eat, pray, love

A friend (you know who you are:)) loaned this book ("Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert...gleichnamiger Titel in der deutschen Fassung, uebrigens) to me just recently to read over the holidays. Let the bookcover or amazon tell you more details..for my purposes it suffices to say that it's about a woman in her early thirties coming out of a bad, long divorce, who decides to get away from it all to follow her love for traveling and to search for herself in Italy, India and Indonesia. I have just started the book, but came across two parts last night that I wanted to share, because they struck me as interesting, because they encourage self-acceptance, self-forgiveness and just being in the present with whatever feeling or thought arises. She reports these thoughts at a time when she is trying to recover from depression - she just got off her meds (because, as I think for good reasons that she also states, she has issues with taking antidepressants) and for the first time feels the onset of depression again. She reports about hearing this inner voice of kindness and reason that speaks "to her" in her darkest hours and at this time it says:

"I'm here. I love you. I don't care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it - I will love you through that, as well. If you don't take the medication, I will love you, too. There is nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than depression and I am braver than loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me." (p.54)

Again, this is the author speaking to herself.

A little later on, struck by loneliness yet again and looking for a way to come out of it, she reports that "voice" again:

"So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings." (p.65)

I'll leave you with that. I just wanted to share it, as I think it's an interesting and strong approach to take for someone who is currently going through a difficult time. From a psychological and human point of view...