You Think You Know Elizabeth Gilbert. You Don’t.

Summary

Modern Love Podcast Summary

Episode: "You Think You Know Elizabeth Gilbert. You Don’t."

Host: Anna Martin
Guest: Elizabeth Gilbert
Air Date: September 17, 2025

---

Overview

This episode offers an unflinching, deeply personal conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert—the celebrated author of "Eat, Pray, Love." In light of her new memoir, "All the Way to the River," Gilbert and host Anna Martin discuss the story behind the memoir: her transition from enlightenment-seeker to a woman nearly destroyed by co-dependency, addiction, and the death of a partner. The conversation explores the myth of self-understanding, loss, madness, and ultimately, recovery, as Gilbert reveals the complexity of her most intimate relationship—the one that upended her life.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Processing the Collapse (02:10–02:57)

• Gilbert recounts the emotional chaos of her marriage ending and beginning a relationship with her best friend, Rayya, who was terminally ill:
  • Journaling was her coping mechanism.
  • "It was like the ground fell out from underneath me... that's an experience that I now recognize as being a universal human experience." (02:15, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Immediate confusion and disorientation, followed by hindsight and slow realization.

2. The Deep Bond with Rayya (03:16–05:22)

• Gilbert details the transformation of her friendship with Rayya into romance:
  • Their relationship was a “slow burn,” evolving from hairdresser/client to neighbors, muses, inspiration, and finally, romantic partners.
  • "This is more than, like, the feelings that I have for her are very. Inconvenient." (04:08, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • She compartmentalized her feelings until Rayya’s diagnosis forced the truth out.
  • The book functions as a forensic examination of how things descended into chaos.

3. Addiction and the Masks We Wear (06:04–09:11)

• Rayya’s secret addiction and the persona she projected:
  • Rayya was in recovery from heroin and cocaine but relapsed into alcohol and other substance use.
  • “She could present as the most confident person you’ve ever met in your entire life, as can I.” (07:01, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • The challenge of capturing Rayya’s “electrifying presence” for readers.
  • Rayya’s “fearlessness” was both a strength and a mask for deeper insecurities and demons.
  • “She would say, ‘I’m so much scarier than anyone, and my darkness and my demons are scarier than anything I’ve ever seen. So no one scares me.’” (08:46, Elizabeth Gilbert)

4. Radical Honesty and Codependency (09:18–15:06)

• Their relationship was marked by honesty—but also destructive codependency:
  • “There aren’t many people who say, ‘Tell me the truth,’ who want it and who… mean it. She would go in the cave and dig it out and be like, ‘I smell bullshit. What’s actually going on?’” (10:15, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Both women hid their truths: Rayya about her substance use, Liz about her compulsive need to revolve her life around others.
  • The term “LAVA” (Love, Attention, Validation, Acceptance) as an addict’s compulsion.
  • Gilbert acknowledges making Rayya into her “God”—a symptom of her own love addiction.

5. The Descent: Addiction and Crisis (15:07–27:44)

• The spiral into chaos and almost unfathomable actions:
  • As Rayya’s cancer worsened, so did her substance abuse—culminating in mixing opioids and cocaine.
  • Gilbert reads a searing passage where she confesses to planning Rayya’s murder out of exhaustion, desperation, and codependent insanity.
  • "I mean, I'm the nice lady who wrote Eat Pray Love. And I came very close to premeditatedly and cold-bloodedly murdering my partner because she had taken her affection away from me and because I was extremely tired." (21:10, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Explores the terrifying potential of codependency and the breakdown of boundaries.

6. Confrontation, Divine Intervention, and Seeking Help (27:45–36:15)

• Turning Point and Breaking the Cycle:
  • In the throes of desperation, Gilbert describes a moment where Rayya intuits her murderous intent: “Don’t you start plotting against me now, Liz.” (27:50, Rayya via Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Gilbert contemplates killing herself instead.
  • Spiritual realization: “If you are seriously contemplating murdering another person or yourself, it’s quite likely you have reached the end of your power… maybe you should call somebody and ask for help.” (30:00, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Acknowledges “toxic self-reliance”—a legacy of believing help is unavailable.

---

7. The Start of Recovery (32:06–43:16)

• Admitting She Needed Help, and the Path Forward:
  • Gilbert recounts calling multiple friends and being guided towards 12-Step recovery—for codependency, love, and sex addiction.
  • “There’s a program for people like you... maybe the problem might be bigger than Rayya and maybe you need to think about that. And that was both insulting and maybe revelatory.” (34:15, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • She begins a new recovery journey, focused on her own patterns and not just those of her partner.

8. Rayya’s Death & Rebuilding (38:00–44:44)

• Rayya gets help and stabilizes for a time before her passing, allowing some reconciliation:
  • “We got her back. Not the full Rayya, but ... in her own character and identity.” (39:05, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Liz describes the trauma not just of Rayya’s physical death, but of losing her “God” before she actually passed.
  • Recurrence of self-destructive patterns after Rayya’s death: “All of those things didn’t work, and I bottomed out again.”

9. Living a Sober, Accountable Life (43:35–53:49)

• What sobriety means for Gilbert now:
  • “For me, sobriety is any day where I’m not using someone... to change my internal chemistry.” (43:41, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Flirting and emotional intrigue are recognized as triggers; she takes active steps to avoid these behaviors.
  • “The cure for my thing is that you have to learn how to love and take care of yourself… and I started doing those things resentfully, but… my life is so good that I don't actually want to bring anybody into it.” (46:55, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Her approach is “just for today,” forgoing future fantasies or anxieties to stay grounded in the present.

10. Shifting Her Relationship to Her Audience and Self (50:32–55:49)

• No longer seeking validation from others, including readers:
  • She instructs publishers, “I don’t need to hear about any reviews… Not the good ones or the bad ones. I’ve worked so hard to not look into your eyes to see if I’m okay.” (51:54, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • The legacy of Rhea’s wisdom: “The truth has legs. It always stands.”
  • Internalizing accountability: “I will never be happy unless I take complete self accountability for my own life… for the first time in my life, for these last six years, I have become a responsible steward of my own life, and that feels really beautiful.” (52:45, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Embraces authenticity, including in her appearance: “I shave my head. ... The fact that I love it is also very important. I am not for you.” (53:42/54:13, Elizabeth Gilbert)
  • Rejects external approval, focusing on self-determination and joy.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On sudden change:
  “It was like the ground fell out from underneath me… I thought there was ground under my feet and there is none.” (02:13, Elizabeth Gilbert)

• On Rayya’s presence:
  “She was a star, you know, and she was brilliant and she was funny. And most of all, she was fearless is how it appeared.” (07:15, Elizabeth Gilbert)

• On honesty:
  “She didn’t want your fake self. She would go in the cave and dig it out and be like, listen, I smell bullshit. There’s something you’re not telling me.” (09:59, Elizabeth Gilbert)

• On co-creation of chaos:
  “You two did this together. ... We co-created the circumstances for this.” (11:31, Elizabeth Gilbert)

• The LAVA acronym:
  “This is my way of securing what we call in the routine of recovery. Lava. Love, attention, validation and acceptance.” (14:13, Elizabeth Gilbert)

• Descent to crisis:
  “I came very close to premeditatedly and cold-bloodedly murdering my partner because she had taken her affection away from me and because I was extremely tired.” (21:10, Elizabeth Gilbert)

• On empathy for her past self:
  “I see what I feel is tremendous empathy for these two suffering people and gratitude that it didn’t go that way.” (23:41, Elizabeth Gilbert)

• On human complexity:
  “Who am I? ... Am I this good, loving, generous... yogic, creative muse? Or am I this, like deeply manipulative, like controlling, clingy, needy, desperate love addict? And the answer is yes.” (40:11, Elizabeth Gilbert)

• On building a serene life:
  “For the first time in my life, for these last six years, I have become a responsible steward of my own life, and that feels really beautiful.” (52:45, Elizabeth Gilbert)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:10 – Processing the collapse of two lives and the universal experience of groundlessness
• 05:22 – The “forensic” approach to storytelling
• 06:04 – Discovery of Rayya’s addiction through her journals
• 10:15 – Principle of radical honesty in their relationship
• 14:13 – Codependency, LAVA, and loss of boundaries
• 21:10 – Gilbert’s confession of premeditated murder and codependency’s insanity
• 27:50 – Rayya’s uncanny awareness & the pivotal moment of interruption
• 32:06 – Seeking help, entering recovery
• 39:05 – Rayya’s turn towards stability and their last months
• 43:41 – The meaning of sobriety for Gilbert
• 51:54 – Letting go of validation from readers
• 52:45 – True accountability as the only path to happiness
• 54:13 – Embracing self-expression, unapologetically

---

Episode Tone and Language

• Honest, raw, humorous, self-deprecating, irreverent, and fiercely compassionate.
• Anna Martin’s questioning is gentle yet incisive, mirroring the tone of “Modern Love.”
• Gilbert is candid and vulnerable, oscillating between wit, pain, and wisdom.

---

Final Takeaways

Elizabeth Gilbert’s story, as recounted in this episode, is a testament to the messiness of love, the danger of codependency, and the slow, difficult work of recovery and self-acceptance. Her message is ultimately one of hope: that self-accountability and authentic living, though hard-won, are possible—and necessary—for happiness.

Memorable closing words:
“I have become a responsible steward of my own life, and that feels really beautiful.” (52:45, Elizabeth Gilbert)

Transcript

[Narrator/Announcer]

Wednesday, September 24th, the Golden Bachelor returns. 66 year old Mel Owens, father of two and former NFL star, is looking for his second chance at love. And these women are in a league of their own. These intelligent, beautiful and fearless women hope to make a connection and show Mel that age is just a number and you're never too old to fall in love. The Golden Bachelor season premiere Wednesday, September 24 at 8, 7 Central on ABC at 8 and stream next day on Hulu.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Love now. And did you fall in love last night? Love was stronger than anything for the love love and I love you more than anything. There's to love love.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Today I'm talking to Elizabeth Gilbert. You probably think you know Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray Love. Julia Roberts played her in the movie, but I'm telling you, you don't. She's got a new memoir out and it gets dark. There were times when I was reading this where I put my book down and I was like, this is the Eat, Pray, Love lady. So today Liz is here to tell me about how that woman, a woman who thought she'd found enlightenment and inner peace, almost destroyed her own life. Here's our conversation. Elizabeth Gilbert, welcome to Modern love.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Thank you. I am so happy to be here.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

We are so happy you're here in the studio with us. So, Liz, you are the author of the bestselling 2006 memoir Eat, Pray Love. This is all about your search for inner peace following a painful divorce. You ended up marrying the guy you wrote about in Eat, Pray Love and writing a second book about this decision to commit to marriage again. And now you have a new memoir out. It's called all the Way to the river and it tells the story of how you ended that marriage to then start a romantic relationship with your best friend right as she was dying of cancer. Which, I mean, what a mix of emotions to experience at once. You must have been running through journals like once a week. How were you processing all of that?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Oh, God, yeah, I was running through journals once a week and it was like the ground fell out from underneath me. And I feel like that's an experience that I now recognize as being a universal human experience. Like, maybe not to those exact details, but I don't think anybody gets to go through the entire course of their life without having seasons or chapters or episodes of their life where it's like, oh, I thought there was ground under my feet and there is none. And yeah, it was incredibly disorienting and Felt to me at the time, extremely sudden and unexpected. Looking back on it now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can kind of see it more slowly, but at the time, it felt like whiplash.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

How did I get here?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah, how did I get here?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Let's talk a little bit about how you got here. This relationship with Rhea. I mentioned you. You ended your marriage. You and Rhea were best friends for many years. Talk about what it was like to start a romantic relationship with someone who was one of your closest, if not your closest, friend.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

She was more than my closest friend. I mean, she was our. The only way that we could ever describe each other for many years was this is my person. And. And it was a slow. You know, it was a slow burn. We met as hairdresser and client. I love this. You know, and then became social friends and then neighbors and then sort of each other's muses and each other's inspiration. I dedicated the book Big Magic to her. I wrote it. I wrote the entire book for her. And she, you know, I inspired her to write music. I inspired her to write a memoir. She inspired me to write that book. We became each other's, you know, emergency contacts. All this was happening while I was also in a marriage that I cared about a lot with somebody who I loved a lot. But as time went by, it was like, oh, this is more than, like, the feelings that I have for her are very. Inconvenient.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

That's not the word that you're gonna say.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

It's like, Dee is so inconvenient. Cause I am really in love with my best friend, and I am really good at compartmentalizing. So I just compartmentalized that right into the basement of my consciousness. And I was like, this will stay there forever. There's a lock.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

There's a key in front of it.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I don't even need to know this. I put this so far away that I can't even see it. And then she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic and liver cancer and given six months to live, at which point it was no longer possible for me to keep that, kept in the basement. It just had to come out. And I knew that I had to spend the last months of her life with her as her partner. And that's so. In a way, there was something like, this is the person I know best in the entire world. So there was something so deeply familiar about her. And then as the book tells, it's like, oh, there is all this other stuff I didn't even know about. Like, how can the person who you think you know the best in the world turn into somebody who is a danger to you. So in many ways the book is like the word I keep using is forensic. It's a forensic exploration to try to answer in the safety of the present moment why the chaos of the past occurred.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Huh. Talk more about that word forensic. What does that forensic mean to you? Detailed.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah, it means unflinching. You know, like let's just really find out what occurred and how. And I feel like it required a kind of reporting to write this book. And I had all my journals from that time as well, but also a deep psychological investigation into myself and into Rhea, Including Rhea had left me almost as clues all of her journals and diaries that she wrote during that time. And she was like, use these. Like I want you to have this explicitly.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

She said that.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah. And in those journals and diaries I found out that she had been. She was an addict in recovery. By the time I knew her when I first met her in the year 2000, she'd been clean for a few years from years of heroin and cocaine addiction. But somewhere, somewhere in that time between when I met her and we got closer, she started secretly drinking and then she started publicly drinking, but with weird sort of.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You write about this very weird sort.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Of hiding, like hiding in plain sight.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

And this was before you'd entered into your romantic relationship.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

But what I discovered in reading her journals was that the same demons that had driven her to her addiction in the first place, we're alive and well and hiding behind this mythos that she created that I hundred percent fell for. And when I say that she did this, it's all very innocent, you know, like she was just trying to survive. But she could present as the most confident person you've ever met in your entire life, as can I.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

She jumped off the.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Definitely.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

She jumped off the page that she was so vibrant and she made me want to follow her. Like that's. And I was reading about her. I haven't met her obviously in person, but that really came across well, I'm.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Glad to hear that because one of the obstacles that I felt I faced in writing this was can I describe how vivid this person was? Convincingly, because she was such an electrifying presence. And she was like. She just. She was amazing. She was a star, you know, and she was brilliant and she was funny. And most of all, she was fearless is how it appeared. And she particularly had fearlessness in realms of my life where I'm very afraid and I had fearlessness in realms of her life where she was very afraid. So she was incredibly fearless around people and conflict. No problem. Like, go right into the arena with anyone, toe to toe with anybody would say the thing that nobody else would say.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I don't know why this is coming, but in the book, there's this lovely. It's just a small scene, but you were at a dinner, and she was seated next to someone who was very annoying. And she said to him something like.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You'Re a jackass or something like that. She said to him, wow, I never knew what a little bitch you could do. And she just said it very, like, casually and the whole, like. And he was being a little bitch, you know?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

And she was like, sometimes people are little bitches.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

She's like, dude, I, like, literally never knew what a little bitch you are. And it just. But it was also true, you know?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

True.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

And it's like we were all thinking it, you know? And somehow he kind of loved her more for that, because oddly. And I know this might be hard to convey. She wasn't judging him. She was just making an observation.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Totally. I mean, no, I liked her more.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

When I read it. She was like, I'm a little bitch sometimes, too, man. And that's why people always felt really safe with her, is that you always knew where you stood with Rhea. And when I asked her one time why you're not afraid of anybody, she's like, I'm so much scarier than anyone, and my darkness and my demons are scarier than anything I've ever seen. So no one scares me. Cause it's like, if I can handle me, I can handle you.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Did this relationship feel different from previous romantic relationships in your life?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah. And it's because of that honesty that. Excuse me, please. I said to burp. I do that. Pardon me. No, no. It's picked up in High Fidelity. Great. That one's for the ages. It did feel different. It did feel different. And it was because of the radical honesty that the Raya who I fell in love with lived in. And how can I say this? There aren't many people who say, tell me the truth, who want it and who, when they say, there will be no judgment or punishment for this truth, they mean it. So the safety of, like, you know, my favorite version of Raya was the one who would just look at you and just be like, what is it? What's the thing that's happening right now? I see something in your face that's going on that you're not saying. Like, I don't need your zipped up self was one of her favorite lines. And a friend of ours at her funeral said she didn't want your fake self. She wouldn't allow your fake self. She would go in the cave and dig it out and be like, listen, I smell bullshit. There's something you're not telling me. You're being a little bitch what's actually going on. And that was the safety that was provided. And I had never experienced that with anybody.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

It is. So I really get a sense of that. Like I feel that from you as you're describing it. I felt it in the book. And it's so striking to me that, that enduring, totally unique, you know, sort of once in a lifetime safety that you experience with her could turn into something that felt so dangerous. This is a beautiful book of love and connection. And it's also, it goes to some extremely dark places about addiction and death. And I want to talk about sort of how things got progressively darker and darker for the two of you. Can you explain how that kind of safety could transform into something that felt so unsafe?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah. And I want to start by saying that part of the reason it took me seven years to write this book is because it took me so long to figure out what happened because it felt so sudden at the time. But I know reality well enough to know. Well, let me put this this way. Probably if I'd written this book right after she died, I would have been like, I'm a really nice person who a bad thing happened to. I am a really nice person and a bad thing did happen. But we co created the circumstances for this. And an early sponsor of mine in 12 step recovery. Talking about codependency, said Liz. The word codependency has the prefix co built right into it right at the front of it, keeping it right there where you can see it. You two did this together. Right. So there were a couple things happening that we were shady that we were each in our own way being shady about. She was hiding her substance addiction issues by secretly drinking. She'd also started smoking again. When we came together, we started doing psychedelics again. We were introducing substances into her system. And for somebody who is a low bottom drug addict, like a low bottom drug addict, like a living on a park bench in Tompkins Square, multiple, multiple times in psych wards, like super dangerous thing that she was playing with there to be altering her mind with lots of different substances and still calling herself sober.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Right.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

It's one thing to be doing it, it's another thing to be Doing it and still calling yourself sober and going out on the road, like, speaking as a sober person, writing a book about your sobriety when you're not at all sober.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You didn't know any of this at the time?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

No, because I didn't know anything about. I mean, I knew she was doing those things, but I didn't know what sober mean, what addiction meant, really. And she was good salesperson for her own bullshit, like all addicts, Right. And I was an eager believer of every single thing that she did. So that was her darkness. And then mine was that I was slowly making her into my God. And that feeling of anchoring and safety in another human being is something that I've been looking for my entire life. And so when I found that feeling, I'm like, oh, this is now my God. Which is why I felt like the bottom fell out of my world when she was diagnosed, because now my God is going to die. So what do I do as an acolyte to my God? I serve them. I give my life as sacrifice to them. I indulge every single thing that they could possibly ever want. Right. I set. No, you don't set boundaries of the God. Right. Boundary. First of all, anyway. What even is that? I'm just trying to think about what.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

That would look like. Yeah, setting boundaries with a God.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You don't. I mean, so I put myself in this position of servitude and service, which was also more easily done because she was dying, she had cancer. So it's like, I will be in service to you, but any want that you have, I will make. Like, I could not bear for her to have a want. So anything that she wanted, I would give and provide. And that is not the first time I have done that. Didn't turn out to be the last time I would do it either. So this is my way of securing what we call in the routine of recovery. Lava. Love, attention, validation and acceptance.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Love, attention, validation and acceptance.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

So that's my drug. So if somebody can provide me with a feeling of that, you can have my whole entire life. Right? And everything that Ray did was right, and everything she believed was right. And she was the answer to every.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Question in the moment. You didn't know this, right? You weren't aware of this? This is like.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

No, I was like, we're living the greatest love story the world has ever known. And it felt like that for a while. I mean, we got really high off each other. I certainly got very high off of, like, if I'm getting Lava, what a convenient acronym. It's just really good. I know, so good. And also if I'm getting lava, if there's a threat that you might now withhold it, I'm going to die. Like, I will go into withdrawal, I will go into despair, I will go into chaos. So this is what we were co creating. And so by the time her pain from her pain from cancer and her fear of death got significant enough that she was given a lot of opioids, which now she's got opioids in her system. And you know, when I asked her what it felt like the first time she took a morphine pill, she was like, hello old friend. Like literally. I mean, this is. That was the love of her life. Opioids were the thing that she had always loved and had longed for for many years. And then when the opioids started making her feel really down, she was like, if I just add a touch of cocaine to this. And then we were off the races. And then from that moment, things did spiral really fast. Like I would say that from like a few days after she introduced cocaine into her system, the Raya who I knew was gone.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

We'll be right back.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Wednesday, September 24th the Golden Bachelor returns. 66 year old Mel Owens, father of two and former NFL star, is looking for his second chance at love. And these women are in a league of their own. These intelligent, beautiful and fearless women hope to make a connection and show Mel that age is just a number and you're never too old to fall in love. The Golden Bachelor season premiere Wednesday, September 24th at 8.7Central on ABC and stream next day on Hulu.

[Clinique Advertiser]

Taking care of your skin is a personal daily ritual. No matter what regimen works best for you, it's important to remember that great skin care doesn't have to be complicated. With Clinique's classic three step routine, fresh, radiant skin is as easy as 1, 2, 3. Clinique's iconic trio of products used to cleanse, exfoliate and moisturize is specifically created to address your skin's needs and provides a refreshingly simple solution for maintaining beautiful, resilient skin twice a day, every day. Great skin starts here. Visit clinique.com to learn more.

[Montblanc Advertiser]

Montblanc invites you to use life's quiet moments to pause, reflect and put pen to paper.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Chapter one.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Oh, no.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

No.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Part one.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Perfect. The mountains are impressive. Oh, I wish you were here to see them. Dear diary, meet my new writing companion, the Meisterstuck.

[Montblanc Advertiser]

For every journey, the perfect companion awaits. Montblanc let's write. Visit montblanc.com for exquisitely crafted writing instruments, leather goods, and more.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You get the sense of both, how. I don't want to say it was slow moving, but this build towards this intense love and safety between the two of you was. Was more than a decade in the making. Correct. And then at the same time, it sort of. It does feel like it veers so quickly, which you keep speaking about. Having this feeling, like this is so sudden. How did I get here? And there is a part of this book that I would love for you to read that I think kind of encapsulates how quickly things got extremely bad and extremely dark. Let me get it. Because we put a little. Put a bookmark in here. This is the moment that you're speaking about where Rhea is in serious pain. She is back using drugs, which you're helping to provide for her, and you feel like you're out of options. You feel very desperate. You write, it was July of 2017 that I came up with a really good idea for what would save me from the nightmare I was now trapped in with Rayya. Can you keep reading from page 240? Is that okay? Okay, let's see.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

And at that point too, remember that she's a hospice patient. So, like, what kind of intervention are you gonna have with a hospice patient? Because you can't say if you keep doing drugs at this level, it's gonna kill you, right? Cause it gave her a blank in a weird way, her death sentence gave her this blank check to just use whatever she was using. And she'd become really abusive. And I felt like I had no way out. She has to die now, said my exhausted mind. And suddenly this seemed like a terrific solution. After all, Rhea was dying already anyway, right? I just needed to move the process along before things got even worse. Before she set the whole building on fire with a dropped cigarette or got us both arrested. She had to die. And I was the one who had to kill her. I decided I would do it the next day. I went to sleep that night in peace, knowing that liberation was finally in sight. I also hadn't slept for weeks at this point, because people on cocaine don't sleep. So she was keeping me awake. I want to make something extremely clear here. When I say that I once planned to murder Rhea, I don't mean that the idea simply crossed my mind that my life would be easier if she were gone. I mean that I fully intended to kill her. And I tell this story in all its raw honesty because I want People to understand how insane codependency can make a person become. I mean, I'm the nice lady who wrote Eat Pray Love. And I came very close to premeditatedly and cold bloodedly murdering my partner because she had taken her affection away from me and because I was extremely tired. That's the sort of person I become when I'm in my insanity.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I mean, you wrote these words, you've read them many times. But can I ask you what it feels like to read?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You know, I get the thing I feel is a feeling I had a lot when I was writing this book, which is, first of all, I'm writing it from the privileged position of it's over, you know, and.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

And this didn't happen.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You did not, and I didn't kill her.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yes.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

And the privileged position of healing not just the trauma of this circumstance, but the trauma that led me to become the kind of person who would give my life away to anybody who maybe might take care of me for a minute. And the privilege of sitting on the other side of six years of sobriety and recovery and working a program and co dependence Anonymous and all these things that I've done. So I'm sitting pretty comfortably here right now. And one of the things that I talk about in the book is how careful, and I try to be very careful in the book to not judge either her or any earlier version of myself. Because those people did not, were not sitting comfortably in that moment and were just trying to survive what had become this firestorm of trauma. And that was what we call in the rooms. My best thinking on that day. And what Rhea was doing was her best thinking on that day. That's what we were down to. Just this is our best idea. Raya's best idea was I'm just gonna lock myself in the bathroom with thousands of dollars of cocaine and opioids and fentanyl and steroids. And I'm just gonna try to get my levels right so that I just don't. So that I'm just checked out enough that I don't have to think about the fact that I'm dying or be in pain, but not so checked out that I overdose, you know, or that like literally I couldn't leave her. Cause I was literally afraid she was gonna burn the building down. Cause she kept falling asleep with cigarettes in her hands all over the furniture. It was really scary, out of control. And I see what I feel is tremendous empathy for these two suffering people and gratitude that it didn't go that way. Because the Only thing anyone is ever trying to do is get through the day. Like, you can take a pretty good guess when you look at literally anyone doing literally anything, that first of all, what they're doing is what they think is a really good idea.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Their best thinking. It's their best thinking. And they did not wake up that morning saying, how can I be the worst possible version of myself? They woke up being like, how am I gonna make it through another day? And the thing that was so sacred about that moment that I just read was that I was able to see, oh, people really are capable of anything. Like, if I'm capable of murder, anybody is the person who would apologize.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

If Liz Gilbert is the person who.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Would apologize to a mugger. Right. Like.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah, yeah. Do you see love between the two of you in that passage? I mean, we just spoke so much about.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

No.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah. Okay. I was curious. No, no. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

No, not in that moment. No. I mean, Rhea certainly wasn't loving me in that moment or herself. I mean, she, like, sober Rhea, if she had seen herself at that point, would have been like, bitch, kill her.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Oh, my God.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Like, for sure. Sorry, I just don't. Right. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You know, like, she would have been like, dude, like, don't let that continue. You know, like, totally get it. Like, you know, for sure. She hate. That was the version of herself she hated the most.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah. Like, she'd worked really hard to not. And then towards the end, she would.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Have been like, five years earlier than that. Rhea, fast forwarding, seeing herself shooting up in a bathroom would have been. It would have destroyed her.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

And being unkind to someone she loves.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

She was using people, using drugs, using, like, she would have hated it. And five years earlier version of me, seeing me in this scene of total degradation when I thought I had gotten my life completely together, and yet that's where we ended up. And, you know, they say of addiction, it never rests, it only waits, you know? And when the circumstances were right, this thing waited in her and then arose. And when the circumstances were right for me to lose all the work that I had done and become again, a child begging for someone to take care of them even though they couldn't. I did that.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I mean, we mentioned. And it's important to say you did not go through with the murder plan.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yes. Just to be clear. Police. I didn't.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I didn't kill her, should we say? Cause it actually is sort of darkly funny. What happens next. Can you share what.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Well, what happened next is that same Rhea who Could read the room always. And who could smell bullshit and who had survived for years on the streets and survived in prisons and had survived like, she was such a survivor. She may have appeared to be completely checked out on drugs, but when I walked into the apartment that day with a murder plan, and my plan was that I was gonna put fentanyl patches all over her and then make her take sleeping pills and kill her. Like, I mean, literally, that's what I was intending to do.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I know you mean that literally. I'm, like, looking you in the eyes right now, and I'm like, really, literally. But you really do mean literally.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Like, it's not.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

This is not at all figurative. This was a plan. And sleep deprived.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yes.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Like, going through, like, immense stress.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

It was a nightmare. I mean, it's. And it's. I don't even need to justify it. I was about to say it's unjustifiable, but it's the reality of where I was in that moment. It was the only thing I could think of that I was like, this is the only way this is gonna end. Like, one of us has to die. And I also was like, no, she would approve of this.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

But then I'm still not sure.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I was totally wrong. But anyway, she looked up at me.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You walk in the apartment.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I walk in the apartment, and she looked up at me from this table, the coffee table. It was, like, covered with these fat rails of cocaine and, like, clouds of cigarette smoke, bottle of whiskey, like piles of pills that she was sorting. And she just looked at me and all of a sudden focused, you know, like, all of a sudden, it's like all that dropped and, like, her keen eyes came back and no one could focus. Like, when Raya put her attention on you, you knew that it was on you. And she looked at me and said, don't you start plotting against me now, Liz. And I was like, what are you, a witch? That is wild. It was so crazy, you know? And we just held each other's gaze, and time seemed to stop. And it felt like somebody had pushed a pause button on this insane drama that we were in. And then she said, think very carefully about what you're about to do. And it felt like I actually just got chills saying it again because it felt like a moment of divine salvation, of, like, how far are you gonna take this? How far are you, Liz, gonna take this? I'll show you how far. I. Rayya, I'm gonna take this. I'm gonna take this all the way down to the cellar of Myself, but, like, are you sure you wanna do what you're about to do? And I just walked out of the apartment and wandered around as though I had a head injury for a few hours, like, so bewildered. And then I thought my second best thinking, which was like, oh, I've got all of these fentanyl patches and pills. I'll just kill myself because, oh, my gosh. Because it was like, when I said, one of us has to die, I meant it, right? That's how degraded my spirit had become. Like, one of us has to die. And obviously she wasn't gonna let me.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

She's not letting you.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Oh, my God. And also there was a moment with Rhea where I was like, who do I think I am that I could kill Rhea? Like, she was so tough. No. You know, and then I was like, okay, well then I'll kill me. And then in that moment was when this voice came to me. And I had heard this voice before in my life. And I call this voice God. Some people would call it higher power intuition, the dao. Like maybe it's ancestors, who knows? But like some spirit guide, angel, whatever. Like, a voice came to me in that moment and said, if you have reached a point in your life where you are seriously contemplating murdering another person or yourself, it's quite likely that you have reached the end of your power. And that being the case, maybe you should call somebody and ask for help. This is what I remember, which was never an idea that had occurred to me. Never an idea that had occurred. I'm like, I. And I have since learned that people who isolate themselves and do not ask for help when they are in trouble were trained as children that help is not available. And so when you're trained that no one's coming, you just get to become this thing that they. Another term for it is toxic self reliance. Like, another translation of that is, I got this.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I'll handle it.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Because I've always had to got this right? So Rhea had that and I had that. So she was doing toxic self reliance by being like, I'll handle this by just using substances the way that I know how I was doing. Toxic self reliance by, like, if I can't control this entire situation, then somebody has to die. And in that moment it was like, oh, there's other people on the planet. And the thing about falling so deeply into somebody at the level of infatuation that I had with Rhea was like, what I want when I'm doing that is for there to be no other people on the planet. Like, I Want to disappear into somebody because I'm uncomfortable in myself. And so I want to not have to exist. And I want there to be no one else either. So it's just called, like, planet Them. I'm just going to disappear into planet Them. And I'd been so sucked into that with her that it would have never occurred to me to ask for help.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

This is the scene I remember, and I was so struck by. You're in the park, right, and you just call person. I just start calling people person after person.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

What did it feel like? Because in doing so, of course you're asking for help, but you're also admitting sort of the depths to which you and her and the two of you had sunk. I mean, you write in this excerpt, you're like, I'm the nice lady that wrote Eat, Pray, Love. Did it feel like. Did you recognize yourself sitting there on that park bench making those calls, admitting where you were?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah. And that was also part of it, which is like, I've been this degraded before, and I thought I wasn't that person anymore.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

What was it about this time that was so.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

It wasn't that this time was different. It's that this time was exactly the same.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Whoa.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You know, like, where it's like, oh, once again I have completely lost myself to somebody. And once again, I'm like, shattered. And once again, the person who I thought was gonna save me ended up destroying my heart. And I don't even know who I am anymore. And if it had been the first time or even the third.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Or even the fifth.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Do you know the number?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I mean. I'm just kidding. I'll tell you this. I'll tell you that as low. What we call the low bottom addict is somebody where the consequences of their usage is huge. As much of a low bottom addict as Raya was as a drug addict. I am a low bottom sex and love addict. Like, this is how I hurt myself. And so I think that part of the sort of cascading horror of that was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I fixed my life. I was on Oprah. I'm an expert.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

And that is the moment where you first went to your. To the first 12 step meetings that.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You'D been to, right? Yeah, I got 12 stepped by a friend who. I mean, I was calling to have people tell me what to do about Rhea.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Right.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

But I had somehow in me the good sense to call people who have had involvement with addiction, whether their own or the addictions of others. And so there were some People who had some good recovery on those phone calls. And they gave me some very good guidance. And it was all about me. None of it was about her.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Did you hear the part about Reno?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Did you know though, about the thousands of dollars cocaine and the fentanyl patches? They're like, Liz and like the teenagers coming into our apartment day and night with like piles of drugs, like, how do we stop that? You know? And they all were like, what are you going to do to take care of you? And I'm like, but did you hear how she's a cancer patient in hospice? You know, like, I can't take care of me. Like I'm holding the world together. So anyway, a couple people said, go to Al Anon. And then one person said, you know, I've watched you now for 25 years. Do this to yourself. And there's a program for people like you, for people with love addiction, there's programs for people with sex addiction, there's programs for people with codependency issues. And I think the problem might be bigger than Raya and maybe you need to think about that. And that was both insulting and maybe revelatory.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

So clarifying it sounds like both. Yeah, yeah. You begin your recovery in that moment, or not in that moment, but you begin going to meetings that day. You went to a meeting that day.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Oh, you do not waste time.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

It was that.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

There was no time to waste.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I was going to die.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Stay with us.

[Multicare Advertiser]

Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single purpose. Making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@ multicare.org.

[Montblanc Advertiser]

Pro Savings Days are back at Lowe's. Mylo's Pro Rewards members save even more with limited time. Doorbuster deals save $5 on 24 count. Contractor's choice 42 gallon trash bags now just $14.78 plus get your choice. Select Dewalt Elite series software saw blades for $9.98 not a pro Rewards member. Join for free today at Lowe's. Valid through 9 17. Selection varies by location while supplies last. Loyalty programs subject to terms and condition. Seelowe's.com terms for details subject to change.

[Shopify Advertiser]

Businesses that are selling through the roof like Untuck it make selling. And for shoppers buying simple with Shopify home of the number one checkout on the planet and With Shop Pay, you can boost conversions up to 50%. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout untuck it uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com podcastfree all lowercase. Go to shopify.com podcastfree to upgrade your selling. Today.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You move out. What's happening with Rayya during this time?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

So other people moved in, you know, and she was using really hard. She was also, in her own way, trying to rein it in. There were people trying to help her. There were also people doing drugs with her. There were people trying to help her and do drugs with her. You know, like, messy, complicated. But she ended up calling an ex of hers who had over the years become one of her best friends, like a family person, and just said, stacy, I'm in trouble and I need help. And Stacy was amazing. Stacy was like, if you can get yourself to Detroit without getting arrested or dying, I will help you, but it will be on my terms and there won't be any of the this stuff that you're doing. We're gonna get you off all of these other drugs and get you back into proper medical care. And she actually did.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I mean, in that it's remarkable to read about that turn because it allowed you to be with Rhea when she passed.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah, she came out of it. I mean, I never again going to how little I can control or understand the world. I was like, stacey, that's not gonna work. And Stacy's like, I think it will. And it did. And we got her back. Like, she came back not the full Rhea, but for somebody who had a couple months to live pretty much in her own character and identity.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Again, before, when you thought about her passing, you described it like my God would die.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

What was it actually like?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

When she left, my God died.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Okay.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah. But my God had died before she died. That was why it was so disorienting, because I lost my God when she picked up cocaine and stopped being my hero. And that was where the trauma was for me, was like, I was kind of ready for her to die, but I wasn't ready for her to leave before she died. And that was where the wounding was in me. And the wounding was also the great disorientation of like, wait, who was this person? Like, was she. Was like, was she this really strong, fierce, powerful, loving, protective kind of dragon like, or was she this degraded, using, manipulative, lying junkie? And the answer was yes, you know, and I don't like that answer. Because I want a black and white answer and there isn't one, you know, and also like, who am I? Am I this good, loving, generous, helpful, encouraging, peaceful, God loving, yogic, creative muse? Or am I this, like deeply manipulative, like controlling, clingy, needy, desperate love addict? And the answer is yes. And I don't like that answer either, you know, because the thing that I don't want to be is human. And the thing I don't want anybody else to be is human. And yet here we are, here in.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Earth school, are burping into the mic.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Here we are burping into the mic.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I want to burp. So you know, you're not alone in the burp. I'm going to do it just so.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You'Re comfortable, Just so you feel like you're not alone. I will be with you.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I need to work on maybe. I mean, it is also true, you know, and I appreciate it about the book. It's not like Rhea passes and then you figure out you're in recovery, you know, and you're sober. It took a very long time.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I stopped going to recovery after Rhea passed. So I went for a while to some 12 step rooms. But when she got, I mean, and here's my codependency, when she got well meaning sober, sober enough to be herself again, then I'm like, well, I don't need to go to any 12 step rooms because the person who was the problem in my life is no longer a problem.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

That's sort of what I mean by like, you're God dying. But it. Yeah, but that's not how it works.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Not even a little. Like, I am my own problem. Like, I am the consistent problem through my 35 year uninterrupted run of relationships where I was constantly trying to find somebody who. I'm the problem here, right? So I wasn't dealing with that. And I had to go out and do all the things I do, you know, like, well, I'm gonna feel better by overachieving. I'll write a novel in three months. Like, I'm gonna feel better by traveling. I'm gonna go to India. I'm gonna feel better by falling in love with somebody else. That's like, I'm gonna impale myself on someone. And who would like to volunteer to.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Be impale myself on someone.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

The next person that I take hostage with my loving generosity and kindness, you know, like, who would be like to be volunteer to be the next person who I try to control into submission so that you will then give me Lava. Right. So I did all those things again that I've always done, and all of those things didn't work, and I bottomed out again. And it was only then where I was like, oh, here we are back on the bathroom floor in tears. Here we are back, and there gets to be a weariness. You know what I mean? Like, even for my readers, it's like, do we really wanna see Liz on the bathroom floor and tears again?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I'm like, I'm there with you, girl.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

You know? And, you know, we get tired of ourselves. It's just like, I can't even stand this story anymore.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You know? You write about your sober life now, going on how many years of sobriety?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Six years.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Six years?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

What does that look like? Yeah. What does sober life look like for you?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

So for me, and it's. Sobriety looks differently for different people who are in the programs that I go to. But for me, sobriety is any day where I'm not using someone. And that doesn't just have to be a lover or partner, like, that's anybody. And using somebody to change my internal chemistry. So I don't like the way I'm feeling. I'm uncomfortable in the world. I'm gonna manipulate a reaction out of you about me so that I can feel better. So now we cut the middleman out. I think I do that a little. Just a tiny bit. Right? So it's like, this is. I know what I do. I know my shit, I know my bullshit. And so any day where I'm not doing that is a sober day where I'm not intriguing with anybody. And intriguing is like planting seeds of maybe, right?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Where it's like, I'm gonna just keep. I'm gonna keep this person a little bit on the hook. I'm gonna keep this person a little bit on the hook. Yeah. They're married now. I'll keep that person on. Like, I'll keep that person on the hook. So any day where I'm not flirting, because flirting for me is not safe. And other people can flirt, you know, just like, alcoholics can't drink. I can't flirt.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Wow.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

How do you stop flirting is I catch it and I'm like, you're doing it? And then I leave this. And I have a friend who's a drug addict who was at a Drug Addict to recovery, was at a nightclub and texted her sponsor and said, like, I'm having so much fun, but people are doing ecstasy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And her sponsor said, collect your purse and leave the Premises, right? So I was like, if I'm in a situation where I'm like, ooh, I'm doing that thing that I do. It's like, girlfriend, collect your purse and leave the present.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You'll literally leave the party if you're.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I will leave the room. You know, I will leave the room. And it's like, go talk to somebody you're not attracted to right now. Like, oh, there's kids here at this barbecue. Go hang out with the kids.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Like, and that may sound like I'm denying myself, but usually the people that I'm attracted to are not available. Like, so it's like, this is actually beneficial for everybody.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Whoa.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Right? It's like, this is somebody's feeling. This is somebody's partner. This is not harmless at all for you to be doing this. Like, you don't belong in this conversation that you're in right now. It's not safe for anybody.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Does this after. Like, is there a recent instance where you did this? Like, does this still come up in you, or is the impulse to flirt?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I'm less interested in it because I'm not. Listen. I'm always gonna be a sex and love addiction, just like Raya was always gonna be a drug addict. And one of the things that I really learned, like, right up front and personal and close with Raya, because I got to see it, was what it looks like when an addict decides they're not an addict anymore. So, like, that example was such a gift that she gave to me, where it's like, I don't fuck with this. Like, I'm a sex and love addict. I will die a sex and love addict. I will hopefully die a sober sex and love addict. I got so angry when I first came into recovery, when I found out that the cure for my thing is that you have to learn how to love and take care of yourself.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Well, that's why I was in the world.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I was like, ew. First of all, the whole reason I'm like, this is because I wasn't getting the care and love that I needed at a very tender age, right? So it's like, I've been told since the day I was born to take care of myself. So fuck you. You know? Like, I want somebody to take care of me, and I'll take care of you if you take care of me, right? So. But the remedy is to learn how to make a life that is so rich and anchored and grounded and full that I'm not out here like a beggar trying to get that from somebody. So I meditate and I pray, and I do. And I turn over things with my fellows in recovery. And what's happened is that although I started doing those things resentfully, what I've now seen is like, oh, wait, when I do all of these things that make me be well, my life is so good that I don't actually want to bring anybody into it. I don't want to bring. At this moment, just for today. I don't want to. The amount of myself that I want to give away or compromise on or sacrifice is zero. I love my life. I don't want anyone living in here with me. I don't want anybody. Like, I don't want. Like, no. Like, I'm good. I don't want to ask anyone's permission to go traveling. I don't want to. I just don't want to. No, I don't want to share.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You want to share a bed?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

No, I don't want to share a bed. Like, not today. I don't want that today. I don't know about tomorrow, but, like, just for today, I'm like, oh, this is a weird feeling. I'm good.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I do notice you keep saying today. So is that sort of not excluding the possibility that you might want partnership or relationship in the future?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

The future's a really dangerous neighborhood for me to hang out in. With a mind like mine, like, instantly, if I start thinking about the future, I'm gonna go into neurosis.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Whoa.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Instantly. I mean, start thinking about the future, Right?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah. There's some things that I'm looking forward to. There's some things I'm not.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Right. Like, the future's a really scary neighborhood. And I can go into fantasy when I think about the future. I can go into fear when I think about the future. And those are really bad, bad mental states for me. So I'm better off just being, like, right in this moment. My needs are met. I'm. Well, I'm not up on my bullshit right now. I'm not intriguing with anybody. I'm not infatuated with anybody. I'm not obsessed with anybody. I'm not in withdrawal from anybody. I'm not running away from anyone. I'm not running toward anyone. By all rights, that's what a person like me should be doing. Today is one of those things. Cause that's what I've done my whole life. So if I just get to have a day, like, for me, like, a victorious day is just like, I slept well last night. I woke up I hung out with my dog, I prayed, I meditated. My life isn't unmanageable. Like, my bills are paid, and I'm not paying anyone else's bills. That's a big one for you.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

That's a big one for you.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Big one, right? I just get to have a day. I just get to have a day. That is a fucking miracle.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

You're making me feel happy.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Fucking miracle.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah, Right?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

So, like, next year's. Next year's problem, you know, Just for today. It's good. Just for today. And that's just good. I'm happy with that.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

This addiction to validation from other people, from lovers. You gave so much of yourselves to them. That's how you understood your worth. I'm also thinking about how much of yourself you give to your readers, your audience. And I'm wondering if how you think about your relationship to your audience has changed in this new sober life. Does that question make sense?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I don't feel like my readers owe me anything, and I don't feel like I owe them anything. It's the opposite of a codependent relationship. I actually just feel like, hey, guys, I did a thing. If you would like to be part of this thing, you're welcome to come along. And if not, my feelings won't be hurt. And the one thing that I feel like with this book, that I feel like is slightly different in terms of the. That feels very recovery to me, is that just last week I sent an email out to my publishers here and overseas and to my agent and all the people involved in the production of this book. And I just said, hey, listen, I have worked so hard for my serenity, and I have it just for today. My life is really serene. In the interest of safeguarding that precious, priceless serenity, I don't need to hear about any reviews.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Wow. I love that.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Not the good ones or the bad ones. I've worked so hard to not look into your eyes to see if I'm okay and to not take a survey. We call it a monkey survey. My friends and I call it a monkey survey. Like asking all the monkeys in the room if they approve of me. I've worked so hard to not do that. That with this book especially, I think it's really important to not be asking the world, is it okay that I wrote this book?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah. I want to end on something Rhea said. I feel like it goes along with what you're sharing. You quote her as saying, the truth has legs. It always stands. What is one truth that stands for you at the end of all of this.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I will never be happy unless I take complete self accountability for my own life. And I can trick myself into thinking that somebody else is accountable for my life or should be. And my life and the universe have given me lots of opportunities to try to make other people accountable for my own life. Like just, oh, yeah, go try that. Go try that with someone else. Go try it with someone else. Go try it with someone else. But for the first time in my life, for these last six years, I have become a responsible steward of my own life. And that feels really beautiful. And I don't think happiness is going to be available to me if I'm not doing that. Nothing short of that is going to make me happy.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

This is actually my real final question. Raya was your hairdresser. What would she say about the hair now?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Oh, my God, she would hate it. She would hate it. I almost did this. I love it.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I mean, when's your hair care routine?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I almost. It's. I shave my head. I have clippers, and I clip my head once a week.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I think it looks great.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Thank you. I love it. And that's also, like, the fact that I love it is also very important because a lot of people don't, but I do.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I do remember there was one commenter you talked about who said, why you bald, though, Right?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Why do you wanna be bald, though?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Somebody said, maybe because it's like, so.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Why you wanna be bald, though? I am. This is a whole radical new transformation of consciousness for me, where it's like, oh, wait a minute. I don't. I am not for you.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Like, I do not exist as a thing for you. I know, but I want to look at.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

But you look great. You have a great head shape. And that's. We can talk about this offline, but I'm worried about my own head shape. So I really admire you.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

We're gonna talk about this right now because this is extremely important.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Please. I think I have a bump.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I have a bump. I didn't do this for years because I was like, I don't have the right shaped head. And that stopped me from doing this for a long time. And then when I did it, I was like, I actually really love this. Perfect.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

I actually really love that someone gave me the clippers. Now give me the clippers. Let's go to the bathroom. In the New York Times, we're like, it's so good.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

And all I want is to be free. And I don't want to like nothing about the way That I present myself anymore is like, you know, there's a line. It's in Eat, Pray, Love. They even put it in the movie. It was in the book and the movie where a friend said to me, this should have been a warning. 20 years ago, 25 years ago, they were like, hey, Liz, you know how some people start to look like their dogs? You always look like whoever you're dating. Cause I would change. I would change my entire way I dressed, my entire way I looked like. And it took me all these years to be like, what do I like? Like, how do I like to dress?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

And how do I like my hair? And. And it's like, wait, I actually don't want to ever wear makeup again. Like, ever. But I want to wear a ton of bracelets and have a shaved head. Apparently, this is what I like.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

The look is working again. Not that you care what I think. Cause no lava whatever. But I'm just telling you the look is working.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

All right?

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

So I'm serious about the next time he's having you. I don't know when you'll see me.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Again, but it's, like, so satisfying.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

Liz Gobert. Thank you.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

See you next time.

[Interviewer (Anna Martin)]

See you next time. The Modern Love team is Amy Pearl, Christina Josa Davis Land, Elisa Gutierrez, Emily Lang, Jen Poyant, Lynn Levy, Reeva Goldberg and Sarah Curtis. This episode was produced by Amy Pearl and Sarah Curtis. It was edited by Davis Land, Lynn Levy and Jen Poyant. Daniel Ramirez was our mix engineer, and we got studio support from Matty Masiello and Nick Pittman. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music in this episode by Pat McCusker, Alicia B. Itupe, Dan Powell and Rowan Nimisto. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. If you'd like to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, the instructions are always in our show notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.

[Clinique Advertiser]

Ollie knows the back to school chaos all too well. Schedules, carpools, relearning algebra 2. It's a lot for you and your crew. Ollie makes wellness an easy and delightful part of your routine. Need immune support? Kids will enjoy. Try kids Multi plus probiotic. Is bedtime a struggle?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Go with kids.

[Clinique Advertiser]

Sleep for gentle support Moms support your immune system, nutrition and more with women's multi. Grab these [e-mail] or retailers nationwide. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat cure or prevent any disease.