Tim FerrissElizabeth Gilbert — How to Set Strong Boundaries and Find Your Inner Voice
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
105 min read · 21,225 words- 0:00 – 2:53
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- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... the one that you've already invested some time into.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh-huh.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And then you're like, "But I wanna 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."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] That is so smart. [upbeat music] Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss 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 Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her latest novel, City of Girls, was named an instant New York Times bestseller, a rollicking, sexy tale of the New York City theater world during the 1940s. You can go to ElizabethGilbert.Substack.com to 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.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It's so nice to see you. It's so nice to be back talking to you. I love it.
- TFTim Ferriss
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.
- 2:53 – 8:19
No cherished outcomes.
- TFTim Ferriss
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 is, 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 [laughs] I think it might be good medicine for a lot of what ails me.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
I don't think so.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 gonna 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 gonna 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."
- TFTim Ferriss
And how do you apply that then to your own lives? What led you to hold on to that particular piece?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It's my highest aspiration 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 wanna honor, "I have no cherished outcome," or whether I wanna sulk. I seem to be better at no cherished outcome in friendships than I am in 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 a sudden I can be disappointed, and all of a 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
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?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I think that, that my thing has always been, and this is why it's been so interesting for me being single and celibate by choice over the last five years, there's nobody to blame, which is so great.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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're the greatest, and if I'm feeling terrible, it's because they're the worst. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 euphorias are happening. This is like a weather system that's happening that isn't related to anybody.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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. [laughs] Should come with a warning.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, a lot in
- 8:19 – 12:35
Self-compassionate ownership of responsibility.
- TFTim Ferriss
life should come with a warning.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I know.
- TFTim Ferriss
So I have quite a few follow-ups, but I'm gonna try to put them in some semblance of a coherent order. So my f- 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 Colonna, 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 in this-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Such a good question
- TFTim Ferriss
... it's a really good one. It's a really good one. But in-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Wow
- TFTim Ferriss
... the, 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 in 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, [laughs] how do you work on yourself without picking on yourself, if that makes any sense?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh, that's such a good question. God, I love that question, how are you complicit in-- What, can you say it again?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don't want?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Wow. Another word for that is who are you blaming your life on today?
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Well, I think the only honest and humble answer that I can give to that question is I don't know.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And I don't know where that line is, but it's easier for me when I'm not in a relationship.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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... Yeah, it's so strange. It's like-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... I'm sure you, oh, 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, in the mirror and being like, "I'm in here." Like, it's so weird.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 Fortune 500 company constantly, you know, going in this upward angled 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 bacterias. 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-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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 gotta, like, adapt to their chemistry and to their... Like, it's, it's, it's, I, it's hard. I don't know.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, it's a lot of variables.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And I think it's hard is a really good way to start with self-compassion.
- TFTim Ferriss
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 corrected that and said, "One of the things that I hear."
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Why did you change that?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Because
- 12:35 – 20:55
The daily practice of writing letters from love.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I believe that I am loved beyond measure by a magnificent, complex, amused God who has given me power over practically nothing. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And, um, yeah, 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 very important.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It's like that, I think, with control and power. Like, I, I have very little control, 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 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-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... "It's really har- it's really hard. Like, I d- I'm not telling you this should be easy."
- TFTim Ferriss
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?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It's deepened. I didn't... I, I think one of the things I'm so lucky about, my friend Rob Bell 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You know, like, like I was l- I, it s- put me into an awestruck state, and I remember go- me 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
'Cause 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 gonna do well with a t- a God that's too serious. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
How did you start that practice? When did it start or even begin germinating?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It started in desperation. When I was in my, going through my first divorce, I was 30, and the well 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 [laughs] like quite literally. Everybody was moving in this one direction and my entire intellectual, spiritual, and physical system collapsed, which I now know, I now see that as an act of God. I, I now see that there was, that that's sort of the Tao, 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 gonna have to notice that this is not the life for you." But I was also in so much shame of, of failure and letting people down and like we just bought this house. Like I just felt like the biggest asshole 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 five years ago. And I was in the deepest depression of my life and I didn't have much of a 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 gonna focus on. Here's what you need to do now." And I was given this instruction, and it, 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 f- 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 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 know, 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 twenty 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-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... before I can get that low.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And that voice doesn't change.
- 20:55 – 29:33
Two-way prayer vs. one-way prayer.
- TFTim Ferriss
All right. This is, this is getting into the, the juicy bits-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... that I love to wade 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-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... does it differ in impact?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I mean, it is a dangerous... I mean, especially people who grew up in what is ca- 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 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Too busy saying Marco to hear the Polo.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah. [laughs] I was like, "Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco." And, you know, God's like, "Ca- can I just... Can I get-
- TFTim Ferriss
Can I, can I-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... can I get... Can I just... There's something I want to say."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... instructions?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 Rumi or Mary Oliver or Walt Whitman. Song of Myself from Walt Whitman, which is essentially just a big letter from love. M- 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. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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, "Yeah, but."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, there-- 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 like part of the reason that two-way prayer is so beautiful is that you ask the question and then you stop talking.
- TFTim Ferriss
You get your opening statement and that's it.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Right? And your opening statement is-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
..."Dear love, what would you have me know today?"
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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, an affectionate nickname. My love, my child, my, my sweetheart, my little one. I hear little one a lot. My little one.
- 29:33 – 32:31
The male approach to this practice.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Because you know those people, and I know those people, and I don't know that it's such a gentle-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... loving life that they're leading.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. I, I think I know one of them intimately. Um, you know? [laughs] At least-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... somebody, somebody who kind of assumes that's the, the baseline-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... minimal acceptable outcome, right? Is-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... 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- A ubiquitous set of challenges when you look at the number of friends, listeners, readers, et cetera, who have attempted this?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
That's such a good question. It's hard to know because women tend to follow me more than men do.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 Arshay 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, 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, I wanna start a, I wanna start, like, a, the first Black rowing team or the first Black crew.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Do any of you guys wanna do it?" And he was like, "Yes, I absolutely wanna do it." And, and he now has become this ambassador, teaching rowing all over the world in South Africa. And, and, and his letter from Love that he shared is one of the f- my favorite ones that I've ever, that I've ever seen because he was addre- his letter was addressed to that little boy who he was, who saw more violence before he was eight 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, turn 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.
- 32:31 – 35:02
How do you feel toward yourself vs. about yourself?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
There's something that I've learned in IFS, internal family systems therapy.
- TFTim Ferriss
I was just gonna bring that up.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah. I mean, this is all-
- TFTim Ferriss
The hive mind is working.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It all works-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... within IFS too, but, but there's... One of the things they say in IFS a lot is a prepositional change. How do you feel towards yourself versus how do you feel about yourself?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. May I just give a little bit of context for folks?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
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 Schwartz 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 therapy, and it can be very, very powerful. So I just wanted to give people a little bit of context.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Beautifully described. Yeah, I've heard it described as group therapy for one. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Um, and he actually, Dick Schwartz, who founded it, started off as a group therapist, and when he started doing-
- TFTim Ferriss
Makes sense
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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?
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
So yeah, that's a really beautiful summation of what it is. But the difference between even... I mean, try it, Tim, actually. Can you feel the difference physically between if I ask you how you feel about yourself and how you feel toward yourself?
- TFTim Ferriss
They're totally different.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Totally. You feel it?
- TFTim Ferriss
Because toward yourself, I'm taking a friendly observer perspective.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
There's a built-in empathy.
- TFTim Ferriss
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-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... already have had in my head. Whereas how do I feel towards myself? That's not a construction I use. So it benevolently hijacks the whole thought process.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Instantly. You know, you ask me how I feel about myself, I'll show you a list of everything that needs improvement.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You know? And I'm wired to constantly be self-improving, and I'm sure you are too.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
How do I feel toward myself? I'm like, oh man, you're tired.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- 35:02 – 41:48
Understanding self-hatred to foster self-friendliness.
- TFTim Ferriss
Let's actually hop from that. I'll mention one thing, then I wanna 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? Five-year-old Tim. Okay. What would you say to five-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?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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. [laughs] You know what I mean? Like just how about the common courtesy you would show 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. So Sharon Salzberg, do you know Sharon Salzberg-
- TFTim Ferriss
I do. Uh-huh
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... the meditation teacher? So she met the Dalai Lama, and she's written about this. She met the Dalai 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 rock star who he became. He 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's 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 enough-ness and original sin, everybody in the room was like, "No, I'm the one I hate."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You know? And, and he's like, "This doesn't even make sense."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 workings of the human mind, but this is new to me, and this is very disturbing."
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, this is not okay. And, and essentially after that, he said, "This is where we're gonna 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 Salzberg the other day, and she was saying, in Buddhism, they say, uh, you know, that one of the things that 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 Dalai 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And he was like, "Okay, grandmother?" Like, he was just-
- TFTim Ferriss
Scratch that
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... scratch that. He was like-
- TFTim Ferriss
Cousin?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... oh, has anybody ever said a kind word to you? You know, like it was, you know, and it, it really spotlights this sort of terrible dysfunction that we all kind of collectively have grown up in.
- TFTim Ferriss
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 secularly, right? They, they-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... they may experience it in the absence of a religious upbringing-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... as would be the case for me. Any other recommendations or thoughts?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You just made me realize I didn't answer your second question about whether people-
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... who have some sort of religious or spiritual-
- TFTim Ferriss
Ah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... basis find this easier. Not necessarily, because some people still are praying to what James Joyce called the hangman God.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And you're not gonna get a letter of unconditional love from the hangman God. You know? You're gonna get a list of complaints about things that you need to do better.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 identify. I'm, I'm not even gonna 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 gonna ask love to show up and love isn't going to show up, and that would be more painful than not asking.
- 41:48 – 49:24
Setting boundaries and dealing with those who refuse to honor them.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Sorry, but you had a-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... second question.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Well, the question was, I suppose, related, and that is, outside of writing this letter you've described, what other-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... what other approaches or habits, anything at all, have you found helpful or seen helpful for others in-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... counteracting sort of s- [laughs] self-antagonism, right? So fostering self-friendliness, in other words.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Boundaries is what comes to mind, and some really hardcore ones.
- TFTim Ferriss
Makes me think of our mutual friend Martha Beck.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah. Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Who you've known a lot longer than I have.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Tell me what made you think of her for that.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, the integrity cleanse-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... 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-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Or if you want to even be in this conversation.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. If your sister's like, "Yeah, are you coming over for the baby shower?" And you're like, "Oh, I'd love to," beep, beep, beep. Like, "No, actually, I really have-"
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I don't want to
- TFTim Ferriss
... "zero interest." [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
[laughs] Yeah, I have gotten There are people who I am not skilled... This is how I word it because I, I wanna keep it on me. I'm not skilled enough to be able to hold my serenity when I'm around them.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 jujitsu 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."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, I come home sick when I'm around those people.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 dysregulated.
- TFTim Ferriss
You mean like a substance?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Or... Yeah.
- 49:24 – 51:33
Why (and how) Elizabeth avoids big family holiday gatherings.
- TFTim Ferriss
And-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Some people need to be institutionalized. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 gonna 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, w- I wanna have one-on-one time with you, I wanna sit at the table with you, I wanna go for walks with you, I wanna go for bike rides with you. I'm not coming for Christmas. I can't."
- TFTim Ferriss
Why is that? I'm so curious. Just as someone who y- you picked my one and, one and favorite holiday.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh, do you love it? That's so wonderful.
- TFTim Ferriss
Which is fine.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And great, but I'm curious, what is it about the gathering?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Cherished outcomes.
- TFTim Ferriss
Cherished outcomes, meaning that you feel like you need to perform?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh, 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And everyone's so tense. And it's like, "I... Can we... Why do we have to do this?" [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And the answer is, you don't have to.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
But the people who love it should do it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
I just sit by the fire with my dog and drink hot chocolate, so.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
That's always fantastic.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's not very stressful f- in my case.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
No, I actually like spending holidays alone, because they're quiet days. When you're alone, like, the phone's not ringing and work emails aren't coming in. Like, some of my happiest days have been holidays that I spent alone. I enjoy it.
- 51:33 – 53:11
Comfort in solitude.
- TFTim Ferriss
Have you always been comfortable with solitude or extended periods of being alone? Has that always been the case?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It's a mix. But I love, yeah, 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 wanna... Like, what do we wanna do? It's so... How do we wanna spend this?" And I'm a writer. I chose to be a writer. It's a very solitary-
- TFTim Ferriss
It is solitary
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... time, and I love that.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, my most joyful moments of my life have been alone with my work. And I remember hearing Michael Chabon 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." [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- 53:11 – 1:04:19
Much abuzz about Elizabeth’s new ‘do.
- TFTim Ferriss
So for people who can't see, and even for people who can see video, your hairstyle has changed-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yes
- TFTim Ferriss
... since we last spoke. How did that come to be? What is... Is there a significance there?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah, so I buzzed off my hair, gosh, about nine 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 bu- just buzz it off. Just bu- like, just buzz it off."
- TFTim Ferriss
Take it off. Take it off.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Just take it off. Like, I just wanna be free. I wanna 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."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And then I had this amazing awakening, and it was last year. I went to an event in New York, and there were 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And they all looked great, like yours. Like, they all looked great.
- TFTim Ferriss
Thank you.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, it was a bunch of silver foxes. They all had lines in their faces.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
They looked fantastic. And all the women had long or long-ish 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 The keratin treatment you had to have for that hair to look silky. I know, like, the dye job that you had to pay for. I know how much those highlights cost. I know that only two percent 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, 'cause I know I ain't dumb, and I know I ain't blonde." [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
So you did it yourself?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
I was gonna say, now we can trade tips. [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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."
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And I can't imagine any reason to ever have hair again.
- 1:04:19 – 1:05:34
Boundaries, priorities, and mysticism: a relaxed woman as a radical concept.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
to believe.
- TFTim Ferriss
Is that the key ingredient of the mysticism for you? Because there, there are different forms for sure-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... that mysticism can take. I mean, you mentioned Hafez, you mentioned Rumi. I mean, you have different, let's just call it subsections of various religions that are associated with mysticism like 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?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Well, there's love.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
So we have to then go back to you don't have to win this, right? You're not gonna be graded. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 [laughs] that it will happen or it won't.
- 1:05:34 – 1:08:05
What mysticism brings to Elizabeth’s reality.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like even we know that our best laid plans 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."
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, "You don't even know what you're looking at," and it just pierces my certainty, 'cause 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 Prize winning 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."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
"And, and that what we used to think was natural law is at best some very local ordinances." [laughs] And, um, like we really, we're like five Einsteins 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Because then the stakes suddenly become a lot lower. And 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You're still in the virtual reality game. Play it nicely, but-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... but play it knowing that you don't even know what you're looking at.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- 1:08:05 – 1:10:14
A better question to ask than “What do I want?”
- TFTim Ferriss
I am 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 times too, hidden risks, right? But it also, depending on how you kind of play the game and which poetry you read [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
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-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... a similar settling experience. I mean, it's sometimes enhanced, so I can't recommend that to a broad audience, but. [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Well, no, 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?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like Steve Jobs' last words. "Wow. Wow. Wow." Like, whatever he saw in those last moments. "Wow. Wow. Wow."
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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?"
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And, and I think that it's actually quite the opposite for me. Like, probably wrong, you know?
- TFTim Ferriss
Human history-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You know? [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... that's almost a book title. [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You know? So, so maybe there's a better question-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... to be asking than what do I want.
- TFTim Ferriss
Have you any thoughts on candidates for that better question?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
What would you have me know? Love.
- TFTim Ferriss
What would you have me know?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I mean,
- 1:10:14 – 1:18:00
Elizabeth’s hard-ass approach to project commitment.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
that's a really good one.
- TFTim Ferriss
This makes me wonder how you choose... And I've wanted to ask you this for a while, and 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.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Although that's a pretty-- it, 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?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I'm kind of a hard ass about it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Great.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 a couple weeks, couple months into it, couple days, another idea comes, and, and that idea seems more interesting than-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... the one that you've already invested some time into.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh-huh.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 oftentimes 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."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] That is so smart.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Right?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yes.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Because then it's legit. It's like, "No, I've got this better idea." But if y- but do you have 30 unfinished things?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 quar- a third of a way, a quarter of a way, fifth of the way in a project, and, and then something so much more interesting comes along. And I'm like-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
I was just gonna say the hottest girl at the dance.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
The hottest girl at the dance, and it's-
- TFTim Ferriss
Just showed up
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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, and the hot..." But what I know is that if I abandon my, let's call it wife-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- 1:18:00 – 1:23:01
Creativity guidance from Elizabeth’s higher power.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Anything else that you think contributes to the clarity and the not switching planes midair?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I think part of it is that I enjoy it. I enjoy the work.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 torment 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?
- TFTim Ferriss
Hm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Why shouldn't that be a clue as to-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 chaos thing that's going on." Like, "You don't, you don't have to be part of this family gathering." [laughs] "You don't have to rescue this person. You don't have to..." Like, the... I, I get a lot of you don't have tos. You don't have to do... There's a 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 wanna stop. Too bad." [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] I've given you 47 hall passes-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... and this is not gonna be the 48th.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
This isn't one of them, you know?
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And sucks to suck. Get back to work.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I'll see you on the page, you know? I know you're tired, I know you wanna take a day off. You're not having a day off, you know?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And, and I think the trust that has built up between me and that higher power over the decades-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... largely because of the things that I am let off the hook for-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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 hi- 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."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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."
- TFTim Ferriss
However. [laughs]
- 1:23:01 – 1:26:39
How The Morning Pages influenced Eat, Pray, Love.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. [laughs] So I, I wanna actually ask a question that is following up on something in our last conversation, and I would say I'd definitely put it in the category of me time in a sense, which is related to The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. So if I remember correctly, I am looking at notes, so hopefully I'm getting it right, that Eat Pray Love would not exist without The Artist's 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?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh, yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And I... For instance, one homework assignment that I've never done from The Artist's 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?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
The artist's date is hard.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It's hard. It's hard. I still have trouble figuring that one out sometimes.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
So here I can tell you exactly one. I can tell you exactly one.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, please.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 there are twists and turns on like, "If 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 g- 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Because I think one of the m- mysterious and magical things and weird things about our brain is like the secrets we can keep from ourselves.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And I was like, apparently I really wanna fucking learn to speak Italian.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And I would not have said that that was like a massive priority of my life.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
But apparently my soul knew that it was an instruction 'cause it was like Italian, Ital- I kept seeing Italian, and I was like, "Why Italian?"
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You know? Like, it's not useful unless you are in Italy. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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. It never brings a spiritual answer, 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-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... without knowing why. Like, just because it kept showing up on the page. And so I did six months of Italian classes, like night school for divorced ladies at the Y.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 gonna do with it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And then I was like, "Well, wait, I wanna use this Italian. Like, I wanna go to Italy and speak this language, but I also have been studying meditation a lot lately, and I wanna go to India. I also wanna go back," and then, like, out of that was born Eat, Pray, Love.
- 1:26:39 – 1:28:39
More productive questions to ask than “Why?”
- TFTim Ferriss
It's true for my phone, too. [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
You mentioned that why is not a spiritual question and doesn't give you spiritual answers, something along those lines.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Could you elaborate on that?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Any time 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-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... and I go, "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. [laughs] Because I said so.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Because is. I wrote a poem once called The Shortest Conversation I Ever Had with God, and it's God, colon, why. Oh, sorry, me, "But why?" Which is, again, the ego.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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?" Answers, 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," [laughs] you know?
- TFTim Ferriss
Take a nap.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 we're five Einsteins away from even having the right questions to get the right answers, but, but why is a, it's, it turns into a black hole that I just fall into, and it's this great echoing silence.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, it can be stepping into the quicksand of blame and finger-pointing, even if that's fingers pointing back at yourself, which it often is. That makes sense.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
That makes sense. And
- 1:28:39 – 1:33:47
The pointlessness of purpose anxiety.
- TFTim Ferriss
I, I was asking you about choosing projects. I want to ask you about anxiety, specifically purpose anxiety.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh, yay.
- TFTim Ferriss
What is purpose anxiety?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You're smiling, so I see you already know, and-
- TFTim Ferriss
No, I don't. I don't. I mean, I can-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Well, it's kind of right there in the title
- TFTim Ferriss
... I, I'm, I mean, based on the words, I can, I'm imagining what-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Right, you can work it out in context.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Yeah, I think I can work it out.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Well, I mean, the story that most of us were taught was some va- variation of, "Each of you is born with, uh, 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 eight billion people on the planet, so already, here's some pressure 'cause it's gotta be something that-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... nobody else can do, which is gonna be unlikely 'cause 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 at that thing. You have to monetize it. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 are not off the hook even when you die 'cause you must leave a legacy, and you must change the world. So no pressure, but that's-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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 a, you must leave your mark on the world, and I think the world at this point is like, "I wish maybe that you stop leaving marks on me." [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, maybe we could use a little less of that.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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've 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 enough-ness to it that feels a lot like capitalism.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh-huh.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, there's 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 fucking legacy. [laughs] I'm sorry.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
But it's like-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, yeah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... that's it, you know? You're like, how much did I make? How much did I leave? How much did I impact?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Meanwhile, like, the world is happening, and you're in it, and you're missing it.
- 1:33:47 – 1:39:42
Balancing presence with other aspects of a well-lived life.
- TFTim Ferriss
Or at the very least, thinking about legacy differently, but one thing I am curious to hear your thoughts on is how do you blend... In your life, do you try to blend presence with other ingredients-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... for what you deem a life well-lived? And, and, and [laughs] I'll tell you a story. [laughs] So the story takes place in, at Omega Institute, and I love Omega Institute, and I've spent time there in upstate New York. They have amazing classes. The one place that they have consistent wifi is in the cafeteria, coffee shop area where people eat their meals or some of them.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I can picture it well. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
All right. So I would sometimes go because I was spending time in upstate New York, beautiful campus, amazing groundhogs everywhere. [laughs] So I would go sit in the cafe, and I would write, and I remember this conversation [laughs] happening next to me. So I wasn't getting any work done. But I was eavesdropping on this conversation, and it was this man and this woman, and the guy asked the woman, "You know, hi. 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-dual." [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh my God.
- TFTim Ferriss
And-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh, that's like a New Yorker cartoon. That's so good.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, it was so good. It was so good.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh, God. It's so good.
- TFTim Ferriss
And I was like, and I was like, okay, so there is maybe a, a shadow side-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... of presence, which could be a lot of navel-gazing.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
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?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Can I first tell you a story?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yes, please.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Okay. So I want to tell you a counter story about a purpose-driven life.
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And I have a very severe ladder sensitivity because I grew up on a farm. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And my mom was constantly telling me like, "Go hold your father's ladder," like, because my dad was always doing jackass things on, on the ladder in the farm. So just, I had no- 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And he never saw me because he was doing his thing, but I felt better because I was like, "I'm just gonna 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 s- 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 exchange. And as I was walking away, because I was thinking about purpose anxiety, and I was thinking, "What if that was the entire purpose of my life?"
- TFTim Ferriss
Just that moment.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Just that moment.
- 1:39:42 – 1:44:30
Comfort with mortality.
- TFTim Ferriss
So I'm gonna play devil's advocate and defend folks who may be in the purpose-driven lane for the moment.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
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 it 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-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... leads them to think about these things more than you?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Wow, that's such a... Did not think that was gonna be the second half of the question. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And I also wanna say, here's the thing about purpose. Like, if you, if you kn- 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-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
So just keep doing what you're doing.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, if you're co- you know, but if, but if you're-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, yeah. Yo-Yo Ma, continue on.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Keep going. You're doing great. Like, but if... [laughs] Yo-Yo Ma's a great example. Yeah. The cello thing seems to be working for you, like.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 wanna say.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And that maybe the future of the universe depended on that ladder being held that day. We don't know.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
But your question about death, I don't wanna get cocky about, like, "I don't care about death."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
But it's not a fear that lives in me.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And I know it's a fear that lives in a lot of people. I'm afraid of... I'm much, much, much more afraid of people not liking me than I am of dying. Um, [laughs] 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 it. This is, like, my work-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
.. in this lifetime.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 Raya all the way to her death, and I wasn't afraid of the death. There were things around it that were scary, but-
- 1:44:30 – 1:45:49
What motivates Elizabeth’s Letters from Love newsletter?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. How did you choose to create your newsletter? How did that make the cut for you? How did that come in?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Two things. One is I'm trying to get off of the nicotine crack pipe booze bottle that is social media.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And it's not easy to get off it because I feel like social media's like a party drug that like started off as really fun and now... I heard somebody say so beautifully about social media.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, everyone's addicted to it and the high is gone. Like-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Before everyone started peeing in the pool.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Oh my God.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You know, before everyone started propping up Putin, and it's like-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... wait, what pool party is this? Like, what, what just-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... happened to democracy? Like, what's ha- like, we've 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. 'Cause it's, it's like a reverse technology.
- TFTim Ferriss
So could you explain-
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yeah, for people who don't even
- 1:45:49 – 1:51:16
What can potential readers expect from this newsletter?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
know what it is?
- TFTim Ferriss
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?"
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Because it's self-selecting. And I've been on this thing for a year and have had not one problem with anybody.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's incredible.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I know, it's incredible.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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.
- TFTim Ferriss
S- what could people expect if they went to elizabethgilbert.substack.com to subscribe to your newsletter?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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, 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 Toni Collette 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 wanna 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?"
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
And people who I find, who I meet and find inspiring, there was a, 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Wow.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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...
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
"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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It's some sort of consortium of, 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.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
It'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 in cities around the world, and they're starting to become... Like, it's the kindest corner of the internet, I truly think.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- 1:51:16 – 1:54:37
“Is the universe friendly?” — Frederic W. H. Myers
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Uh, is there anything else, Liz, that you'd like to say? Any, any requests you'd like to make of my audience?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Comments, public complaints about my podcasting style, anything at all that you'd like to say before we land the plane?
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Yes, thank you for giving me the chance to make the public complaints about your podcasting style.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I've, I've been crawling out of my skin with a bunch of cr-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 Frederic W. H. 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 Myers said it would be this: Is the universe friendly?
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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?
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
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 tried 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 gonna be hard and it's gonna feel awkward and it's gonna feel... It definitely doesn't feel normal, 'cause normal is you're history's greatest garbage can. You are just a pile of worthless noth- 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 Lamott calls Radio K-Fucked that's playing in-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
... 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.
- 1:54:37 – 1:55:24
Parting thoughts.
- TFTim Ferriss
Thank you, Liz. I love spending time with you.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
I love spending time with you, Tim.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
You are such a delight. You are just such a delight. It... I never know where we're gonna go, and I'm always so happy about where we went.
- TFTim Ferriss
Me neither. [laughs]
- EGElizabeth Gilbert
Like, it's, it's a fun adventure always talking to you, so thank you. I really appreciate it.
- TFTim Ferriss
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 ElizabethGilbert.Substack.com. You'll be able to find all that at tim.blog/podcast. And until next time, be just a little bit kinder than necessary, not just to others, but to yourself. And as always, thanks for tuning in.
Episode duration: 1:55:35
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