Life Lessons from Elizabeth Gilbert

Spirit and ego don’t ever truly fight. Ego tries to fight with Spirit, but Spirit never fights– it just stands tall in Truth. It makes me think of a very strong man very calmly keeping the flailing punches of a pesky, young and dumb antagonist at bay with an easy extension of his arm. Well, I remember when my client suggested that I should read Eat, Pray, Love because I totally reminded her of the author, Elizabeth Gilbert.

My defenses immediately went up and I thought, of whom do I remind you? I am incomparable. How dare you!! You’re comparing me to some privileged white chick best-selling authoress? Seriously??

That’s really what I thought. Yikes!  As an Aquarius, I was incensed about being compared to anyone. I have to be unique or else I don’t have value. And I found it just straight up weird that this young woman thought that I had anything to do with a best-selling caucasian female, author. Do you see where I am going with this? Do you see how I was the ego flailing my arms at Magnificence?

Do you see where my egoic knee-jerk reaction was dooming me to self-sabotage, isolation and failure? Why shouldn’t the girl have compared me to Elizabeth Gilbert? She saw me as a world-traveling, sophisticated, educated Authority figure. She didn’t care that I was brown-skinned– she cared that I was inspiring the shit out of her to be the best she could be. She loved my studio, my business, my writing, the experiences she had with me, and what she thought I represented.  It had nothing to do with race and everything to do with Authority. But ya see, I was NOT a true authority at that point in my life. I was still faking it– hiding behind a misguided arrogance, which I thought was power. But in reality, I couldn’t even claim myself as the author of my own life; and my ego would not (could not) identify with the hard-work, perseverance, commitment and Authority of best-selling author, Elizabeth Gilbert. I resented Elizabeth Gilbert before I even knew a damned thing about her and I carried a chip on my shoulder for years.

Is this not the weirdest fucking story you’ve ever heard? Yep. Well, that is my drama. I live with me every day.

Yeah, well, it took me four years to finally getting around to reading Eat, Pray, Love and it was only after I had actually embarked on a journey that was surprisingly (only to me) like Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey. I had planned a trip to Bali, India and France. Literally, two days before leaving, I got an impulse to watch the movie Eat, Pray, Love and almost as soon as the movie started I found myself bawling from the depths of my being because I was watching my own wounding unfold right before my eyes. My tears didn’t stop until long after the movie ended and really, it was at that time that my life changed forever. I read the book shortly after.

I came across this interview from a couple of years back.  It’s Marie Forleo interviewing Elizabeth Gilbert about some important topics she covers in her book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.  Believe you me, I read this book the moment it came out… And of course, it inspired the shit out of me!  If you haven’t had the chance to read it, I recommend it for sure. Especially if you are an aspiring writer, artist or entrepreneur.  I hope you enjoy the interview. Let me know what you think.

And here’s one of the quotes from Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear…