their Calls. Never Let Them Near You. Never Let Them Know Where You Live.

Pema Chodron, the great buddhist teacher, has also taught beautifully on this subject. She explains that we should not close our hearts to anyone, but that we must also set healthy and safe boundaries. She urges us not to mistake compassion for compliance. As she said once in a lecture, "Put people in jail, if they are unsafe to others, but do not close your hearts to them."

Being a compassionate person does not mean allowing anyone in the world to treat you (or anyone else) abusively. There is nothing to be "learned" in an abusive relationship (except how to finally leave.) There is no emotional growth waiting for you in an abusive relationship. There are no day-to-day lessons that will make you a more enlightened being if you learn how to bear it, how to endure it. You will not be a better person in any way for staying. On the contrary, it will corrode your soul. Staying with somebody who harms you (in any way) does not mean you are compassionate; it only means you are co-dependent and very likely in psychological, spiritual and/or physical danger.

Will the rest of you please chime in on this? I think it is so important, and I am curious if you all have books, as well, that you can recommend our friend to read on this subject?

This one absolutely breaks my heart, guys.

Please, if somebody is harming you in any way: GO. Today.

All Love,
Liz

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall