After reading Eat Pray Love, I just want to go to Rome and eat as much pasta as possible, find a beautiful place to meet with God and go to a tropical island to get my groove on.
Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything across Italy, India and Indonesia is a memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. The book highlights her journey of self-discovery following her divorce. Elizabeth travels to Italy, where she eats and enjoys life. She travels to India where she grows closer to God and finds spirituality. Then finally travels to Indonesia, where she falls in love, but intends on attaining balance. This book is incredible and was adapted into a movie in 2010 with Julia Roberts playing Elizabeth.
At the beginning of the book, the author focuses on the impact that her current marriage has had on her. She describes an event that she went to, where a woman was just shown a gallery but then spent the rest of the night tending to her baby. The author describes her as barefoot, washing dishes and also tending to the baby whilst the husband was doing nothing. This isn’t something she wanted. She never wanted kids and the marriage wasn’t quite what she wanted.
As I was reading, I found myself questioning the decisions I’ve made in my life. Did I want kids or was it something that society said I needed? Did I want to be married? Did I want the white picket fence, the garden, the guest room, the pool, and the family? By the end of the book, the answer was yes. I want children, I want a husband, I want a white picket fence, I want a career, and I want to travel. One thing I understand is that all this isn’t going to happen at the same time. And that’s okay. People often feel that they are simply failures because they haven’t achieved their goals by a certain age. Overall, there is a season for everything, and time to focus on specific things. And I’m okay with waiting.
Having the writer discuss her issues made me realise how truly different women are. Whilst having children and settling down seems to be quite common, this goal isn’t for everyone. Our society is moving away from judgment towards women, but we still have some time to go.
Another aspect that inspired me after reading the first part of it was Elizabeth's body confidence. She’s been to Italy and been to the most beautiful places, eaten the most beautiful food and hung out with the most incredible people. She describes weight gain to fit into a perfect size of jeans.
She ing like never in her life had a man ever told her not to take a close-off because of a little bit of muffin top.
I don’t think we should ever gain or lose weight trying to impress a man. I think sometimes we are so focused on weight we forget to enjoy our life. On this realisation, she ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and she loved it.
I wished for a little bit more clarification on this part, but the writer talked about her depression and described it as two people who almost were coming to ensnare her. The writer expresses feeling strange because she had been having such a great day and suddenly she just felt this huge surge of loneliness and a lack of confidence due to her depression. She described that she stopped taking her medication and therefore she was feeling this way. The way she comes back to the depression is very unusual for me because I know people tend to suffer from depression for weeks and weeks on end. I wondered if moving away from her marriage and simply getting some sleep was enough to end her suffering from depression.
It felt like the writer was just trying to make it seem like your depression can go just like that if you happen to be in Italy and you’re eating the best food in the world. It’s probably my main critique of the book because I know that people who suffer from depression know that it doesn’t just go like that.
By far my favourite chapter of the book. Whilst I’ve been in quarantine my bible has been my best friend. I haven’t spent that much time with God in the past. Previously, I have had some scattered mornings where I managed to read a chapter in the bible and others where I barely had time to pray. I often forget to pray which is the most important part of spending time with GOD. For someone religious, I was curious to see what her experience was. I’m not into yoga or gurus but I wanted to keep an open mind as a Christian. I was curious to see what her journey was and how she grew closer to God... As the chapter progressed, she described her method of meditation, and this pulled me in. I’ve never been very good at meditating and I’ve tried a few times using Headspace and have unfortunately never prevailed. It’s not something that I have incorporated as a habit into my life. I was curious to see if I would have the same effect as Elizabeth. In the first few pages, she describes how she struggles with it. She would sit there for what felt like hours only to realise that it was only a few minutes. She was starting to hate her time in India. Her growth especially with meditation and monotonous praise and worship fascinated me.
This whole chapter forced me to reflect on my relationship with God and so far this journey has improved. This was a beautifully written chapter, with real meaningful characters that had tragic and beautiful stories. I found myself craving quiet time and wondering and trying to meditate the same way she meditated. Her experience was so profound that to this day I am still trying to meditate like her.
In the book's last chapter, Elizabeth visits Bali to spend time with Ketut, a traditional Balinese healer (aka doctor). She talks about a few things she learns with him including ways to get closer to God and fantastic ways to meditate. She also talks about the body culture and how small Bali is. If anything it made me wanna go there and explore a little bit maybe for a week or so.
She then met a guy, who was a little older than her and made her feel very very beautiful. Fortunately, this chapter was not too intersecting for me because I already have a king in my life. So this part was a little bit less exciting for me than it should’ve been. One thing I loved was that she let herself fall in love. In the last few years before I got into a serious relationship, I was always a little bit scared of losing a bit of God. I feel like I’ll be further away from God, further away from my career, which means I’ll be further away from my goals, which may be more disconnected. However, this time made me realise that I don’t have to compromise. It also made me realise I need to stop being scared of giving myself to somebody else. Being able to share my life with someone and having someone there to support me, someone who doesn’t have to, someone who does not have an obligation to, is a blessing.
Summary
"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
The main thing I realised from Eat, Pray, Love is that women are different and when you attain happiness hold on to it. My absolute favourite statement is, "Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
To the reader: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. *This post contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Purchase the books mentioned:
Comments