Elizabeth Gilbert — How to Set Strong Boundaries, Overcome Purpose Anxiety, & Find Your Inner Voice

part of the thing I've noticed that people tend to get stuck on sometimes is that they get this inspiration right so inspiration comes first and inspiration is the breathing in of God right so like something even the most empirical scientific atheist people in the world when they talk about where an idea came from they say an idea came to me they say that they don't even know they're saying that but they're reporting accurately what the feeling is because that's what everyone I've ever met who's had an idea it's the Eureka moment so this may sound

familiar to people who like maybe you've had this experience you start working on this thing that was this inspiration and couple weeks couple months into it couple days another idea comes and that idea seems more interesting than the one that you've already invested some time into uh and then you're like but I want to do this thing this thing is like fresh and exciting this is the really really cool thing right and then you go and do that one and then another idea comes and then it's like you're dealing with this melee so oftentimes people

will say to me I'm working on a book and I'm halfway through it but I've got this other idea that I think is way better and this book feels really stale and it doesn't have any life in it and I always say like okay well I give you permission to quit working on that first project but only if you have a proven track record of ever being able to finish a thing that is so smart [Music] hello boys and girls this is Tim Ferris welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show where it is

my job to interview people from all different disciplines all different walks of life to tease out the habits routines thoughts Lessons Learned and so on that you can apply to your own lives my guest today one of my favorites Elizabeth Gilbert she is the number one 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 critic Circle award and the pen Hemingway award her latest novel city of girls was named an instant New York

Times bestseller a rolicking sexy tale of the New York City Theater World during the 1940s you can go to Elizabeth gilbert. substack docomo subscribe to Letters From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert her newsletter which has more than 120,000 subscribers you can find her on Instagram at Elizabeth Gilbert writer and Liz it's so nice to see you it's so nice to see you it's so nice to be back talking to you I love it we both did something quite similar you went back and listened to our last conversation which I just had a blast recording with you

and I went back and I read all of the summary notes that I had from that last conversation and before we started recording you mentioned a few things one that the very last thing that you mentioned in that conversation will dovetail nicely into some of what we'll talk about today and that'll be just a bit of foreshadowing for folks so we won't go into that first but secondly I asked if you had any particular hopes for this recording and asked what would make it a home run or time well spent and one of the things

that you said and this so I suppose broadly what you said too is you had no cherished outcome and I like that phrasing and I was hoping to hear you expand on that a bit because I think it might be good medicine for a lot of what ails me oh God yeah I I mean it's already a home run just getting to sit here and and talk to you and and I know it hasn't been easy for our schedules to figure out when we can do this so I'm just happy and relaxed to be here

and I'm also not concerned that you and I will ever have any trouble finding things to talk about I don't think so so that was part of it but the no cherished outcome is actually a line from a translation of a Celtic poem and it's called the Celtic poem of approach and as well as I understand it these are lines that were spoken when you're meeting new people and when you're moving out of one area into another tribe's area or you're you know you're going to be interacting with people in a new way this this

beautiful poem of approach that I really love and I'm I'm probably not going to get the whole thing right but it says something like I will honor your Gods I will drink from your well I bring an undefended heart to our meeting place I will not negotiate by withholding I am not subject to disappointment I have no cherished outcome and how do you apply that then to your own lives what led you to hold on to that particular piece it's my highest aspiration that that that poem and that spirit is the foundational agreement of all

my friendships and I say those words I have no cherished outcome a lot to my friends and I hope that I mean it you know and when I start feeling hurt or resentful or excluded or misunderstood I'm like sometimes the only way you can find out that you had a cherished outcome is when you didn't get it like you didn't like it like sometimes I discover that where I'm like I think I'm just easy breezy and I'm just hanging out and then I'm like oh I I had a secret hidden cherished outcome because something didn't

happen that I wanted and now I'm all like bent about it so so now I get to examine my resentment and ask myself whether I really want to honor I have no cherished outcome or whether I want a sulk I seem to be better at no cherished outcome in friendships than I am and romantic relationships almost the minute relationship becomes a romantic relationship I have a list as long as my arm of cherished outcomes and all of the sudden I can be disappointed and all of the sudden I don't bring an undefended heart to our

meeting place but with friendships which I have over time discovered to be actually the true loves of my life I seem to be a little bit better at at taking responsibility for myself and trying not to put outcomes on people why do you think that is that there is such a difference for you between the number of cherished outcomes you might hold in romantic relationships versus friendships is it because at least culturally speaking here in the US there aren't as many stories or scripts related to friendships versus romantic Partners or would you explain it a

different way I think that that my thing has always always been and this is why it's been so interesting for me being single and celibate by choice Over The Last 5 Years there's nobody to blame which is so great and I think that it's that the minute somebody is attached to me as my partner I do this weird outer body thing where I hold them responsible for whatever mood I'm in and so if I'm feeling great it's because they are the greatest and if I'm feeling terrible it's because they are the worst and it's so

unfair and and one of the really beautiful and educational things about spending a lot of time alone is like oh these oh these mood cycles and these depressions and these Euphoria are happening this is like a weather system that's happening that isn't related to anybody and it turns out all those years when I was analyzing those poor people in my relationships and holding them to account for the fact that I felt kind of not right you know it was like oh I haven't been with anybody in five years and I I felt not right when

I woke up this morning and there's no one to pin it on it's so great I love it it's like I love not having anyone to pin it on I hate pinning things on people but I don't seem to know how to not do it once we're in a romantic relationship she should come with a warning yeah a lot in life should come with a warning so I have quite a few followups but I'm going to try to put them in some semblance of a coherent order so my my first question related to that is

how do you think about responsibility or ownership for yourself in the sense that or I should say rather what prompts that question is I was having a conversation with an executive coach recently Jerry Cola actually who's I think very good at what he does former very top tier investor who has a lot of questions I return to one of which is how are we complicit in creating the conditions we say we don't want but such a good question it's a really good one it's a really good one but the one I wanted to apply here

was more a comment he made to me because I was talking about taking radical ownership of things and seeing my role and just about everything and he said well taking responsibility for everything can be as bad as taking responsibility for nothing and so I'm wondering when you wake up and the weather system is dark and stormy how do you work on yourself without picking on yourself if that makes any sense oh such a good question God I love that question how are you complicit in what can you say it again yeah how are you complicit

in creating the conditions you say you don't want wow another word for that is who are you blaming your life on today well I think the only honest and humble answer that I can give to that question is I don't know MH and I don't know where that line is but it's easier for me when I'm not in a relationship and it's simpler for me to say okay I can I can take some accountability for my own weather system but as you say I don't want to beat myself up about having weather and I have

to constantly remind myself that I mean I think the most compassionate thing that that I say to myself or I hear said to myself all the time from a more loving presence is it is a very difficult thing to have a human Incarnation this is not an easy ride even a good life is a hard life and it's it's so weird it's so profoundly weird to be a Consciousness dropped into a particular body dropped into a particular family arriving at a particular moment in in history like with it's so strange it's like I'm sure you

well I don't want to project this on you but maybe you had this experience as a kid like I haven't remember as a kid looking at myself in the mirror and being like I'm in here like it's so weird yeah what am I doing in here and all of that is out there and I'm in here something's inside of this experience and and it's really hard so I think you have to start with that like you know who told you you were supposed to get it right straight out of the gate like 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 500 company constantly you know 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 and and viruses and bacteria like we're such a complex mechanism it's so hard to figure out how to operate one of these things and then just when like I do really well in solitude like I can get this thing humming like I can get this

machine and this mind and this heart where it is like we are at a beautiful hum but the instant you throw another complex human mechanism into my field you know then I've got to like adapt to their chemistry and to their like it's it's it's I it's hard I don't know it's a lot of varibles and I think it's hard is a really good way to start with self-compassion so that it's hard you you did a retake a few moments ago where you said one of the things that I say to myself and then you

Ed that and said one of the things that I hear why did you change that because I believe that I am loved beyond measure by a magnificent complex amused God who has given me power over practically nothing and really like very little that I have control over but what tiny amount I have control over is extremely important it reminds me of something a friend of mine who was a physicist said one time that very little of the universe is matter very little but what there is is very important it's like that I think with control

and power like I I have very little control I have very little power even over my own mechanism and my own being but what Little Agency I have I think it's important to to use it well but anyway I talk talk to that presence all the time and I am in a nearly constant dialogue with it and I hear it talking to me and so that's why I say I hear a loving presence saying it's really hard it's really hard like I I'm not telling you this should be easy how long has that been the

case is that development in the last handful of years decade has it been true since you were a kid it's deepened I didn't I think one of the things I'm so lucky about my friend Rob once said to me you're so lucky you didn't grow up with an enforced religion and I'm so fortunate about that I went to church like a nice little mellow New England Church most Sundays as a kid but I don't recall anybody talking about God that much like it was more of a social Gathering like I think new englanders are a

little bit reticent in terms of being too heavy on the message you know like we sang songs and made crafts and I don't remember it having very much to do with God but I had a god awareness that that was very powerful in me and I remember going to the National Cathedral on a school trip when I was 10 in Washington DC and yeah I grew up on a farm so I grew up with very rustic architecture and to go from I mean that Cathedral did what Cathedrals are meant to do to Medieval peasants to

me you know like like I was it put me into an ostu State and I remember going coming home and wanting to replicate that state and trying to figure out if I could build a cathedral in my bedroom with like stuff from my dad's Woodshed and my mom's sewing kit like I really did try to I'm like how do you do how do you make that like how do you make a how do you make something that that feels like that and I think writing for me and my my pursuit of writing and the Arts

was always driven by this sense of awe and wonder and mystery that something was moving through me that was probably my first direct communication with it but but for the last 20 years I've had a practice nearly every single day of writing myself a letter every morning from unconditional love which is kind of a god presence it's a bit more specific the unconditional love thing because I think God is more than that but that's where I also hear Direction and guidance and humor like yeah I need I need a very funny God I'm not going

to do well with a a God that's too serious I need a God who thinks I'm funny like who thinks I'm adorable and funny like I I need that I can't be too you know too beaten up by a higher power how did you start that practice when did it start or even begin germinating it started in desperation when I was in my going through my first divorce was 30 and the welll laid out planned life that I had created very obediently like I had done just what my culture had told me to do like

I got married at 24 and worked hard and bought a house and made a plan to have a family and then instead of having a family I had a nervous breakdown like quite literally everybody was moving in This One Direction and my entire intellectual spiritual and physical system collect colled which I now know I now see that as an act of God I I now see that there is that that's sort of the Dow you know that there was a force that was trying to communicate to me this is not your path and I'm going

to I will kill you before I let you do this I will kill you before I let you be a Suburban housewife I'm not allowing it like I will make you put you in so much physical pain that you're going to have to notice that this is not the life for you but I was also in much shame of of failure and letting people down and like we just bought this house like I just felt like the biggest in the world like I don't know why I can't just get in line and do this thing

that everybody's saying to do and anyway that marriage ended and then I threw myself into another relationship and that ended and I was like I'm a me like I I don't know how to orchestrate my life at all and nothing here I am 30 years old and nothing is what I had planned it to be 5 years ago and I was in the deepest depression of my life and I didn't have much of spiritual life at that point but I remember waking up one night in just shame and getting an instruction I mean that's the

only way I can explain it and I comfortable with that language because I often have that happen in my creative life where I'm I'm told what to do like this is what you're going to focus on here's what you need to do now and I was given this instruction and it came in as clearly as I'm talking to you and it said get up get a notebook and write to yourself the words that you most wish you would that somebody would say to you because there was a great loneliness that I was feeling too as

well as the shame and what that letter said was I've got you I'm with you I'm not going anywhere I love you exactly the way you are you can't fail at this like you can't do this wrong I don't need anything from you this is a huge thing to hear I don't need anything from talk about no cherished outcome I don't need anything from you you don't have to improve you don't have to do life better you don't have to win you don't have to you don't have to get out of this depression you don't

have to ever uplift your spirits you could end up living in a box under a bridge in a garbage bag spitting at people and I would love you just as much as I do now like you you can't the love that I have for you cannot be lost because it's innate it's it's yours and it is not I have no requirements for it and if you need to stay up all night crying I'll be here with you and if tomorrow you have a garbage day again because you've been up all night crying I'll be there

for that too I'll be I'll be here for every minute of it just just ask me to come and I'll be here with you and the astonishing thing was that it like even talking about it now I can feel the impact that it has on my nervous system to hear those words even in my own voice and it was the first experience I'd ever had with unconditional love I'd never heard anybody say like you don't need I don't need you to be anything you don't have to do better like this is fine this is great

you you like on the bathroom floor in a pile of Tears it's not it's great it's great you're like that's fine we love you just like that and that's so nourishing because it's so the opposite of every message that I've ever heard and so I started doing that practice and it's taken me through I've never I've had difficult times in the last 20 years but I've I've never gone as low again as I went at that time because this is the net that catches me routinely before I can get that low and that voice doesn't

change all right this is this is getting into the the juicy bits that I love to wait around in so to follow up you've helped a lot of people now draft or attempt to write similar letters and I'm wondering a few things you can answer these in any order you want or you can take it in a different direction one is if there are ingredients that seem to work better than others because everything seems to take practice maybe these letters are no exception the second is do you find that people with some religious orientation or

spiritual orientation towards a greater power have an easier time writing this in other words if the letter is from this power to yourself almost versus being from another version of yourself to yourself does it differ an impact those are very good questions so I I found out that what I was doing there's a name for it and and it's actually a long spiritual tradition for people to to do things like this but there's it's a practice that's very common in 12-step recovery and it's called two-way prayer so it's essentially two-way prayer so I call it

love but sometimes I call it God for a lot of people that word God is a weapon yeah I mean it is a dangerous I mean especially people who groww up in what is what are called high demand religions or who grew up in really oppressive religious cultures or abusive religious cultures or for whom they simply cannot stomach that word like obviously don't use that word but two-way prayer so one-way prayer is what most people are taught as prayer which is a supplication right like you get down on your knees and I I had done

that in my life and like beg for help but sometimes you spend so much time begging for help you're not actually listening yeah I'm too busy saying Marco to hear the polo yeah I like mar mar mar mar mar mar you God's like can I just can I get can I can I just there's something I want to say and so I would suggest if people are interested in this you can look up two-way prayer because there are a lot of people teaching it and they have they have made a a sort of what were

you saying is there like a a practice or like instructions like they have found that certain things work really well so I'm sort of quoting from kind of two-way prayer theory on this the first one is that you you can open up the channel by reading something so go to a quiet place although at this point I've done it so long like I can do it in an Uber you know but like go to a quiet place and read something that to you feels holy so it doesn't have to be any official religious text poetry

works for me better than scripture so the poems of Hafiz or roomie or Mary Oliver or Walt Whitman Song of Myself from Walt Whitman which is essentially just a big letter from love you can just open that up to any page and you read some of it and I feel like those writers had Direct access to the Divine and they left the door open when they died right so you can just draft in on their on the sense that they create right so you read something that opens your heart in some way and then you

ask one question and one question only it's not a deposition and it's not a dialogue because the ego always wants a dialogue like the ego always wants I feel like if I could reduce my ego down to two words it would be yah but like it's always got a follow-up question it's like well yeah but you say yeah but you say that you love me but yeah but you know and it's it's like part of the reason that two-way prayer is so beautiful is that you ask the question and then you stop talking you get

your opening statement right your opening statement is dear love what would you have me know today and then the other thing that I've seen suggested in two-way prayer practice and this kind of came intuitively to me but I see that it's taught this way when people teach it is the first line back to you from the Divine should be an endearment and if affectionate nickname my love my child my my sweetheart my little one I hear little one a lot my little one my angel honey head I've seen some of my friends have like tiny

turtle penguin cheeks you know like some sort of like endearment be stuck imagining with penguin cheeks look like restation you know and and that's very hard for some people because the idea of turn toward yourself as though you are worthy of endearment can be really hard for especially perfectionists and the most driven Among Us like you didn't earn how did you earn sweet love you didn't earn that you know like but this is a kind of love that doesn't have to be earned so you start with that and then and then so the way I

did it the first night I did it was I literally just wrote what I wish somebody would say me you know like like and and that's pretty straightforward as an instruction because you know what you wish somebody would say to you you know like you know how you want to be loved you know how you want to be loved it's it's right there like you know what you're dying for we all know what we're dying for whether it's Mother Love or the missing father or the partner or the like somebody who's just like I've got

you I see you you know I see you I love you you're you're amazing amazing to me um I see that you're suffering I'm with you and you're suffering and then you just you just write that but over time what I think people will find one of the biggest questions people have is like well it just feels like it's just me writing to me like it feels super artificial I don't feel like I'm hearing God's voice I don't feel like I'm believing that there's this eternal Source in the universe that's completely loving and unconditionally adors

me I just feel like I'm doing this exercise of just writing words to myself and that doesn't feel spiritual and it doesn't feel rich and it doesn't feel real and the question I have heard is well what's so bad about that what if it is just you what if all it is is just you writing to yourself from a Kinder voice within you wouldn't that be worthy enough to be slightly life-changing besides the terrorist who lives inside your head constantly telling you how you failed like why not change the channel in your own head and

if that's all it is and what if God is just the most loving voice inside your own head this makes me actually flash back to our last conversation because we have some proof for this in a different form which is morning pages from the artist way and Julia Cameron just getting your monkey mind on paper even if it's actually the terrorist can be incredibly powerful and one of my friends I remember he tried it for the first time for a week and he said he's very high functioning works with a lot of household names I

won't mention but he said this is the closest thing to a magic trick a real world magic trick that I've ever come across so that question what if it is just the kindest voice in your head I think is helps to diffuse maybe the pressure that people would apply to themselves when trying this for the first time yeah right and as you were talking about the very first example you gave I was thinking and I think this might have been chip Conley could have been someone else who said this to me but that happiness is

reality minus expectations and I was like there are a lot of ways to play with that collection of variables one of which is saying hey you've already passed the grade you could be under an overpass and that's acceptable that's okay right you don't have to be that Fortune 500 company compounding it x% no per quarter thank God yeah yeah because you know those people and I know those people and I don't know that it's such a gentle loving life that they're leading yeah I think I know one of them intimately at least somebody somebody who

kind of assumes that's the the Baseline minimal acceptable outcome right is and life just doesn't seem to work that way it's not linear even if you are improving over time but applying that pressure sometimes handicaps the Improvement in the first place so question for you this occurred to me and it may be a dead end but I'm wondering have you seen any difference in how men approach this or have challenges with it versus women or no difference is it kind of ubiquitous set of Alles when you look at the number of friends listeners readers Etc

who have attempted this that's such a good question it's hard to know because women tend to follow me more than men do yeah but I've invited a number of men to so every week so on my substack I I share a letter from love that I've written and then I invite a special guest to do it and I've invited a number of men I'm thinking right now about my friend AR Cooper who's such an extraordinary guy he grew up on the south side of Chicago in an absolutely bullet and drug-ridden ghetto black underprivileged underserved he's

the subject and the producer of a gorgeous documentary called a beautiful thing and he wrote a book by the same title and when he was in high school with like no future some guy showed up in his high school hallway with a rowing machine and was like hey hey I want to start a I want to start like a the first black rowing team or the first black crew MH do any of you guys want to do it and he was like yes I absolutely want to do it and and he now has become this

Ambassador teaching rowing all over the world in South Africa and and his letter from love that he shared is one of the my favorite ones that I've ever that I've ever seen because he was his letter was addressed to that little boy who he was who saw more violence before he was 8 years old than most people on tours of Duty in Afghanistan had seen and how how tenderly that child needed to be treated and watching him you know this like athlete this motivational speaker this great leader like Turned toward himself or have love turned

toward him in such a tender and intimate way was so moving but he was open to it he allowed that vulnerability to come through there's something that I've learned in ifs internal family systems therapy I was just going to bring it up yeah I mean the mind is working it all works with an ifs too but but there's one of the things they say in ifs a lot it's a prepositional change how do you feel toward yourself versus how do you feel about yourself mhm may I just give a little bit of context for folks

so ifs for people who don't know it's it's somewhat strangely named so internal family systems can be thought of as and please fact check me I did an episode with dick Schwarz for people who are interested but Parts work in the context of different parts of yourself so you might have protectors you may have Exiles these aspects of yourself that you have pushed away or compartmentalized in some way and you facilitate dialogue between and among these different parts for the purposes of of of therapy and it can be very very powerful so I just wanted

to give people a little bit of context beautifully described yeah I've heard it described as group therapy for one and he actually dick Schwarz who founded it started off as a group therapist and when he started doing individual therapy he was like oh this is just like group therapy we've got voices yelling at each other inside this person who don't know how to communicate with each other right so yeah that's a really beautiful summation of what it is but the difference between even I mean try Tim actually can you feel the difference physically between if

I ask you how you feel about yourself and how you feel toward yourself they totally different because toward yourself I'm taking a friendly Observer perspective there's an built in empathy right and how do you feel about yourself also is so familiar linguistically that it overlaps with a lot of the negative tracks that I already have had in my head whereas how do I feel towards myself that's not not a construction I use so it benevolently hijacks the whole thought process instantly you know you ask me how I feel about myself I'll show you a list

of everything that needs Improvement yeah you know and I'm wired to constantly be self-improving and I'm sure you are too how do I feel toward myself I'm like oh man you're tired like you've got this chest cold you've had for seven weeks you're finishing this project that's huge like you got a lot on you like honey yeah it's hard you're having a hard like gets hard suddenly it's like I'm a very different person toward myself let's actually hop from that I'll mention one thing then I want to hop to something related which is self- friendliness

and how you think about it how others might think about it I just want to say in connection with ifs and also a number of other workshops and seminars that I've done I have not written a letter from Love in the way that you describe it exactly but I did write a version of it that sounds actually very similar to the last example you gave and this is done in a fair amount of Parts work is you know what would you say to X which could be I'm making this up but some like fear of

inadequacy at what age right how old are you 5-year-old Tim okay what would you say to 5-year-old Tim so I have written letters to a younger version of myself and found it to be incredibly powerful I mean this was years ago that I did it and it still sticks in my mind and I remember a lot of the language that I used but the the question of self- friendliness sort of broadens and includes a lot of what we've been talking about already could you speak to self- friendliness in whatever way makes sense to you yeah

I mean we always talk about self-love but that's kind of lofty and I think you could just start by being a little friendlier you know what I mean like just how about the common courtesy you go to a stranger on the subway like let's start with that you know just common human decency so there's a story that I'm so moved and disturbed by it so Sharon salsburg do you know Sharon salsburg the meditation teacher so she met the Daly Lama and she's written about this she met the Daly Lama on his first visit to the

west and she was in a group of people who were the first Americans North Americans to meet him and it was at a time when nobody really knew who he was he wasn't like the rockar who he became was this obscure Tibetan monk and of course it took place somewhere in California and there were some academics in the room and some spiritual writers and teachers and meditators and this sort of elect group of people who were coming to meet him and he was speaking through a translator because he didn't speak much English at the time

and somebody in the room asked him how what Tibetan Buddhism and his teachings have to say about self-hatred and how to combat self hatred and don't you know that man had to talk to his translator for like 15 minutes and kept asking for the question to be repeated he didn't understand the question he kept thinking that he was mishearing the question because he kept saying wait who is the enemy who's the person that you're having trouble with and of course being like calvinistic westerners in the room ra raised on scarcity and you know you're never

enoughness and original sin everybody in the room was like no I'm the one I hate you know and and he was like this doesn't even make sense like what you're saying doesn't even make sense and and when he finally grasped not only that he understood that person's question and what they were talking about but that everyone in the room shared this problem he was so devastated and and he said I used to think that I had a really good understanding of the work of the human mind but this is new to me and this is

very disturbing like this is not okay and and essentially after that he said this is where we're going to start you know and then that basically became his mission in the western world and it's interesting I was talking about it with Sharon salsburg the other day and she was saying in Buddhism they say you know that one of the things if you want to evolve is that you have to be less precious to yourself you have to think of yourself as being less precious but she said in the west we have to we haven't even

gotten to the point where we think we're precious yet to let go of it like first she's like I think we first have to find our preciousness and then we can let go of it and then we can evolve but but if we don't even know that any of us anything about us is precious that's already a problem and when the Daly Lama started teaching people how to love themselves he would say talk to yourself the way your mother would talk to you and then he found out about some of our moms and he was

like okay grandmother like he was just scratch that scratch that he was like has anybody ever said a kind word to you you know like it was you know and it really spotlights this sort of terrible dysfunction that we all kind of collectively have grown up in have you found other ways to counteract that outside of the letter writing are there any other practices or recommendations for people who are experiencing this many of whom are experiencing it secular ly right they they they may experience it in the absence of a religious upbringing as would be

the case for me any other recommendations or thoughts you just made me realize I didn't answer your second question about whether people who have some sort of religious or spiritual ah basis find this easier not necessarily because some people still are praying to what James Joy called the hangman God and you're not going to get a letter of unconditional love from the hangman God you know you're going to get a list of complaints about things that you need to do better so sometimes those people have a really hard time doing it there's one man I

asked to do this to write a letter from Love and he's a very well-known figure in the world of I'm trying to think how to not identif I'm not even going to say more than that but he's somebody who's very admired and is very good and I and he had the most surprising response of people who have said no most people say no because they're either afraid that they're to ask love to show up and love isn't going to show up and that would be more painful than not asking or they feel like it's too

vulnerable to expose themselves like this he said no because he said I have a feeling I know what unconditional love is going to say to me it's going to say you're you're trying too hard and you're doing too much and you don't have to try this hard and do too much but I don't want to be let off the hook because I I want to keep aspiring to go further and higher and I don't want to hear a voice that tells me that I'm okay just the way I am I'm afraid that will make me

stop and I was like oh honey who hurt you you know oh dear you can still do things but might it not be nice to also hear that something loves you even as you're aspiring you know anyway it was just that was interesting sorry but you had a yeah second question yeah the question was I suppose related and that is outside of writing this letter you've described what other what other approaches or habits anything at all have you found helpful or seen helpful for others in counteracting sort of self antagonism right so fostering self- friendliness

in other words boundaries is what comes to mind and some really hardcore ones makes me think of our mutual friend Martha Beck yeah who you've known a lot longer than I have tell me what made you think of her for that well the Integrity cleanse and just checking in I know we discussed it last time but setting a timer to check in every 30 minutes to see if you're lying and if you're if you want to even be in this conversation right if your sister's like yeah you're coming over for the baby shower and you're

like I'd love to beep beep beep like no actually I really have zero interest yeah I have gotten there are people who I am not skilled this is how I word it because I I want to keep it on me I'm not skilled enough to be able to hold my serenity when I'm around them mhm and I lose the hard-earned peace that I try to generate every day through meditation and through two-way prayer and through the way that I live like I'm constantly trying to bring myself to a level of kind of humming nicely along

and there are certain people who I man I just can't do it and I think my younger self was spiritually ambitious enough that I was like if you were a better human being then you would be able to Jiu-Jitsu your way through this or you would compassion your way through this or you would accept your way through this and I'm at an age now at 55 where I'm like no I just can't do I can't like I come home sick when I'm around those people like I lose my attainments when I'm around those people and

and it's not friendly for me to be around people who are cruel and when I'm around people who are cruel I I become unwell and I also then have to use something to like I get so disregulated you mean like a substance yeah or like I get like there's certain people I'm around them and it's like I want to have a drink like I want to have I want to have a drink call a phone number I shouldn't dial like start smoking and driving fast you know like this dis kind to myself to put myself

in those situations again and again so how do you or how have you created boundaries or put those relationships on probation or otherwise separated yourself you know I'm trying to think how to describe it that doesn't get too revealing too much personal stuff I'm not here to say it's easy yeah but I do feel a sense of stewardship toward myself and and you know I mean it's hard I I'll tell you this I did an event with Rachel cargle the great writer and civil rights activist a couple years ago and somebody in the audience asked

us you guys both seem so calm and chilled you have difficult people in your life and I started laughing so hard I rolled literally rolled off my chair and I was like yeah yeah and she said no I don't and and I was like wait what and I and I was like leaning in I'm like wait a minute break that down and she said no I don't have anybody in my life currently who's difficult because I I won't do that to myself anymore and here's the here's the Zinger this is somebody with a tremendous sense

of self value and self- friendliness the follow-up question in the audience was somebody said what about people who you have to deal with and you have to have them in your life CU like they're in your family and she said I'm thinking as hard as I can and I cannot come up with a single name of anybody who is entitled to be in my life no matter what their biological relationship is to me and that's a radical position to take and Rachel cargo lives a radical life and that's somebody who is really prioritizing her own

well-being and she was like I've blocked my mother for several years at a time because because she was too destructive to she's like I've got siblings I haven't spoken spoken to in years because they're too disruptive and they're not entitled to have me in their life just because we were born into the same family that's intense boundaries so I I will say only that I've done stuff like that I've decided that um not everybody's entitled to have me in their life just a practical tactical question since that's that's where my brain sometimes goes do you

slow fade that person you just start like first you respond after 24 hours then it's a week then it's 2 months then it's never or do you have a conversation you text them and you're like hey love you butt or is there some approach that you take I'm going through a list in my head I'm like how did I do that one how did I do that one some have been done I would say elegantly which to me means like honestly but I think I think again you can keep it on the eye and just

say like I noticed that I become so disregulated after these encounters that I can't do this anymore it's this is too dysregulating for me I I I can't do it I'm out yeah and at times where I'm super disregulated I will say I'm not well and I need to go get well and I'm going to go take some privacy because that's also true like I can get so disregulated that I become unwell I'm thinking of a couple other people where I very honestly said like I'm at a place in my life right now where I

need a lot of solitude and a lot of silence and and if that changes I'll let you know um yeah but and then there's some people who I just stopped responding to because their being I kept running through the scenarios of like how would an open and honest conversation about this go and it would be like not good I don't have any reason to think that this would go well like this is going to be a firestorm and I think I'm just going to leave MH it isn't easy but I I'm a lot healthier yeah

since I've done that I think it's easier when you're older too cuz I think you get used to like you don't keep everybody in life you know you can't you can't right there's an EB and flow even if you wanted to you couldn't and it makes me think of maybe Bonsai is not the the right example cuz I do think of them kind of kind of as little tortured trees but but pruning as opposed to accumulating right curating as opposed to collecting and I think as you get older you just realize okay there there is

at least as far as we know in this corporeal body an end to the story yeah not generating more time and some people just consume more life energy than they contribute I mean I always say some people are medicine like when you're with them when you come away from them you feel like you've gotten a dose of medicine and some people need medicine and when you're with them you feel like they raided your Pharmacy and some people need to be institutionalized like it's beyond that it's just like I can't do I can't do anything with

this here you know one thing I have noticed is that I I don't like holidays MH I don't like the ritual of like big holiday Gatherings and and I've let my family know that that I'm like I love you guys and I'm going to come and see you any day of the year except these days so I'll come and see you in early December I'll spend a week we'll have a great time like well I want to have one-on-one time with you I want to sit at the table with you I want to go for

walks with you I want to go for bike rides with you I'm not com for Christmas I can't why is that I'm so curious just as someone who you picked my one in one in favorite oh do you that's so wonderful which is fine yeah and great but I'm curious what is it about the Gathering cherished outcomes cherished outcomes meaning that you feel like you need to perform man there's some I feel like there's so much on the table and it's like the meal and the like it's so I find it even as a kid

I found it so stressful and everyone's so tense and it's like can we why do we have to do this and the answer is you don't have to yeah but the people who love it should do it mhm yeah for sure I just sit by the fire with my dog and drink hot chocolate so that sounds fantastic it's not very stressful in my case no I actually like spending holidays alone because they're quiet days when you're alone like the phone's not ringing and working Mills aren't coming in like some of my happiest days have been

holidays that I spent alone I enjoy it have you always been comfortable with Solitude or extended periods of being alone has that always been the case to mix but I love yeah I love my own company except for when I'm in some sort of super disrupted mental state and then it's very painful to be with myself but but lately like in the last 10 years it's my favorite person to hang out with and I live alone and I love living alone and I love I love waking up and being like here's our day like what

do we want to like what do we want to do it's so how do we want to spend this and I'm a writer I chose to be a writer it's a very solitary it is solitary time and I love that like my most joyful moments of my life have been alone with my work and I remember hearing Michael shabon one time say and I'm super social too like I I have a lot of friends and a lot of people who I love and care about but I'm always happy to go go back to being alone

anyway I heard him say one time and he's got four kids I think but he said you know you your books you can love your books but they can't love you back and I thought oh my books love me back like my work loves me it is a love story in two directions like it is a beautiful love story writing those books and and I feel that there's something very alive and connected in that that isn't just me so for people who can't see and even for people who can see video your hairstyle has changed

since we last spoke how did that come to be what is is there a significance there yeah so I buzzed off my hair gosh about months ago and um I have been wanting to do this for 20 years and dreaming about doing this for 20 years and I can't tell you how many times I've sat in my hairdresser's chair and been like just take those Clippers and just like just buzz just buzz it off just buzz like just buzz it off take it off take it off just take it off like I just want to

be free I want to be free and I never had the courage to do it and and I had a lot of reasons for why I couldn't do that as a woman like what if my head has a weird shape I mean I'm a public figure what if I'm out there with a bald head what if I'm don't I don't know like I just I always was like when I get older I'll do it when I get older I'll do it and then I had this amazing Awakening and it was last year I went to

an event in New York and there are a bunch of people there who were in their 40s 50s and 60s and this is New York City so it's like the most like one of the most Progressive places in the world and I looked around the room and all the men all of the men had clipped like shaved or buzzed hair and they all looked great like yours like they all looked great like it was a bunch of silver foxes they all had lines in their faces they looked fantastic and all the women had long or

longish versions of some sort of complicated hair that I you know I know hair so I know what it costs to have that hair I know the keratin treatment you had to have for that hair to look silky I know like the die job that you had to pay for I know how much those highlights cost I know that only 2% of women in the world are blonde and that 45% of the women in that room were blonde including me you know and I was like thinking about Dolly Parton's line where she somebody said to

her one time did you ever do you ever get offended at dumb blonde jokes and she said no because I know I ain't dumb and I know I ain't blonde and it's like I ain't blonde and I ain't dumb but I'm spending a lot of money and I just had this really Reckoning moment where I thought why are we doing this like why do I have to do this and so many of the most amazing like Reckoning and Liberation moments of my life have been these moments where I was like oh I don't have to

buy into this anymore just because I've been trained and taught and conditioned my entire life that I have to buy into this I'm opting out I'm out I'm taking my toys and I'm leaving and and I thought I can just like get mad about the patriarchy and say that there's an unfair Beauty standard for men and women or I can just claim the entitlement that these men have and just get some buzzers at CVS and clip my own hair and like never think about my hair again and that's what I did so you did it

yourself I did it myself yeah and I do it myself every week and it's like this is the last money I'm ever spending on my hair is like these Clippers going to say now we can trade tips I know it's so great and I was like oh my God the freedom like I wake up every morning I'm like my hair's perfect I jump in a river jump in a lake jump in an ocean get off get off a plane jump I'm like it's never not it's never not perfect it's amazing and I can't imagine any

reason to ever have hair again I don't know I just think it's part of this amazing thing about becoming a a free woman and a middle-aged I mean I am I am cultures nightmare I'm a middle-aged childless husbandless woman like I'm basically a bog witch like just like living rattling around in a house by myself talking to myself watering my plants shaving my head and it's so cool like it's so it's so exciting because I never saw a woman like this when I was growing up and and I never heard of a woman like this

I only heard cautionary tales about how tragic and sad unmarried divorced or widowed women were and I'm all of those I'm unmarried divorced and widowed so I'm like the trifecta and these have been the most creative spiritual and wild years of my life we were exchanging various ideas potential topics before this conversation in shorthand because of course I want to talk about things fresh without knowing the answers I'm going to get relaxed woman a relaxed Woman as a radical concept what is this how many have you ever met oh boy in the hot seat no

it's not it's not I mean I haven't met that many relaxed men either but like you know I think it's a I think it would be a truly revolutionary thing what are the characteristics of a relaxed wound what does that look like well first of all I want to say that that this is like why I think it would be revolutionary mhm so let me start with why why mhm when I think of the words that are commonly used to describe the women who we all admire like badass Fierce tough resilient Brave strong or in

the beray brown realm vulnerable openhearted you know like those are all I aspire to be all of those things and and I admire all those women who are all those things but none of that feels revolutionary to me because women have always been all those things like you have to be all those things as a woman in the world you have to be resilient you have to be strong you have to be badass you have to be fierce to survive as a woman my ancestors were all that your ancestors were that or we wouldn't exist

so it's not a revolution it's not a revolution what would be a revolution would be a relaxed woman because I I never saw one growing up I saw angry tired women and I saw some relaxed men but I saw angry tired women and I was on the pathway to becoming an angry tired woman and that's when my body revolted and was like no no no no no no no no no we're not doing this we're going in a completely different direction so how do you not be an angry tired woman that's a really big question

and I think when I talk about this with groups of women I always say you know I think we have to be careful because there's some part of us that thinks it would be irresponsible not to be angry and it would be irresponsible not to be tired you know because I mean just look at the world and how much it needs us and on the personal level and on the political level and and how much there is to be angry about and how many of us were violated in our bodies at various times I mean

there's there's a million reasons to not be relaxed and yet the question I have is if you were to step in and this is a question I always ask to women if you were to think of the biggest tornado going on in your life right now whatever it is the hardest thing you're doing whether it's your activism or your family or your work or a medical issue or a bankruptcy or an addiction issue like whatever it is or a problematic family member and if you were to go into that same exact tornado tomorrow and not

One external thing changed but you were relaxed would you be more or less effective at handling it like martial artists know that the most relaxed person in the room wins the fight you know like actors know this artists know this like this is where the flow happens athletes know this and so I think for me I've narrowed it down to three things that I need for me for my system to be relaxed and it's boundaries prior prorities and mysticism and if I don't have those three things I'm super stressed and I would say that the

mysticism is the most important but the boundaries protect that so boundaries what was number two priorities yeah priorities and then mysticism and women are not taught that they're allowed to have priorities men are taught that they're allowed to have priorities but women are supposed to prioritize everybody and everything and you feel really guilty if you're not prioritizing everybody in everything and and I always suggest that you should maybe have like four priorities like four or five and and there's nothing like tragedy to kind of make it clear what your priorities are too like when my

partner Rea was diagnosed with terminal cancer it became very clear to me very quickly who I cared about and what I what I wanted to be doing with my time and I remember opening my inbox the day I found out that she had six months to live and seeing like this huge list of emails and I just deleted them all without responding to them cuz I was like the reason that these emails have been sitting in my inbox for months is not because I'm too busy it's because I don't care I don't care and those

are the three words that women are never allowed to say like a woman is never allowed to say I don't care yeah you're not too busy you just don't care I don't care it's like look if I care I'll get back to you immediately like this is what I've learned about my inbox like same with my text messages like like you will hear from me immediately if I care like if I don't it's because I don't care and it's okay you can't care about everything and everybody or you just don't care enough in the hierarchy

of your priorities right priorities priorities right so like who is who are your priorities what are your priorities what do you actually care about do you have the courage to say like I don't I I'm not I no so boundaries priorities and then mysticism is the only thing that will actually relax my nervous system and that is getting really quiet and connecting through two-way prayer through a letter from Love and through deep meditation because I can't just live on this plane or I will lose my the the plane of the apparent and the real and

the material and the Newtonian physics it's like too stressful and I need I need to have access to a deeper perspective to be able to be relaxed enough to actually say and mean I have no cherished outcome like right to the point of saying like whether I live or die I have no cherished outcome like can I be that relaxed can I be relaxed enough not to know what's going to happen can I believe that some other thing is orchestrating this and my involvement might not be necessary in every single moment this is a hard

thing for women to believe is that the key ingredient of the mysticism for you because there different forms for sure M that that mysticism can take I mean you mentioned HZ you mentioned roomie I mean you have different let's just call it subsections of various religions that are associated with mysticism like the sufis in that particular case is that potential of a larger power orchestrating things so that you don't need to be involved in all the details the key component of this third leg of the stool the mysticism or is there are there other aspects

to that well there's love so we have to then go back to you don't have to win this right you're not going to be graded um a thing I often hear in those prayers and meditations is we've got all the time in the world and that's the exact opposite of the stress that I was raised under the vice grip that I was raised under short amount of time extremely important to win no errors can be allowed you know so got all the time in the world we got all the time in the universe what's time

plenty of time it'll happen or it won't like whatever the thing is and that actually also happens to be true that it will happen or it won't like even we know that our best laid plan sometimes it's like this is oh guess this is I guess this wasn't the thing that was supposed to happen but then there's also where I find my deepest where my body goes into a deep hum that I used to only be able to get from substances or you know love of another person settling me that deep deep like okay everything

is okay here the thing that always works for me is a voice saying to me you don't even know what you're looking at like you don't even know what you're looking at and it just pierces my certainty because my certainty is one of the things that makes me so anxious and this is a very convincing virtual reality that we live in you know it's very very very convincing but the mystics and the physicists seem to agree that it might really not be what we see and what we're perceiving I went to an event in Brooklyn

a couple years ago and heard two Nobel prize winning physicists talk about the nature of reality and it was so wonderful to hear this Nobel prizewinning scientist say the more I look at reality the less I understand it and all I can say after all these years of studying the nature of reality is that nothing is what it appears and and that what we used to think was natural law is at best some very local ordinances and um like we really we're like five Einstein away from even having the right questions to ask to even

know what we're looking at here and just because billions and billions and billions of people have the same senses and look at the world and come to the same conclusion about what they're seeing and agree doesn't make it true and and that settles me it's like okay you don't and it shouldn't it's kind of like the rugs and the floor and the ground are being pulled out from under you completely and that shouldn't be relaxing but I find it deeply relaxing because then the stakes suddenly become a lot lower or it's like all right well

since I don't even know what this game is that I'm in let me do what I can and let the rest of it Go and it doesn't mean quit the game you're still in the virtual reality game play it nicely but but play it knowing that you don't even know what you're looking at yeah I'm still thinking of your correlation that you drew between certainty and anxiety which seems very astute and that most people would steer away from they would rather be unhappy than uncertain because uncertainty equals in a lot of minds and this is

true for me at time too hidden risks right but it also depending on how you kind of play the game and which poetry you read and so on it also opens the door to the possibility of unexpected surprises good surprises good things makes sense to me I've had I've had a similar settling experience I mean it's sometimes enhanced so I can't recommend that to a broad audience no no no no I get it you know and that's why people get enhanced because there's that sense of like oh wait a minute this is bigger and more

complicated and I'm part of this but I wow you know like Steve Jobs's Last Words wow wow wow like whatever he saw in those last moments wow wow wow and I I'm thinking of a relative of mine who I said one time would you rather be happy or right and they said how in the world could I be happy if I wasn't right and and I think that it's actually quite the opposite for me like probably wrong you know human history book title I mean just look at my life I have a long I have

a long history of making decisions that are very bad for getting what I wanted and then finding out this is another thing that I find is really wonderful about middle age like I've gotten what I wanted a lot in life and it almost killed me so I'm not so interested anymore in what I want you know I'm good at manifesting what I want and I'm good at almost dying from getting what I want you know so so maybe there's a better question to be asking then what do I want have you any thoughts on candidates

for that better question what would you have me know love what would you have me know I mean that's a really good one this makes me wonder how you choose and I've wanted to ask you this for a while I don't think we got into it in our prior conversation which is how do you choose projects how to spend your time right where to allocate your limited life force because there's what do you want which is where a lot of people would start yeah although that's a pretty it can be nebulous in a handicapping way

because that could take you in all sorts of different directions but how do you choose your projects I'm kind of a hard ass about it yeah great so part of the thing I've noticed that people tend to get stuck on sometimes is that they get this inspiration right so inspiration comes first and inspiration is the breathing in of God right so like something even the most empirical scientific atheist people in the world when they talk about where an idea came from they say an idea came to me like they say that like they they don't

even know they're saying that but that's they're reporting accurately what the feeling is because that's what everyone I've ever met who's had an idea it's the Eureka moment it's like oh I just heard saw felt an inspiration and I know the difference between something that comes from me and something that comes to me talking about prepositions again and I think most creative people do as well like oh this came to me right and then it can feel like an assignment or it can feel like a challenge and it's like now I want to make this

thing but a place where I think people get sidetracked and distracted it's very very very similar to meditation like meditation spirituality and art have so much in common but so this may sound familiar to people who like maybe you've had this experience you start working on this thing that was this inspiration and couple weeks couple months into it couple days another idea comes and and that idea seems more interesting than the one that you've already invested some time into uh and then you're like but I want to do this thing this thing is like fresh

and exciting this is the really really cool thing right and then you go and do that one and then another idea comes and then it's like you know you're dealing with this melee so often times people say like to me I'm working on a book and I'm halfway through it but I've got this other idea that I think is way better and this book feels really stale and it doesn't have any life in it and I always say like okay well I give you permission to quit working on that first project but only if you

have a proven track record of ever being able to finish a thing that is so smart right yes because then it's legit it's like no I've got this better idea but if you but do you have 30 unfinished things yeah because if you have 30 unfinished things now we have a problem and what I've and I have those same things happen to me like I'm I'm a quart a third of a way a quarter of a way fifth of a way in a project and and then something so much more interesting comes along and I'm

like but I know enough to know I'm like it comes dancing it's like a dancing girl like it just comes across the stage I was just going to say the hottest girl to dance the hottest girl to dance showed up just showed up and you're like and you've been married for two months you know and you're like oh I've been married for two months in the hottest but what I know is that if I abandon my let's call it wife this project that I've been working on for a few months to go off with the

hot girl in a few months she's going to be just as boring as stale MH and then a new hot girl is going to come on and I'm never going to complete anything so you know stick with the one you came to the dance with and if I've got multiple ideas and I'm not sure which one I'm beginning I actually have a sort of like a team meeting and I make the ideas make proposals to me about how they want what do you actually want me to do this is like Project based ifs totally like

it's like I'm the angel investor and these ideas are like we you know we want your time and money for this and I'm like well what do you what are you what are you what do you have for me why should I invest my money and time in you and a lot of ideas when I challenge them like that disappear into the ether cuz they're like I don't know something about birds you know like they don't like they haven't I'm like you haven't thought it out you know and then some other idea is like no

I want to write about this very specific thing and it's going to take that you know I'm like okay so this one's got their act together so when the bird idea is more formed come back like come back when you're ready come back when you're ready to be real and not just to be T tantalizing me with like so I'm a real heart ass about it I don't mess around I don't let these ideas push me around I love it are there other ways that you to quote the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sachs he had

this amazing line that is stuck with me which is something along the lines of the the key mission is to separate an opportunity to be seized from a temptation to be resisted W something around those lines and and I'm wondering how else you navigate that right with the multiple ideas because maybe there are cases cuz you have a track record of finishing things maybe there are where you get mons into and you're like you know what this is not what I this is not what I hoped it could be and there's this other thing and

I want to switch plans midair how do you think about distinguishing between those two I've never done that you've never done it I've never switched planes midair oh you haven't okay so when you start a project you basically have done the hard ass due diligence up front you're like nope this is high conviction weird I never the path yeah I mean it's so this is like the mystery of a human brain or a human system because like in my personal life I'm so flaky and in my and in my professional life I'm so clear it's

amazing I think the universe gives us certain things that are sort of easier for us than other things but but yeah by the time because it takes me so long to do a project because my projects whether they're fiction or non-fiction are so heavily research driven and you know it can take 3 or 4 years to create one of these books like the last novel that I wrote city of girls I was thinking about that book for 10 years before I started it like it was it was at those meetings for 10 years you know

like and the next novel that I planning to write I've been thinking about for probably 15 years but it's coming more into view so so there's some that are kind of on the horizon that are coming in but like I'm thinking of air air traffic control they're they come in in order something is feeding them to me in order and and I don't know what that something is but one at a time I can't do two I can't do two at a time what do you think contributes to that certainty in the professional realm as

I'm listening to and thinking about everything you've said in this conversation and also the review of the last conversation but strikes me that feeling like you have more than enough time a voice has told you there's more than enough time relieves you of the perceived obligation to choose the best thing because you're running out of time that's just pure speculation on my part second is feeling like there there's a source you are hearing from versus having to independently make an ideal decision may also give weight to the things as they come in as you put

it right through this air traffic controler I'm just wondering what else might contribute to the clarity there may be some inter personal Simplicity compared to dealing with other messy humans I don't know right y anything else that you think contributes to the clarity in the not switching planes midair I think part of it is that I enjoy it I enjoy the work and I never identified as a tormented artist I've identified as a tormented person but I've never identified as a tormented artist art has been creativity has been the place where tor drops away so

the question of course is why and I think once again I would probably have to say I don't know but but I think I'm getting a big smile on my face as I'm thinking about this but I'm thinking like why shouldn't we do the thing that is so pleasurable why shouldn't that be a clue as to the thing that you're supposed to be doing that you're on the right track because you know long before I became a meditator I had so much trouble meditating for years but I would start to write and hours would drop

away and I would not be aware of time so writing gave me the thing that meditation promised but I could never have happen in meditation until very recently where like time stops or changes and I'm I'm here but not here so so that's just so pleasurable but the other thing is like sometimes I feel that it's a mandate and I I can't talk about the book that I've just finished it's coming out next year but but I can say that it's the hardest thing I've ever written emotionally and and when I was doing my two-way

prayers every day in the morning during this especially the really hard part of writing it and I have a really loving higher power like I have a higher power who's constantly letting me off the hook for lots of stuff that I do not have to do you know it's like you do not have to be involved in this like you do not have to you don't have to be part of that cha thing that's going on like you don't you don't have to be part of this family gathering you don't have to rescue this person

you don't have to like I get a lot of you don't have toos you don't have to you do have to this you don't have to do that throughout this entire process of this book because I was struggling every morning when I wrote it out on the page that voice would say I can see how hard this is for you and I can see what this has cost the toll that this is taking on you to tell this story and I can see that you want to stop too bad I've given you 47 hall passes

and this is not going to be the this isn't one of them you know and sucks to suck get back to work I'll see you on the page you know I know you're tired I know you want to take a day off you're not having a day off you know and and I think the trust of that has built up between me and that higher power over the decades M largely because of the things that I am am let off the hook for has made me think it's it goes back to the original part of

the conversation where I said like I'm loved beyond measure by a by a God who has given me control over practically nothing the wisdom to know the difference is one that I cannot find but I get instructions of like this isn't yours we don't need you in this story like we don't need you involved in this situation we don't need you speaking up about this thing we don't need you doing this we need you doing this however yeah so and the reason I don't want you up in all this other stuff that's going on is

because I very much need you in this and so I want you to bring your full attention to this and if that changes you'll be notified you'll be notified as something that happens a lot on the pages of two-way prayer for me that that I mean I've gone through periods of time where I didn't have any creative ideas at all and like early pandemic I was like like wow this would be a great time to write but I actually don't have anything that's ready to go and and I remember writing in two a parents saying

should I be working on something right now and instantly came the answer when we've got something for you to do you'll be notified and I was like well what do I do until then and they're like hang out like hang out be present to the world it's amazing walk around look at stuff you don't we don't you don't have to be on duty at every moment but when you have to be on duty you really have to to be on duty yeah it's your turn and it's so and I think part of the aspiration that

I have to both be a relaxed woman and teach and model that to other women is this is the opposite of what women have been taught like wait what if I'm not on duty all the time like what if I'm only on duty sometimes and and I have to follow a deep inner voice that tells me when that is and what that is and everything else yall can take care of yourselves and and that's something that we as women are not taught that we can ever say like I'll do it I'll do [Laughter] it so

I I want to actually ask a question that is following up on something in our last conversation and I would say I definitely put it in the category of me time in a sense which is related to the artist wayway by Julia Cameron so if I remember correctly I am looking at notes so hopefully I'm getting it right that eay love would not exist without the artist way if that's a true statement I'm wondering which pieces of it because I don't think we got into the specifics but what pieces of it really made that the

case and I for instance one homework assignment that I've never done from the artist way I'm so embarrassed to say this but it's true is the artist's date I've never done that and so as an example I'm wondering was that a part of it you know is that a part of it for you the artist day is hard yeah it's hard it's hard I still have trouble figuring that one out sometimes so here I can tell you exactly one I can tell you exactly yeah please so one of the things that she does so cleverly

in that course is that she keeps asking you the same question like 90 different ways so there are all these questions each week that you have to answer and they and then there's the morning pages and then so they're twists and turns on like you could have three talents what would they be if there were three places in the world that you could visit what would they be if if there was something you wish you had studied what would it be you know like she she's coming at it like from 20 different directions and and

then there's this point that comes late in the process where she instructs you to go back and read everything that you've written and start looking at what keeps showing up because I think one of the mysterious and magical things and weird things about our brains like the secrets we can keep from ourselves the compartmental where it's like I didn't even know that about me you know and so when I went back and read Italian was on every page and I was like apparently I really want to learn to speak Italian and I would not have

said that that was like a massive priority of my life but apparently my soul knew that it was an instruction cuz it was like Italian I kept seeing Italian and I was like why Italian you know like it's not useful unless you are in Italy you know it's not like Spanish like where it's spoken across the globe like why why why and why is not a spiritual question and never brings a spiritual an so it's kind of useless but I just went with it and I was like okay and my one of my artist dates

was to sign up for Italian classes without knowing why like just because it kept showing up on the page and so I did 6 months of Italian classes like night school for divorce ladies at the Y and I loved it so much and I started watching movies in Italian and I started I'd never I had no plan for anything I was going to do with it and then I was like well wait I want to use this Italian like I want to go to Italy and speak this language but I also been studying meditation a

lot lately and I want to go to India also want to go back and then like out of that was porn pray love so it took me by surprise as much as as anything and maybe you've had that experience in your morning Pages where it's like I didn't even know that like I can hide things so far from myself that I can't even find them it's true for my phone too you mentioned that why is not a spiritual question and doesn't give you spiritual answers something along those lines could you elaborate on that anytime I

howl into the void any question that begins with why I do not get an answer I will not be answered I can do two-way prayer from now till God leaves Chicago from now till time gets better and I can ask why why why why why and and I will not be given an answer that's much more satisfying than what an adult would tell a toddler like at some point of just because because I said so because is I wrote a poem once called the shortest conversation I ever had with God and it's God calling why

oh sorry me but why which is again the ego mhm and God because is but there are other questions that I can ask and I do get answers so if I ask questions that begin with how instead of why like how do you want me to move through this I will be given direct instructions who do you want me to serve in this situation who do you want me to be in this moment and answer is very clear you know what do you want me to do next that's a really good one that's a big

one in AA what's the next intuitive action what's the next right action what would you like me to do right now which is often like get a glass of water you know take a nap turn the phone off but why and I think that goes back to you don't even know what you're looking at I think that goes back to where're five Einstein's away from even having the right questions to get the right answers but but why is it it's it turns into a black hole that just fall into and it's this great echoing silence

yeah I can be stepping into the quick sand of blame and finger pointing even if that's fingers pointing back at yourself which it often is that makes sense that makes sense and I was asking you about choosing projects I want to ask you about anxiety specifically purpose anxiety Oh yay what is purpose anxiety you're smiling so I see you already know and no I don't I don't I mean kind right in the tile based on the words I can imagine you work it out in context yeah I think I can work it out well I

mean the story that most of us were taught was some variation of each of you was born with a one unique offering a special spark that is only yours and only you can deliver on that thing it is your job it is the your job to find out what that thing is that only you can do meanwhile there's what almost 8 billion people on the planet so already here's some pressure because it's got to be something that nobody else can do which is going to be unlikely because there's a lot of us and TR you

know you should find out what that is very young and then you should become the master of that thing and you should devote the 10,000 hours you know way before you're out of adolescence you should already be you know pouring yourself into this purpose that you are here to serve and you should become the very best at that thing and then it's not enough to become the best of that thing you have to monetize it and it's not enough to monetize it you also have to create opportunities for others and make sure that they're also

being served by this purpose and if all of this sounds exhausting you were not off the hook even when you die because you must leave a legacy and you must change the world so no pressure but that's that's it that's it you must change the world and it's like I think it's very male I think it's very capitalistic it's very self-centered it's very like yeah you only must do this thing that only you can do and the world must be altered and like they must know you were here you know like you must leave you

must leave your mark on the world and I think the world at this point is like I wish maybe that you stopped leaving marks on me like maybe we could use a little less of that and and I I hardly know anyone who doesn't suffer from purpose anxiety and I know people who are living lives that look from the outside like they have achieved tremendous purpose and it's a scarcity anxiety so they they're up at night wondering if they've done enough have they done the right thing have they left enough of a legacy is this

where their energy should have gone it's it's a it's a theology that is going to leave you unsatisfied because there's no way to know that you have achieved it and you and I both know people who like are so admired and and they're so stressed and they're so unsure about themselves and they feel like they've done it all wrong and they don't know whether they've there's never there's a never enoughness to it that feels a lot like capitalism like there just how much I'm thinking of JP Morgan testifying before Congress and them saying like how

much money is enough sir and him saying a little more you know it's the same with purpose it's like when will you know that you've made a big enough impact a little more yeah and what would be the opposite of a purpose-driven life would be a I think a life of presence it's also focused entirely in the future constantly and I don't think there's any way that you can live a relaxed or really truly rich or meaningful life if you're constantly thinking about your Legacy I'm sorry but it's like that's it you know you're like

how much did I make how much did I leave how much did I impact MH meanwhile like the world is happening and you're in it and you're missing it yeah I'm reflecting I can't recall the exact you might actually know the attribution here and I don't know if it's a fictional quote or not but there's some I want to say this this huge statue in in the desert that is deteriorated over time and it's half buried and the inscription reads something like I am menus Lord look upon my works and despair yeah it's like yep

yeah that's where it's all headed yeah on the side of it's supp along similar lines I I often think to myself I'm like all right all these guys are talking about Legacy and got gals too but a lot of the guys that I am surrounded by it's a lot of guys yeah and it's it's look they're reading books and so am I about you know whether it's like Alexander the Great or genas Khan or Titan about Rockefeller whatever it might be hoping to glean things from these lives and I mean Alexander the Great tell me

his last name like what was his full name nobody nobody can tell me his middle name was the yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly or at the very least thinking about Legacy differently but one thing I am curious to curious thoughts on is how do you blend in your life do you try to blend presence with other ingredients for what you deem a life well- lived and and and I'll tell you a story so the story takes place and at Omega Institute and I love Omega Institute and I've spent time there in Upstate New York and

they have amazing classes the one place that they have consistent Wi-Fi is in the cafeteria coffee shop area where people eat their meals or some of them I can picture it well okay so I would sometimes go because I was spending time in Upstate New York beautiful campus amazing groundhogs everywhere so I would go sit in the cafe and I would write and I remember this conversation happening next to me so I wasn't getting any work done but I was East dropping on this conversation and it was this man and this woman and the guy

asked the woman you I you know I know you've been looking for a job for a while do you do you find a new gig and she's like no I've been really busy being non- oh my God and oh that's like a New Yorker cartoon that's so good it was so good and I was like I okay so there is maybe a a shadow side of presence which could be a lot of Naval gazing and maybe that's totally fine and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't make a difference but for yourself personally recognizing

that presence seems to be very additive to one's life are there other ingredients that you weigh can I first tell you a story yes please okay so I want to tell you a counter story about a Purpose Driven Life okay but I like your question a lot and I think this will lead into it nicely we'll see we'll see if this works so I was in Los Angeles several years ago for a speaking event and I had a free afternoon and I was wandering around Venice Beach and I looked across the street and I saw

that there was a a guy standing on the top of a ladder painting the awning of his storefront and I instantly was able to see that the ladder was not steady and I have a very sever ladder sensitivity because I grew up on a farm and my mom was constantly telling me like go hold your father's ladder like CU my dad was always doing jackass things on on the ladder in the farm so just I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be and I was the perfect person for the job to cross

the street and just hold the guy's ladder and I I probably held his ladder for 45 minutes that day and he never saw me cuz he was doing his thing but I felt better CU I was like I just going to make sure this guy doesn't fall today and I'm here and it's a nice afternoon and and it was lovely and then when he started to come down and I felt like he was at a a safe level I just peeled off and he never saw me and I never saw his face and we never

had any interaction but we had this beautiful little change and as I was walking away cuz I was thinking about purpose anxiety and I was thinking what if that was the entire purpose of my life just that moment just that moment MH not things like that like try to be kind to people but that particular moment that they were like who however this thing works was like it's essential that that guy not fall off his ladder so we're going to need in like sector 7 you know block D on this date we're going to need

somebody to you know really be alert and notice that and we're going to send them in have the proper Farm training put her on a farm have her like grow up with a father who does Jack how are we going to get her to La make her a writ or give her a career have her have her read like every single thing I mean here's every single other thing I was doing in my life was just killing time until the moment when I was needed and that and I and maybe I'm not needed again after

that and and I would challenge anybody to prove to me that that isn't true because nobody can because nobody knows what going on yeah and nobody even knows what they're looking at right so so yes you could go a little too far into that and you could just smoke weed all day and be like are we just a paper weight in God's desk you know or like ask questions like that but but I think presents is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself and to the world and I think that that line that

I so often hear in meditation and on the page when I do two-way prayer of you'll be notified is the very opposite of a purpose-driven life because a purpose-driven life is some sense that I'm going to forge you know I'm going to like hack through this forest and make this Trail and I'm like it's going to be named after me and I'm going to like this is what I'll be remembered for and it's so self-centered right and you'll be notified is a much humbler position to take but it requires a great deal of listening and

and it requires like also lately I've been doing these one day a week without my phone because I want more moments like that where I notice somebody on the ladder because I'm not on my phone and I'm super addicted to my phone it's like no I'm not throwing shade against anyone who's addicted to their phone we all are you know not going to front that I don't stare at my phone 90 million hours a day I do but like that's why I take Thursdays off from it is because I don't want to miss what's actually

happening and I want to be present to the notification when it comes how did you choose Thursday is it because you might be social on Friday and the weekend okay you know Monday's like too much going on Thursday just felt like a day that the world could maybe operate without me or that I could operate without it so I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate and defend folks who may be in the purpose-- driven Lane for the moment and because I agree that at face value very self-absorbed self-centered however do you think it's possible and this is

this is a leading question so I may go nowhere but that you're more comfortable with death and mortality than a lot of people and that that insecurity uncertainty fear of death maybe that others have to a greater extent leads them to think about these things more than you wow that's such a did not think that was going to be the second half of the question and I also want to say here's the thing about purpose like if you if you know if you actually are one of those people who from Forever has known exactly what

you're supposed to be doing and you did become the master of it and you have monetized it and you are leaving a legacy and like you have what I like to call not a problem right like so just keep doing what you're doing like if you're you know but but if yoyo ma continue on yeah keep going you're doing great like but if yoyo Ma's a great so the chellow thing seems to be working for you like but if you're berating yourself because you feel like there was something you were supposed to be doing maybe

they just need you to hang out until you get notified of something that could be as small as holding the ladder I just want to say yeah and that maybe the future of the universe depended on that lad being held that day we don't know MH but your question about death I don't want to get cocky about like I don't care about death but it's not a fear that lives in me and I know it's a fear that lives in a lot of people I'm afraid of a much much much more afraid of people not

liking me than I am of dying um and that's what I have to suffer with more is like 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 like my work in this lifetime but death to me doesn't it doesn't keep me up at night it's not it's not I'm not in an argument against it I went with my partner rehea all the way to her death and I wasn't afraid of the death there were things

around it that were scary but has that always been the case or when did that fear drop away I'm afraid of pain don't get me wrong like I'm not interested at all and being in suffering maybe that's why I'm not afraid of death I'm like well that seems better than suffering so what's so bad about that so I don't know I mean I I come from like really pragmatic people my mom's a nurse my dad's a farmer like I saw a lot of death growing up my mom worked with the dying a lot by the

time it came it seemed like it was such a relief for everybody like there was grief but also people were like shredded by end of life stuff and she sat in a lot of dying people's houses for you know weeks and months on end and you know dying and struggling and then there was this like exhale of death you know like okay now that person has safely been delivered into death that's the feeling I felt when rehea died like those of us who were taking care of her and she had a pretty rockus death but

those of us who were taking care of her was like we safely got her there we safely got her dead I know that's a strange thing to say but like it was hard she was really willful it was a difficult death but but then the moment of the death the instant after the death there's such a such an incredible thing like something happens that's it isn't what it was like something leaves and and then this look that was on her face after she died of like absolute Delight like absolute Delight we were all gas at

it like what what did why is she so happy like she looks so happy so peaceful so now I I it feels like going home to me this place feels a lot weirder to me than death this planet's bananas you know like having a body I mean that's why I used to love to do psychedelics so much before I stopped doing all that stuff it's like who wants a body like who wants to be incarnated like like oh God it's so awkward so so no death like life feels scarier to me than death mhm how

did you choose to create your newsletter how did that make the cut for you how did that come in two things one is I'm trying to get off of the nicotine crackpipe booze bottle that is social media yeah and it's not easy easy to get off it because I feel like social media is like a party drug that like started off as really fun and now I heard somebody say so beautifully about social media I wish I could remember who said it uh everyone's now everyone's abusing it and no one's getting high anymore like the

fun like like everyone's addicted to it and the high is gone like and and I'm looking for ways I love connection I loved that feeling at the beginning of social media that we can all connect with one another yeah before everyone started peeing in the pool oh my God you know before everyone started propping up Putin and it's like wait what pool party is this like what what just happened to democracy like what's like we just discovered that this thing is very very very dangerous and venomous and and so I've been looking for another place

to go to be able to to have dialogue with people and substack so far has been a really good spot for that because it's it's like a reverse technology so could you explain yeah for people who don't even know what it is yeah how that works because I think a lot of people thinking of a newsletter they're like well hold on a second how does interaction work in that type of format you can comment so I send out a newsletter once a week it's essentially like a '90s technology it's a basically a Blog it's like

a high-end blog so people subscribe and then a newsletter you know goes out to them and there's video attachments and things and then you can you can comment and people can comment on each other's comments so it's very similar it looks very similar to what social media looks like but it's because it's a subscription it keeps the haters out yeah because it's self- selecting and I've been on this thing for a year and have had not one problem with anybody that's incredible I know it's incredible I mean it's also like a self- selecting thing because

this is a group of really lovely people who are doing this beautiful project together so that's how I decided to go over there what could people expect if they went to Elizabeth gilbert. substack do.com to subscribe to your newsletter well every week I will talk to you and I will talk about this process of learning how to write and speak to yourself toward yourself from a place of friendliness and love in order to combat this just awful virus of self-hatred that we all seem to be so infected with that comes also with perfectionism and lack

you know and just bringing a different voice into the cacophony of voices in your head and I'll read one of the letters that I've written to myself from Love and then there'll be a special guest and the special guests are really the best part because it's everybody from like act like Tony Colette did one and Glennon Doyle did one and musicians and Poets and artists and writers but then also like random people who I meet and I meet them in my travels and I'm like you are radiating so much light that I want to ask

you how why are you so lit like why are you so bright and shiny and what is that and what would love have to say to you if it could speak to you and people who I find who I meet and find inspiring there was a young woman who I met in Denmark this year I was on tour and so she had read my book big magic and because of that book she was Japanese and she was an engineer and she worked on a construction site in Japan but she'd always wanted to be an artist

and she started making art again after she read big magic and then she took the leap and she quit her construction job in Japan and saved her money and moved to Denmark and is going to graphic design school wow and her art is gorgeous and I was like hey will you do a letter from love because obviously there's something moving through you that's really special and I would love to hear what love has to say to you through you and so every week you'll get a special guest I've had children do it my friend's 11-year-old

son who was going through a really hard time being bullied at school he wrote one and and it was beautiful and love said to him not everybody has to like you you don't have to be everybody's cup of tea that was literally in this 11-year-old kid's you don't have to be everybody's cup of tea you know we love you like he felt there was a we it's really interesting a lot of people when they write the letters the voice that comes to them operates as a we it's some sort of Consortium of like like ancestors

and spirits and guides and it's like your team there's this feeling that people are getting where they're like do I have a team I seem to have some sort of a team that wants to love me um I've had developmentally disabled people do it and and access love there's this amazing artist named BJ who in my town in New Jersey there's this Arts Collective for developmental disabled people and he did a song about himself called I love BJ three different ways that's like one of the greatest songs I've ever heard that's basically just him talking

about how lovable he is so so that's what you can expect and and then if you're a subscriber you can post your own letters from love each week and what's happening in that Community is that people are creating like collectives and friendships with each other they're having meetups and cities around the world and they're starting to become like it's the kindest corner of the internet I truly think and slowly feel like it's dissolving and Breaking Down the Walls of self-hatred it's what we're doing over there I love it and people can go to Elizabeth gilbert.

substack docomo media but who cares anymore that's where my heart is my heart is in the substack newsletter and after years of doing this privately in my own space and then starting to gradually teach it in workshops I finally feel like I'm ready to like really bring this to anybody who wants to try it I love it I know I said that but I'll say it again and it's a solid cause solid Mission it's my purpose this your purpose the purpose that follows the presence uh is there anything else Liz that you'd like to say

any any requests you'd like to make my audience comments public complaints about my podcasting style anything at all that you'd like to say before we land the plane yes thank you for giving me the chance to make the public complaints about your podcasting style I've I've been crawling out of my skin with a bunch of I'll send you a bunch of notes no I just I just want to say can you imagine that something might love you there's a quote that's often misattributed to Einstein it wasn't Einstein it was this 19th century philosopher named Frederick

Myers and his friend asked him if there was one thing that that you want to know more than anything if you could ask the Sphinx one question what would it be and Meers said it would be this is the universe friendly and it's often misattributed to Einstein saying that Einstein said that the most important question you could ask about your life was is the universe friendly or not he didn't in fact say that but he did answer the question in his own way because he was examining that as well and he said subtle is the

Lord but malicious he is not and um I hate to gender God but anyway it's I think it is a really interesting question to live in for your entire life and it's a really interesting question that I ask myself when I'm in moments of great trial here on Earth School which as you know I've already expressed my belief is a very difficult curriculum and it's like is this a friendly universe or is this a malicious universe and if it's malicious then life is pointless suffering and if it's friendly the suffering might have a point and

and if it's friendly what might the point be and and where can I find that and and how do you want me to move through this now h assuming that it's friendly how do you want me to move through this terrible looking thing and and so the question I think that that I'm constantly bringing to people especially when they say I I try it and it just feels really weird and uncomfortable to say kind things to myself I'm like yeah because you've got Decades of training of saying garbage things to yourself and anytime you try

to do something new it's going to be hard and it's going to feel awkward and it's going to feel it definitely doesn't feel normal because Normal is your history's greatest garbage can you are just a pile of worthless not you know like it's you have never done enough you'll never be enough you should be ashamed of yourself who do you think you are I mean that's the normal dialogue that Annie Lamont calls Radio K that's playing in most of our heads at all the times and what about like you know our negative bias thinking is

always trained toward worst possible outcome but could it just as likely be that you are loved and lovable as Despicable and somebody who should be ashamed of themselves why not and why not try it on try it on like a pair of boots and take it for a walk and then do it again tomorrow and see what it does to your mind thank you Liz I love spending time with you I love spending time with you Tim yeah you are such a delight you are just such a delight and I never know where we're going

to go and I'm always so happy about where we went me it's it's a fun adventure always talking to you so thank you I really appreciate it yeah I really really appreciate the time and the thoughts and the wisdom and the reflections and to everybody listening as always we will have the show notes links to everything including Liz's substack at Elizabeth gilbert. substack docomo podcast and until next time be just a little bit Kinder than necessary not just to others but to yourself and and as always thanks for tuning in