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The Tim Ferriss Show
#820: Elizabeth Gilbert — How to Find Your Inner Voice, Set Strong Boundaries, and Live a Life of Radical Ease (Repost)
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- [00:00]
Tim Ferriss
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 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 lizbethgilbertwriter. But first, a few quick words from our lovely podcast sponsors who make products and services that I use every day or every week. I personally vet everything, and that means that probably less than 20% of the podcast sponsors who wish to sponsor the show end up sponsoring. But I'm fine with that. And here are the few that made the cut. In the last handful of years, I've become very interested in environmental toxins, avoiding microplastics and many other commonly found compounds all over the place. One place I looked is in the kitchen. Many people don't realize just how toxic their cookware is or can be. A lot of nonstick pans, practically all of them, can release harmful forever chemicals. Pfas, in other words, spelled P F A s into your food, your home, and then ultimately that ends up in your body. Teflon is a prime example of this. It is still the forever chemical that most companies are using. So our place reached out to me as a potential sponsor and the first thing I did was look at the reviews of their products and said, send me one. And that is the Titanium Always Pan Pro. And the claim is that it's the first nonstick pan with zero coating. So that means zero forever chemicals and durability that'll last forever. I was very skeptical. I was very busy. So I said, you know what? I want to test this thing quickly. It's supposed to be nonstick. It's supposed to be durable. I'm going to test it with two things. I'm going to test it with scrambled eggs in the morning because eggs are always a disaster in anything that isn't nonstick with the toxic coating. And then I'm going to test it with a steak sear because I want to see how much it retains heat and it worked perfectly in both cases and I was frankly astonished how well it worked. The titanium Always Pan Pro has become my go to pan in the kitchen. It replaces a lot of other things for searing, for eggs, for anything you can imagine and the design is really clever. It does combine the best qualities of stainless steel, cast iron and nonstick into one product. And now our place is expand this first of its kind technology to their Titanium Pro cookware sets which are made in limited quantities. So if you're looking for non toxic long lasting pots and pans that outperform everything else in your kitchen, just head to fromourplace.com tim and use code TIM for 10% off of your order. You can enjoy a 100 day risk free trial, free shipping and free returns. Check it out fromourplace.com Tim I don't know about you guys but I have seen a lot of crazy stuff in the last few weeks. I saw an AI generated video. It looks like a video of an otter on a flight tapping away on a keyboard having a stewardess ask him if he would like a drink and it goes on from there. And this was generated with AI and it looks photorealistic basically. I mean it would have cost hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars to do in the past, taken forever and now it's boom, snap of the fingers. It's crazy. So AI is changing everything. We know that. It is also changing the way startups and small businesses operate. Things are going to get crazier. The rate of change is only going to get faster. And while a lot of good is going to come of that, it also means security and compliance headaches for one thing. And that is where today's sponsor Vanta comes in. I'd already heard a lot about them before they ever became a sponsor. Just like 10,000 plus other companies that rely on Vanta. My friends at Duolingo Shout Out Duolingo and Ramp Shout Out Ramp. One of this podcast sponsors and an ultra fast growing company use Vanta to handle security compliance. Why would they do that? Well, Vanta automates compliance for frameworks like SoC2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA, making it simple and fast to get enterprise grade compliant. But what does that mean? It adds up to impressive results. Companies can save up to 85% of costs, get compliant in weeks instead of months, and complete security questionnaires up to five times faster. So check it out. Vanta.com Tim that's V A N T A like Santa with a V. Vanta.com Tim to see how Vanta can help you level up your security program my listeners, that's you can get $1,000 off. So check it out. Vanta.com Tim@ this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before.
- [05:23]
Elizabeth Gilbert
My hands start shaking. Can I answer your personal question now? It is in a perfect time.
- [05:29]
Tim Ferriss
What if I did the album? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.
- [05:36]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Ferris Show.
- [05:43]
Tim Ferriss
Liz it's so nice to see you. Thanks for taking the time.
- [05:45]
Elizabeth Gilbert
It's so nice to see you. It's so nice to be back talking to you. I love it.
- [05:50]
Tim 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 and before we started recording, mentioned a few things. One, that the very last thing that you mentioned in that conversation will dovetail nicely into some of what we'll talk about today. And that'll be just a bit of foreshadowing for folks, so we won't go into that first. But secondly, I asked if you had any particular hopes for this recording and asked what would make it a home run or time well spent. And one of the things that you said, and this so I suppose broadly what you said too, is you had no cherished outcome. And I like that phrasing. And I was hoping to hear you expand on that a bit because I think it might be good medicine for a lot of what ails me.
- [06:49]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Oh God. I mean, it's already a home run just getting to sit here and talk to you. 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. 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 going to be interacting with people in a new way. This beautiful poem of approach that I really love and I'm probably not going to get the whole thing right, but it says something like, I will honor your gods. I will drink from your well. I bring an undefended heart to our meeting place. I will not negotiate by withholding. I am not subject to disappointment. I have no cherished outcome.
- [07:52]
Tim Ferriss
And how do you apply that then to your own lives? What led you to hold on to that particular piece?
- [07:59]
Elizabeth 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. 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 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 had a secret, hidden cherished outcome because something didn't happen that I wanted. And now I'm all bent about it. So now I get to examine my resentment and ask myself whether I really want to honor I have no cherished outcome or whether I want to sulk. I seem to be better at no cherished outcome in friendships than I am and romantic relationships. Almost the minute a 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 taking responsibility for myself and trying not to put outcomes on people.
- [09:24]
Tim 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?
- [09:52]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I think 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. 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 and it's so unfair. And one of the really beautiful and educational things about spending a lot of time alone is like, 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. And it turns out all those years when I was analyzing those poor people in my relationships and holding them account 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 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 should come with a warning.
- [11:09]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, a lot in life should come with a warning. So I have quite a few follow ups, but I'm going to try to put them in some semblance of a coherent order. So 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.
- [11:42]
Elizabeth Gilbert
That's a good question.
- [11:43]
Tim Ferriss
It's a really good one. It's a really good one. But the one I wanted to apply here was more a comment he made to me because I was talking about taking radical ownership of things and seeing my role 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, how do you work on yourself without picking on yourself, if that makes any sense.
- [12:11]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Oh, that's such a good question. God, I love that question. How are you complicit in what? Can you say it again?
- [12:17]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah. How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don't want?
- [12:21]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Wow. Another word for that is who are you blaming your life on today? Well, I think the only honest and humble answer that I can give to that question is I don't know. And I don't know where that line is. But it's easier for me when I'm not in a relationship. And it's simpler for me to say, okay, I can 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 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 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 and in history like with. It's so strange. It's like, you know, I think, I'm sure you. I don't want to project this on you, but maybe you had this experience as a kid. Like I haven't remember as a kid looking at myself in the mirror and being like, I'm in here. Like it's so weird. Yeah, what am I doing in here? And all of that is out there and I'm in here. Something's inside of this experience and it's really hard. So I think you have to start with that. Who told you you were supposed to get it right straight out of the gate? Who told you you're 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 going in this upward angle direction. A certain percentage every quarter. There's billions of systems operating within your body alone. Hormonal systems and chemical systems and viruses and bacterias. We're such a complex mechanism. It's so hard to figure out how to operate one of. And then just when I do really well in solitude, I can get this thing humming. I can get this machine and this mind and this heart where it is like we are at a beautiful hum. But the instant you throw another complex human mechanism into my field, then I've got to adapt to their chemistry and to their. It's hard. I don't know. And I think it's hard is a really good way to start with self compassion.
- [14:53]
Tim Ferriss
So it's hard. 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, why did you change that?
- [15:07]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Because I believe that I am loved beyond measure by magnificent, complex, amused God, who has given me power over practically nothing, really. Very little that I have control over. But what tiny amount I have control over is extremely important. It reminds me of something a friend of mine who was a physicist said one time, that very little of the universe is matter, very little, but what there is is very important. And it's like that, I think, with control and power, 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 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. So that's why I say, I hear a loving presence saying, it's really hard. I'm not telling you. This should be easy.
- [16:14]
Tim 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?
- [16:21]
Elizabeth Gilbert
It's deepened, 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. It was more of a social gathering. 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 was very powerful in me. And I remember going to the National Cathedral on a school trip when I was 10 in Washington, D.C. and I grew up on a farm, so I grew up with very rustic architecture. And to go from. I mean, that cathedral did what cathedrals are meant to do to medieval peasants to me, you know, like, it put me into an awestruck state. And I remember 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? How do you make something that feels like that? And I think writing for me and my pursuit of writing and the arts was always driven by this sense of awe and wonder and Mystery that something was moving, moving through me. That was probably my first direct communication with it. But for the last 20 years, I've had a practice nearly every single day of writing myself a letter every morning from Unconditional Love, which is kind of a God presence. It's a bit more specific, the unconditional love thing, because I think God is more than that. But that's where I also hear direction and guidance and humor. Yeah, I need a very funny God. I'm not going to do well with a God that's too serious. I need a God who thinks I'm funny. Like, who thinks I'm adorable and funny. Like, I need that. I can't be too beaten up by a higher power.
- [18:26]
Tim Ferriss
How did you start that practice? When did it start or even begin germinating?
- [18:31]
Elizabeth Gilbert
It started in desperation when I was 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. I got married at 24 and worked hard and bought a house and made a plan to have a family. And then instead of having a family, I had a nervous breakdown. Like, quite literally, everybody was moving in this one direction and my entire intellectual, spiritual and physical system collapsed, which I now know. I now see that as an act of God. I now see that there was sort of the dao, you know, that there was a force that was trying to communicate to me, this is not your path. 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. I will make you, put you in so much physical pain that you're going to have to notice that this is not the life for you. But I was also in so much shame 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. Anyway, that marriage ended and then I threw myself into another relationship and that ended. And I was like, 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'm comfortable with that language because I often have that happen in my creative life where I'm told what to do. This is what you're going to focus on. Here's what you need to do now. And I was given this instruction, and it came in as clearly as I'm talking to you, and it said, get up, get a notebook, and write to yourself the words that you most wish that somebody would say to you. Because there was a great loneliness that I was feeling too, as well as the shame. And that letter began. You know 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 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. The love that I have for you cannot be lost because it's innate. It's yours. 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 here for every minute of it. 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 on the bathroom floor in a pile of tears. And it's not. It's great. It's great. That's fine. We love you just like that. And that's so nourishing because it's so the opposite of every message that I've ever heard. And so I started Doing that practice. And it's taken me through. I've never. I've had difficult times in the last 20 years, but I've never gone as low again as I went at that time. Because this is the net that catches me routinely before I can get that low. And that voice doesn't change.
- [22:45]
Tim Ferriss
All right, this is getting into the juicy bits that I love to wait around in. So to follow up, you've helped a lot of people now draft or attempt to write similar letters. And I'm wondering a few things. You can answer these in any order you want or you can take it in a different direction. One is if there are ingredients that seem to work better than others, because everything seems to take practice, maybe these letters are no exception. The second is, do you find that people with some religious orientation or spiritual orientation towards a greater power have an easier time writing this? In other words, if the letter is from this power to yourself almost versus being from another version of yourself to yourself, does it differ in impact?
- [23:39]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I found out that what I was doing, there's a name for it, and it's actually a long spiritual tradition for people to do things like this. But it's a practice that's very common in 12 step recovery. And it's called two way prayer. So it's essentially two way prayer. So I call it love, but sometimes I call it God. For a lot of people, that word God is a weapon. I mean, especially people who grew up in 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, get down on your knees. And 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.
- [24:37]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah. Too busy saying Marco to hear the Polo.
- [24:39]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Yeah, I was like, marco, Marco. Marco. Marco. Marco. Marco. Marco. And God's like, can I just. Can I get. Can I get. Can I just. There's something I want to say. And so I would suggest if people are interested in this, you can look up two way prayer because there are a lot of people teaching it and they have made a sort of. What were you saying? Is there like a practice or like instructions? 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 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, you know, I kept like letters, Song of myself from Walt Whitman, which is essentially just a big letter from love. You can just open that up to any page and you read some of it. And I feel like those writers had direct access to the divine and they left the door open when they died, right? So you can just draft in on the sense that they create. So you read something that opens your heart in some way and then you ask one question and one question only. It's not a deposition and it's not a dialogue because the ego always wants a dialogue like the ego always wants. I feel like if I could reduce my ego down to two words, it would be, yeah, but 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.
- [26:36]
Tim Ferriss
You get your opening statement right, and.
- [26:38]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Your opening statement is, dear love, what would you have me know today? And then the other thing that I've seen suggested in two way prayer practice, and this kind of came intuitively to me, but I see that it's taught this way when people teach it is the first line back to you from the divine should be an endearment, an affectionate nickname. My love, my child, my sweetheart, my little one. I hear little one a lot. My little one, my angel, honey head. I've seen some of my friends have like tiny turtle penguin cheeks, you know, like some sort of like endearment stuck.
- [27:17]
Tim Ferriss
Imagining what penguin cheeks look like.
- [27:19]
Elizabeth Gilbert
They're adorable, you know, and that's very hard for some people because the idea of turning toward yourself as though you are worthy of endearment can be really hard for especially perfectionists and the most driven among us. Like, you didn't earn. How did you earn sweet love? You didn't earn that. But this is a kind of love that doesn't have to be earned. So you start with that. And then. So the way I did it, the first night I did it was I literally just wrote what I wish somebody would say to me. And that's pretty straightforward as an instruction because you know what you wish somebody would say to you. You know how you want to be loved. You know how you want to be loved. It's right there like you know what you're dying for. We all know what we're dying for. Whether it's mother love or the missing F, or the partner or the like somebody who's just like, I've got you. I see you, I see you. I love you. You're amazing to me. I see that you're suffering. I'm with you and you're suffering. And then you just write that. But over time, what I think people will find one of the biggest questions people have is like, well, it just feels like it's just me writing to me. It feels super artificial. I don't feel like I'm hearing God's voice. I don't feel like I'm believing that there's this eternal source in the universe that's completely loving and unconditionally adores me. I just feel like I'm doing this exercise of just writing words to myself. And that doesn't feel spiritual and it doesn't feel rich and it doesn't feel real. And the question I have heard is, what's so bad about that? What if it is just you? What if all it is is just you writing to yourself from a kinder voice within you? Wouldn't that be worthy enough to be slightly life changing? Besides the terrorist who lives inside your head constantly telling you how you failed? Like, why not change the channel in your own head? And if that's all it is, and what if God is just the most loving voice inside your own head?
- [29:24]
Tim Ferriss
This makes me actually flashback to our last conversation because we have some proof for this in a different form, which is morning pages from the Artist's Way and Julia Cameron. Just getting your monkey mind on paper, even if it's actually the terrorist, can be incredibly powerful. And one of my friends, I remember he tried it for the first time for a week. And he said he's very high functioning, works with a lot of household names I won't mention. But he said this is the closest thing to a magic trick, a real world magic trick that I've ever come across. So that question, what if it is just the kindest voice in your head? I think helps to diffuse maybe the pressure that people would apply to themselves when trying this for the first time. And as you were talking about the very first example you gave, I was Thinking, and I think this might have been Chip Conley, could have been someone else who said this to me, but that happiness is reality minus expectations. And I was like, there are a lot of ways to play with that collection of variables, one of which is saying, hey, you've already passed the grade. You could be under an overpass. And that's acceptable. That's okay. You don't have to be that Fortune 500 company compounding at X percent per quarter.
- [30:43]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Thank God.
- [30:44]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah.
- [30:47]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Because you know those people and I know those people and I don't know that it's such a gentle, loving life that they're leading.
- [30:55]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, I think I know one of them intimately, at least. So many somebody who kind of assumes that's the baseline, minimal, acceptable outcome. And life just doesn't seem to work that way. It's not linear even if you are improving over time. But applying that pressure sometimes handicaps the improvement in the first place. So question for you. This occurred to me and it may be a dead end, but I'm wondering, have you seen any difference in how men approach this or have challenges with it versus women or no difference. Is it kind of the ubiquitous set of challenges? When you look at the number of friends, listeners, readers, et cetera, who have.
- [31:43]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Attempted this, it's hard to know because women tend to follow me more than men do. But I've invited a number of men. 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 Arche Cooper, who's such an extraordinary guy. He grew up on the south side of Chicago in an absolutely bullet and drug ridden ghetto. Black, underprivileged, underserved. He's the subject and the producer of a gorgeous documentary called A Beautiful Thing. And he wrote a book by the same title. And when he was in high school with no future, some guy showed up in his high school hallway with a rowing machine and was like, I want to start the first black rowing team or the first black crew. Do any of you guys want to do it? And he was like, yes, I absolutely want to do it. And he now has become this ambassador teaching rowing all over the world, in South Africa and in. And his letter from Love that he shared is one of my favorite ones that I've ever seen. 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 tenderly that child needed to be treated. And watching him, this athlete, this motivational speaker, this great leader like, turn toward himself or have love turn 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.
- [33:32]
Tim Ferriss
Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. And I've known the team since 2008 or 2009, but prior to that I wish I had personally had Shopify in the early 2000s when I was running my own e commerce business. But the tools then were absolutely atrocious and I could only dream of a platform like Shopify. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or getting ready for your ipo, Shopify is the only tool you need to start, run and grow your business without the struggle. And once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the Internet's best converting checkout to help you turn browsers into buyers. Shopify powers 10% of all E commerce in the United States and Shopify is truly a global force as the e commerce solution behind Allbirds, Rothys, Brooklinen and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across more than 170 countries. Plus, Shopify's award winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. If you have questions established in 2025 has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? So sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com all lowercase go to shopify.com Tim to start selling today with Shopify one more time shopify.com Tim.
- [34:55]
Elizabeth Gilbert
There'S something that I've learned in IFS internal family systems therapy.
- [35:00]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, I was just going to bring that up. Yeah, I mean the hive mind is working.
- [35:03]
Elizabeth Gilbert
It all works within ifs too. But there's one of the things they say in ifs a lot is a prepositional change. How do you feel toward yourself versus how do you feel about yourself?
- [35:14]
Tim Ferriss
May I just give a little bit of context for folks so ifs for people who don't know 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 therapy. And it can be very, very powerful. So I just wanted to give people a little bit of context.
- [35:52]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Beautifully described. Yeah, I've heard it described as group therapy, for one. And he actually, Dick Schwartz, who founded it, started off as a group therapist and when he started doing individual therapy, he was like, oh, this is just like group therapy. We've got voices yelling at each other inside this person who don't know how to communicate with each other. Right. So, yeah, that's a really beautiful summation of what it is. But the difference between even. I mean, try 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?
- [36:26]
Tim Ferriss
Totally different. Right, because how do you feel it toward yourself? I'm taking a friendly observer perspective.
- [36:33]
Elizabeth Gilbert
There's a built in empathy.
- [36:35]
Tim 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 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 instantly.
- [36:54]
Elizabeth Gilbert
You ask me how I feel about myself. I'll show you a list of everything that needs improvement. And I'm wired to constantly be self improving. And I'm sure you are too. How do I feel toward myself? I'm like, oh man, you're tired. You've got this chest cold you've had for seven weeks. You're finishing this project. That's huge. You got a lot on you, like honey. Yeah, it's hard. You're having a hard time. It's hard. Suddenly it's like I'm a very different person toward myself.
- [37:21]
Tim Ferriss
Let's actually hop from that. I'll mention one thing, then I want to hop to something related, which is self friendliness and how you think about it, how others might think about it. I just want to say in connection with IFS and also a number of other workshops and seminars that I've done, I have not written a letter from love in the way that you describe it exactly. But I did write a version of it that sounds actually very similar to the last example you gave. And this is done in a fair amount of parts. Work is. What would you say to X? Which could be I'm making this up, but fear of inadequacy. At what age? 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 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?
- [38:27]
Elizabeth 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. You know what I mean? How about the common courtesy you would show to a stranger on the subway? Let's start with that. Just common human decency. So there's a story that I'm so moved and disturbed by it. So Sharon Salzberg. Do you know Sharon Salzberg, 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's 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 what Tibetan Buddhism and his teachings have to say about self hatred and how to combat self hatred. And don't you know, that man had to talk to his translator for like 15 minutes and kept asking for the question to be repeated. He didn't understand the question. He kept thinking that he was mishearing the question because he kept saying, wait, who is the enemy? Who's the person that you're having trouble with? And of course, being like Calvinistic Westerners in the room, raised on scarcity and you're never enoughness and original sin. Everybody in the room was like, no, I'm the one I hate. And he was like, this doesn't even make sense. Like, what you're saying doesn't even make sense. 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 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. Like, this is not okay. And essentially after that, he said, this is where we're going to start. And then that's basically what he 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 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 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 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, and he was like, okay, grandmother. Like, he was just, scratch that, scratch that. He was like, cousin, has anybody ever said a kind word to you? And it really spotlights this sort of terrible dysfunction that we all kind of collectively have grown up in.
- [41:47]
Tim 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 may experience it in the absence of a religious upbringing, as would be the case for me. Any other recommendations or thoughts?
- [42:13]
Elizabeth Gilbert
You just made me realize I didn't answer your second question about whether people who have some sort of religious or spiritual basis find this easier. Not necessarily, because some people still are praying to what James Joyce called the hangman God. And you're not going to get a letter of unconditional love from the hangman God. You're going to get a list of complaints about things that you need to do better. So sometimes those people have a really hard time doing it. There's one man I asked to do this, to write a letter from love, and he's a very well known figure in the world of. I'm trying to think how to not identify. I'm not even going to say more than that. But he's somebody who's very admired and is very good. 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 going to ask love to show up and love isn't going to show up and that would be more painful than not asking, or they feel like it's too vulnerable to expose themselves like this. He said no because he said, I have a feeling I know what unconditional love is gonna say to me. It's gonna say you're trying too hard and you're doing too much and you don't have to try this hard and do too much. But I don't wanna be let off the hook because I wanna keep aspiring to go further and higher. And I don't wanna hear a voice that tells me that I'm okay just the way I am. I'm afraid that will make me stop. And I was like, oh, honey, who hurt you? Oh dear, you can still do things, but might it not be nice to also hear that something loves you even as you're aspiring? Anyway, that was interesting. Sorry, but you had a second question?
- [43:48]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, the question was, I suppose, related. And that is, outside of writing this letter, you've described what other approaches or habits, anything at all have you found helpful or seen helpful for others in counteracting self antagonism? So fostering self friendliness, in other words.
- [44:10]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Boundaries is what comes to mind. And some really hardcore ones.
- [44:17]
Tim Ferriss
Makes me think of our mutual friend Martha Beck.
- [44:19]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Yeah.
- [44:20]
Tim Ferriss
Who you've known a lot longer than I have.
- [44:23]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Tell me what made you think of her for that?
- [44:25]
Tim Ferriss
Well, the integrity cleanse and just checking in. I know we discussed it last time, but setting a timer to check in every 30 minutes to see if you're lying and if you're, if you want.
- [44:34]
Elizabeth Gilbert
To even be in this conversation.
- [44:36]
Tim Ferriss
Right. If your sister's like, yeah, you're coming over for the baby shower and you're like, oh, I'd love to beep, beep, beep, like no, actually I really have some interest.
- [44:47]
Elizabeth Gilbert
There are people who I am not skilled. This is how I word it because I want to keep it on me. I'm not skilled enough to be able to hold my serenity when I'm around them. 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 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. I come home sick when I'm around those people. Like, I lose my attainments when I'm around those people. And it's not friendly for me to be around people who are cruel. And when I'm around people who are cruel, I become unwell. And I also then have to use something to like, I get. So drugs.
- [46:00]
Tim Ferriss
You mean like substance?
- [46:02]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Like, I get. Like, there's certain people, I'm around them and it's like, I want to have a drink. Like, I want to have a drink. Call a phone number I shouldn't dial. Like, start smoking and driving fast, you know, like, this dysregulates me so, so much. And it's not kind to myself to put myself in those situations again and again.
- [46:20]
Tim Ferriss
So how do you. Or how have you created boundaries or put those relationships on probation or otherwise?
- [46:30]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I'm trying to think how to describe it that doesn't get to revealing too much personal stuff. I'm not here to say it's easy, but I do feel a sense of stewardship toward myself. And, I mean, it's hard. I'll tell you this. I did an event with Rachel Cargle, the great writer and civil rights activist, a couple years ago, and somebody in the audience asked us, you guys both seem so calm and chilled. You have difficult people in your life. And I started laughing so hard, I rolled, literally rolled off my chair. And I was like, yeah, yeah. And she said, no, I don't.
- [47:07]
Tim Ferriss
Wow.
- [47:07]
Elizabeth Gilbert
And I was like, wait, what? And I was like leaning in. I'm like, wait a minute, break that down. And she said, no, I don't have anybody in my life currently who's difficult because I won't do that to myself anymore. And here's the zinger. This is somebody with a tremendous sense of self value and self friendliness. She said the follow up question in the audience was somebody said, what about people who you have to deal with and you have to have them in your life because they're in your family? And she said, I'm thinking as hard as I can and I cannot come up with a single name of anybody who is entitled to be in my life, no matter what their biological relationship is to me. And that's a radical position to take. And Rachel Cargill lives a radical life. And that's Somebody who is really prioritizing her own well being. And she was like, I've blocked my mother for several years at a time because she was too destructive. She's like, I've got siblings I haven't spoken to in years because they're too disruptive and they are not entitled to have me in their life just because we were born into the same family. That's intense boundaries. So I will say only that I've done stuff like that. I've decided that not everybody's entitled to have me in their life.
- [48:23]
Tim Ferriss
Just a practical, tactical question, since that's where my brain sometimes goes. Do you slow fade that person? You just start first, you respond after 24 hours, then it's a week, then it's two months, then it's never. Or do you have a conversation? Do you text them and you're like, hey, love you but. Or is there some approach to that?
- [48:41]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I'm going through a list in my head. I'm like, how did I do that one? How did I do that one? Some have been done, I would say elegantly, which to me means honestly. But I think again, you can keep it on the eye and just say, I noticed that I become so dysregulated after these encounters that I can't do this anymore. This is too dysregulating for me. I can't do it. I'm out. And at times where I'm super dysregulated, I will say I'm not well and I need to go get well and I'm going to go take some privacy because that's also true. I can get so dysregulated that I become unwell. I'm thinking of a couple other people where I very honestly said, I'm in a place in my life right now where I need a lot of solitude and a lot of silence. And if that changes, I'll let you know. And then there's some people who I just stopped responding to because their being. I kept running through the scenarios of like, how would an open and honest conversation about this go? And it would be like, not good. I don't have any reason to think that this would go well. Like, this is going to be a firestorm and I think I'm just going to leave that. It isn't easy, but I'm a lot healthier since I've done that. I think it's easier when you're older too, because I think you get used to, like, you don't keep everybody in life. You think as a Young person, you can't.
- [50:10]
Tim Ferriss
You can't, right? There's an ebb and flow. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't. And it makes me think of maybe bonsai is not the right example because I do think of them kind of as little tortured trees, but pruning as opposed to accumulating. Right. Curating as opposed to collecting. And I think as you get older, you just realize, okay, there is at least as far as we know, in this corporeal body, an end to the story, not generating more time. And some people just consume more life energy than they contribute.
- [50:43]
Elizabeth 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 some people need to be institutionalized. It's beyond that. It's just like, I can't do anything with this year. One thing I have noticed is that I don't like holidays. I don't like the ritual of big holiday gatherings. And I've let my family know that, that I'm like, I love you guys and I'm going to come and see you any day of the year except these days. So I'll come and see you in early December. I'll spend a week. We'll have a great time. Like, I want to have one on one time with you. I want to sit at the table with you. I want to go for walks with you. I want to go for bike rides with you. I'm not coming for Christmas.
- [51:39]
Tim Ferriss
Why is that? I'm so curious, just as someone who you picked my one and favorite holiday.
- [51:45]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Oh, do you love that's so wonderful.
- [51:46]
Tim Ferriss
Which is fine and great. But I'm curious, what is it about.
- [51:50]
Elizabeth Gilbert
The gathering that cherished outcomes?
- [51:53]
Tim Ferriss
Cherished outcomes meaning that you feel like you need to perform?
- [51:56]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Man, I feel like there's so much on the table and it's like the meal. Even as a kid, I found it so stressful and everyone's so tense and it's like, why do we have to do this? And the answer is, you don't have to, but the people who love it should do it.
- [52:19]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, for sure. I just sit by the fire with my dog and drink hot chocolate.
- [52:26]
Elizabeth Gilbert
That sounds fantastic.
- [52:28]
Tim Ferriss
It's not very stressful in my case.
- [52:30]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I actually like spending holidays alone because they're quiet days. When you're alone, the phone's not ringing and work emails aren't coming in Some of my happiest days have been holidays that I spent alone. I enjoy it.
- [52:43]
Tim Ferriss
Have you always been comfortable with solitude or extended periods of being alone? Has that always been the case?
- [52:48]
Elizabeth Gilbert
It's a mix, but I love my own company, except for when I'm in some sort of super disrupted mental state. And then it's very painful to be with myself. But 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 waking up and being like, here's our day. Like, what do we want to do? How do we want to spend this? And I'm a writer. I chose to be a writer. It's a very solitary. It is solitary time, and I love that 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. I have a lot of friends and a lot of people who I love and care about, but I'm always happy to go back to being alone. Anyway, I heard him say one time, and he's got four kids, I think, but he said, you can love your books, but they can't love you back. And I thought, oh, my books love me back. My work loves me. It is a love story in two directions. It is a beautiful love story, writing those books. And I feel that there's something very alive and connected in that that isn't just me.
- [54:06]
Tim Ferriss
So for people who can't see, and even for people who can see, video, your hairstyle has changed since we last spoke. How did that come to be? Is there a significance there?
- [54:17]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I've buzzed off my hair, gosh, about nine months ago. And 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 buzz it off. Just buzz. Like, just take it off, take it.
- [54:37]
Tim Ferriss
Off, take it off.
- [54:38]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Just take it off. Like, I just want to be free. I want to be free. And I never had the courage to do it. And I had a lot of reasons for why I couldn't do that as a woman. What if my head has a weird shape? What if. I mean, I'm a public figure. What if I'm out there with a bald head? I just. I always was like, when I get older, I do it. When I get older, I'll do it. And then I had this amazing Awakening. And it was last year, I went to an event in New York and there are a bunch of people there who were in their 40s, 50s and 60s. And this is New York City, so it's 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, shaved or buzzed hair, and they all looked great. Like yours. They all looked great. Thank you. It was a bunch of silver foxes. They all had lines in their faces. They looked fantastic. And all the women had long or longish versions of some sort of complicated hair that I know hair. So I know what it costs to have that hair. I know the keratin treatment you had to have for that hair to look silky. I know the dye job that you had to pay for. I know how much those highlights cost. I know that only 2% of women in the world are blonde and that 45% of the women in that room were blonde, including me. And I was thinking about Dolly Parton's line where somebody said to her one time, do you ever get offended at dumb blonde jokes? And she said, no, because I know I ain't dumb and I know I ain't blonde. And it's like, I ain't blonde and I ain't dumb, but I'm spending a lot of money to. And I just had the. This really reckoning moment where I thought, why are we doing this? Why do I have to do this? And so many of the most amazing 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 I thought, I can just get mad about the patriarchy and say that there's an unfair beauty standard for men and women, or I can just claim the entitlement that these men have and just get some buzzers at CVS and clip my own hair and never think about my hair again. And that's what I did.
- [56:57]
Tim Ferriss
So you did it yourself?
- [56:58]
Elizabeth 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.
- [57:03]
Tim Ferriss
I was going to say, now we can trade tips.
- [57:06]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I know, it's so great. And I was like, oh, my God, the freedom. I wake up every morning, I'm like, my hair is perfect. Like, I Jump in a river, jump in a lake, jump in an ocean, get off, get off a plane. It's never not perfect, it's amazing. And I can't imagine any reason to ever have hair again. And it's part of, I don't know, I just think it's part of this amazing thing about becoming a free woman and a middle aged. I am culture's nightmare. I'm a middle aged, childless, husbandless woman. Like I'm basically a bog witch. Like, just like living rattling around in a house by myself, talking to myself, watering my plants, shaving my head. And it's so cool, it's so exciting because I never saw a woman like this when I was growing up. And I never heard of a woman like this. I only heard cautionary tales about how tragic and sad unmarried, divorced or widowed women were. And I'm all of those. I'm unmarried, divorced and widowed. So I'm like the trifecta. And these have been the most creative, spiritual and wild years of my life.
- [58:20]
Tim Ferriss
We were exchanging various ideas, potential topics, before this conversation in shorthand, because of course I want to talk about things fresh. Without knowing the answers, I'm going to get relaxed woman. A relaxed woman is a radical concept. What is this?
- [58:41]
Elizabeth Gilbert
How many have you ever met?
- [58:43]
Tim Ferriss
Oh boy. In the hot seat.
- [58:45]
Elizabeth Gilbert
No, it's not. I mean, I haven't met that many relaxed men either. But I think it would be a truly revolutionary thing.
- [58:53]
Tim Ferriss
What are the characteristics of a relaxed one? What does that look like?
- [58:57]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Well, first of all, I want to say that this is why I think it would be revolutionary. So let me start with why. When I think of the words that are commonly used to describe the women who we all admire, badass, fierce, tough, resilient, brave, strong, or in the brene brown realm, vulnerable, open hearted. I aspire to be all of those things and I admire all those women who are all those things. But none of that feels revolutionary to me because women have always been all those things. You have to be all those things as a woman in the world. You have to be resilient, you have to be strong, you have to be badass, you have to be fierce to survive as a woman. My ancestors were all that. Your ancestors were that or we wouldn't exist. So it's not a revolution. It's not a revolution. What would be a revolution would be a relaxed woman. Because I never saw one growing up. I saw angry, tired women and I saw some relaxed men, but I saw angry, tired women and I was on the pathway to becoming an Angry, tired woman. And that's when my body revolted and was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're not doing this. We're going in a completely different direction. So how do you not be an angry, tired woman? That's a really big question. And I think when I talk about this with groups of women, I always say, I think we have to be careful because there's some part of us that thinks it would be irresponsible not to be angry, and it would be irresponsible not to be tired. Because, I mean, just look at the world and how much it needs us on the personal level and on the political level and how much there is to be angry about. And how many of us were violated in our bodies at various times. I mean, there's a million reasons to not be relaxed. And yet the question I have is if you were to step in. And this is a question I always ask to women. If you were to think of the biggest shit tornado going on in your life right now, whatever it is, the hardest thing you're doing, whether it's your activism or your family or your work or a medical issue or a bankruptcy or an addiction issue, like whatever it is, or a problematic family member. And if you were to go into that same exact shit tornado tomorrow and not one external thing changed, but you were relaxed, would you be more or less effective at handling it? Martial artists know that the most relaxed person in the room wins the fight. Actors know this, artists know this. Like, this is where the flow happens. Athletes know this. And so I think for me, I've narrowed it down to three things that I need for me for my system to be relaxed. And it's boundaries, priorities, and mysticism. And if I don't have those three things, I'm super stressed. And I would say that the mysticism is the most important, but the boundaries protect that.
- [61:58]
Tim Ferriss
So, boundaries. What was number two?
- [62:01]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Priorities.
- [62:02]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, priorities. And then mysticism.
- [62:04]
Elizabeth Gilbert
And women are not taught that they're allowed to have priorities. Men are taught that they're allowed to have priorities. But women are supposed to prioritize everybody and everything. And you feel really guilty if you're not prioritizing everybody and everything. And I always suggest that you should maybe have, like, four priorities, like four or five. And there's nothing like tragedy to kind of make it clear what your priorities are, too. Like, when my partner Rayo, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, it became very clear to me very quickly who I cared about and what I wanted to be doing with my time. And I remember opening my inbox the day I found out that she had six months to live and seeing like this huge list of emails. And I just deleted them all without responding to them because I was like, the reason that these emails have been sitting in my inbox for months is not because I'm too busy, it's because I don't care. I don't care. Those are the three words that women are never allowed to say. Like a woman is never allowed to say I don't care.
- [63:04]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, you're not too busy, you just, you just don't care.
- [63:05]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I don't care. Look, if I care, I'll get back to you immediately. This is what I've learned about my inbox. Same with my text messages. You will hear from me immediately. If I care. If I don't, it's because I don't care. And it's okay. You can't care about everything or you.
- [63:22]
Tim Ferriss
Just don't care enough in the hierarchy of your priorities.
- [63:26]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Priorities, priorities, right. So who are your priorities? What are your priorities? What do you actually care about? Do you have the courage to say no? So boundaries, priorities. And then mysticism is the only thing that will actually relax my nervous system and that is getting really quiet and connecting through two way prayer, through a letter from love and through deep meditation. Because I can't just live on this plane or I will lose my shit. The plane of the apparent and the real and the material and the Newtonian physics, it's like too stressful and I need to have access to a deeper perspective to be able to be relaxed enough to actually say and mean, I have no cherished outcome. Like right to the point of saying, like, whether I live or die, I have no cherished outcome. Can I be that relaxed? Can I be relaxed enough not to know what's going to happen? Can I believe that some other thing is orchestrating this and my involvement might not be necessary in every single moment? This is a hard thing for women.
- [64:30]
Tim Ferriss
Is that the key ingredient of the mysticism for you? Because they're different forms for sure that mysticism can take. I mean, you mentioned Hafiz, 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 are there other aspects to that?
- [65:01]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Well, there's love. So we have to then go back to, you don't have to win this. You're not going to be graded. 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. So got all the time in the world. We got all the time in the universe. What's time? Plenty of time. It'll happen or it won't. Like whatever the thing is. And that actually also happens to be true. That it will happen or it won't. Like even we know that our best laid plan. Sometimes it's like, I guess this wasn't the thing that was supposed to happen. But then there's also where my body goes into a deep hum that I used to only be able to get from substances or 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. You don't even know what you're looking at. And it just pierces my certainty because my certainty is one of the things that makes me so anxious. And this is a very convincing virtual reality that we live in. 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. And that what we used to think was natural law is at best some very local ordinances. 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 that settles me. And it shouldn't be. And it's kind of like the rugs and the floor and the ground are being pulled out from under you completely. And that shouldn't be relaxing. But I find it deeply relaxing because then the stakes suddenly become a lot lower 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. You're still in the virtual reality game. Play it nicely, but play it knowing that you don't even know what you're looking at.
- [67:55]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, I'm still thinking of your correlation that you drew between certainty and anxiety, which seems very astute, and that most people would steer away from. They would rather be unhappy than uncertain because uncertainty equals in a lot of minds. And this is true for me at times too, hidden risks. But it also, depending on how you kind of play the game and which poetry you read and so on, it also opens the door to the possibility of unexpected surprises. Good surprises, good things. Makes sense to me. I've had a similar settling experience. I mean, it's sometimes enhanced, so I can't recommend that to a broad audience.
- [68:39]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Well, no, no, no, no, I get it. And that's why people. 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. Like Steve Jobs, last words. Wow, wow, wow. Like whatever he saw in those last moments. Wow, wow, wow. I'm thinking of a relative of mine who I said one time, would you rather be happy or right? And they said, how in the world could I be happy if I wasn't right? And I think that. That it's actually quite the opposite for me. Like, probably wrong.
- [69:16]
Tim Ferriss
Human history in a nutshell. It should be a book title.
- [69:21]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I mean, just look at my life. 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. 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. I'm good at manifesting what I want, and I'm good at almost dying from getting what I want. So maybe there's a better question to be asking than what do I want?
- [69:49]
Tim Ferriss
Have you any thoughts on candidates for that better question?
- [69:54]
Elizabeth Gilbert
What would you have me know?
- [69:55]
Tim Ferriss
What would you have me know?
- [69:57]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I mean, that's a really good one.
- [70:00]
Tim 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, where to allocate your limited life force? Because there's what do you want? Which is where a lot of people would start. Although that's a pretty. It can be nebulous in a handicapping way because that could take you in all sorts of different directions. But how do you choose your projects, things to spend time on?
- [70:30]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I'm kind of a hard ass about it.
- [70:31]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah. Great.
- [70:33]
Elizabeth 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, and inspiration is the breathing in of God, right? So like something even the most empirical, scientific, atheist people in the world, when they talk about where an idea came from, they say, an idea came to me. Like, they say that. 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. It's like, oh, I just heard, saw, felt an inspiration. And I know the difference between something that comes from me and something that comes to me. Talking about prepositions again, and I think most creative people do as well. Like, oh, this came to me, right? And then it can feel like an assignment, or it can feel like a challenge. And it's like, now I want to make this thing, but a place where I think people get sidetracked and distracted. It's very, very, very similar to meditation. Like meditation, spirituality and art have so much in common. So this may sound familiar to people who, like, maybe you've had this experience. You start working on this thing that was this inspiration, and couple weeks, couple months into it, couple days, another idea comes. And that idea seems more interesting than the one that you've already invested some time into. And then you're like, but I want to do this thing. This thing is fresh and exciting. This is the really, really cool thing. 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.
- [72:26]
Tim Ferriss
That is so smart. Yes.
- [72:27]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Right. Because then it's legit. It's like, no, I've got this better idea. But do you have 30 unfinished things? Because if you have 30 unfinished things, now we have a problem. And I have those same things happen to me. Like I'm a third of a way, a quarter of a way, fifth of a way in a project. And then something so much more interesting comes along and I'm like, but I know enough to know it comes dancing. It's like a dancing girl. It just comes across this thing.
- [72:52]
Tim Ferriss
I was going to say the hottest girl at the dance.
- [72:53]
Elizabeth Gilbert
The hottest girl at the dance. And it's like, just showed up and you're like, and you've been married for two months, you know, and you're like, oh, I've been married for two months in the hot. But what I know is that if I abandon my. Let's call it wife, this project that I've been working on for a few months to go off with the hot girl, in a few months, she's going to be just as boring instead. And then a new hot girl is going to come on and I'm never going to complete anything. So stick with the one you came to the dance with. And if I've got multiple ideas and I'm not sure which one I'm beginning, I actually have sort of like a team meeting and I make the ideas, make proposals to me about how they want. What do you actually want me to do?
- [73:36]
Tim Ferriss
Project based. Ifs totally.
- [73:39]
Elizabeth Gilbert
It's like I'm the angel investor. And these ideas are like, we want your time and money for this. And I'm like, what are you, what do you have for me? Why should I invest? Invest my money and time in you? And a lot of ideas, when I challenge them like that, disappear into the ether because they're like, I don't know, something about birds, you know, like, they don't. Like they haven't. I'm like, you haven't thought it out? You know, and then some other ideas, like, no, I want to write about this very specific thing. And it's going to take that, you know, I'm like, okay, so this one's got their act together. So when the bird idea is more formed, come back. Like, come back when you're ready. Come back when you're ready to be real and not just to be tantalizing me with. So I'm a real hard ass about it. I don't mess around. I don't let these ideas push me around.
- [74:17]
Tim Ferriss
I Love it. Are there other ways that you. To quote the late Lord, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, he had this amazing line that has stuck with me, which is something along the lines of the key mission is to separate an opportunity to be seized from a temptation to be resisted. Something along those lines. And I'm wondering how else you navigate that with the multiple ideas. Because maybe there are cases, because you have a track record of finishing things. Maybe there are cases where you get three months into something and you're like, you know what? This is not what I hoped it could be. And there's this other thing, and I want to switch planes midair, but how would you think about. Or how do you think about distinguishing between those two?
- [75:01]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I've never done that.
- [75:02]
Tim Ferriss
You've never done it?
- [75:04]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I've never switched planes midair. Oh, you haven't?
- [75:06]
Tim Ferriss
Okay. So when you start a project, you basically have done the hard ass due diligence up front that you're like, nope, this is high conviction.
- [75:13]
Elizabeth Gilbert
That's so weird.
- [75:14]
Tim Ferriss
I know. This is the thing.
- [75:15]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I never thought of that. Yeah, I mean, this is like the mystery of a human brain or a human system. Because in my personal life I'm so flaky and in my professional life I'm so clear. It's amazing. I think the universe gives us certain things that are sort of easier for us than other things. But. Yeah, because it takes me so long to do a project, because my projects, whether they're fiction or nonfiction, are so heavily research driven and. And it can take three or four years to create one of these books. And so the last novel that I wrote, City of Girls, I was thinking about that book for 10 years before I started it. It was at those meetings for 10 years. And the next novel that I'm planning to write, I've been thinking about for probably 15 years, but it's coming more into view. So there's some that are kind of on the horizon that are coming in, but I'm thinking of air traffic control. They come in in order. Something is feeding them to me in order. And I don't know what that something is, but one at a time. I can't do two at a time.
- [76:15]
Tim Ferriss
What do you think contributes to that certainty in the professional realm? As I'm listening to and thinking about everything you've said in this conversation and also the review of the last conversation, but it strikes me that feeling like you have more than enough time. A voice has told you there's more than enough time relieves you of the perceived obligation to choose the best Thing because you're running out of time. That's just pure speculation on my part. Second is feeling like there's a source you are hearing from versus having to independently make an ideal decision may also give weight to the things as they come in. As you put it through this air traffic controller. I'm just wondering what else might contribute to the clarity. There may be some interpersonal simplicity compared to dealing with other messy humans. I don't know. Anything else that you think contributes to the clarity and the not switching planes midair?
- [77:14]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I think part of it is that I enjoy it. I enjoy the work. And I never identified as a tormented artist. I've identified as a tormented person, but I've never identified as a tormented artist. Art has been. Creativity has been the place where 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 I think I'm getting a big smile on my face as I'm thinking about this. But I'm thinking like, why shouldn't we do the thing that is so pleasurable? Why shouldn't that be a clue as to the thing that you're supposed to be doing that you're on the right track? Because long before I became a meditator, I had so much trouble meditating for years. But I would start to write and hours would drop away and I would not be aware of time. So writing gave me the thing that meditation promised. But I could never have happen in meditation until very recently where like time stops or changes and I'm here but not here. So that's just so pleasurable. But the other thing is, like, sometimes I feel that it's a mandate. And I can't talk about the book that I've just finished. It's coming out next year. But I can say that it's the hardest thing I've ever written emotionally. 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. I have a higher power who's constantly letting me off the hook for lots of stuff that I do not have to do. It's like, you do not have to be involved in this. You don't have to be part of that chaos thing that's going on. You don't have to be part of this family gathering. You don't have to rescue this person. You don't have to. I get a lot of you don't have to's. You don't have to. This. You don't have to do that. But throughout this entire process of this book, because I was struggling every morning when I wrote it out on the page, that voice would say, I can see how hard this is for you. And I can see what this has cost, the toll that this is taking on you to tell this story. And I can see that you want to stop. Too bad.
- [79:22]
Tim Ferriss
I've given you 47 hall passes and this is not going to be the 48th.
- [79:26]
Elizabeth Gilbert
This isn't one of them. And sucks to suck. Get back to work. I'll see you on the page. I know you're tired. I know you want to take a day off. You're not having a day off. And I think the trust that has built up between me and that higher power over the decades, largely because of the things that I am let off the hook for, has made me think. It goes back to the original part of the conversation where I said, I'm loved beyond measure 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. 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.
- [80:11]
Tim Ferriss
However.
- [80:13]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Yeah. And the reason I don't want you up in all this other stuff that's going on is because I very much need you in this. And so I want you to bring your full attention to this. And if that changes, you'll be notified. You'll be notified of something. That happens a lot on the pages of two way prayer. For me, I mean, I've gone through periods of time where I didn't have any creative ideas at all. Early pandemic. I was like, wow, this would be a great time to write, but I actually don't have anything that's ready to go. And I remember writing in two way prayer and saying, should I be working on something right now? And instantly came the answer, when we've got something for you to do, you'll be notified. And I was like, well, what do I do until then? And they're like, hang out. Like, hang out. Be present to the world. It's amazing. Walk around, look at stuff. You don't have to be on duty at every moment, but when you have to be on duty, you really have to be on duty. And I think part of the aspiration that I have to Both be a relaxed woman and teach and model that to other women is this is the opposite of what women have been taught. Wait, what if I'm not on duty all the time? What if I'm only on duty sometimes and I have to follow a deep inner voice that tells me when that is and what that is and everything else? You all can take care of yourselves. And that's something that we as women are not taught, that we can ever say, like, I'll do it. I'll do it.
- [81:37]
Tim Ferriss
So I want to 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 Ypres Love would not exist without the Artist's Way. That's a true statement. I'm wondering which pieces of it, because I don't think we got into the specifics, but what pieces of it really made that the case? And 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. So as an example, I'm wondering, was that a part of it? Is that a part of it for you?
- [82:25]
Elizabeth Gilbert
The artist day is hard. Yeah, it's hard. I still have trouble figuring that one out sometimes. So here, I can tell you exactly one. I can tell you exactly it. 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 then there's the morning pages. 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 there was something you wish you had studied, what would it be? She's coming at it from 20 different directions. And then there's this point that comes late in the process where she instructs you to go back and read everything that you've written and start looking at what keeps showing up. Because I think one of the mysterious and magical things and weird things about our brain is, like, the secrets we can keep from ourselves, where it's like, I didn't even know that about me. So when I went back and read Italian was on Every page. And I was like, apparently I really want to fucking learn to speak Italian. And I would not have said that that was like a massive priority of my life. But apparently my soul knew that it was an instruction because it was like, Italian. I kept seeing Italian and I was like, why Italian? You know, it's not useful unless you are in Italy. It's not Spanish words spoken across the globe or why, why, why, why? And why is not a spiritual question and never brings a spiritual answer, so it's kind of useless. But I just went with it. And I was like, okay. And one of my artist dates was to sign up for Italian classes without knowing why, just because it kept showing up on the page. So I did six months of Italian classes, like night school for divorced ladies at the Y. And I loved it so much. And I started watching movies in Italian. And I started. I had no plan for anything I was going to do with it. And then I was like, well, wait, I want to use this Italian. I want to go to Italy and speak this language. But I also have been studying meditation a lot lately. And I want to go to India. I also want to go back. And then out of that was porn 8 Bray love. So it took me by surprise as much as anything. And maybe you've had that experience in your morning pages where it's like, I didn't even know that I can hide things so far from myself that I can't even find them.
- [84:51]
Tim Ferriss
That's true for my phone too. You mentioned that why is not a spiritual question and doesn't give you spiritual answers. Something along those lines. Could you elaborate on that?
- [85:04]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Okay. Anytime I howl into the void, any question that begins with why, I do not get an answer, I will not be answered. I can do two way prayer from now till God leaves Chicago, from now till time gets better. And I guess why, why, why, why, why? And I will not be given an answer that's much more satisfying than what an adult would tell a toddler at some point. Just because. Because I said so. Because is. I wrote a poem once called the shortest Conversation I Ever had with God. And it's God, why? Oh, sorry, me, but why? Which is again, the ego and God, because it 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, 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. 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, take a nap, turn the phone off. But why? And I think that goes back to. You don't even know what you're looking at. I think that goes back to, we're five Einstein's away from even having the right questions to get the right answers. But why is it. It turns into a black hole that I just fall into and it's this great echoing silence.
- [86:34]
Tim 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, it makes sense. And I was asking you about choosing projects. I want to ask you about anxiety, specifically purpose anxiety. What is purpose anxiety?
- [86:54]
Elizabeth Gilbert
You're smiling, so I see you already know.
- [86:56]
Tim Ferriss
No, I don't, I don't. I mean, I can.
- [86:58]
Elizabeth Gilbert
It's kind of right there in the title.
- [87:00]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah. Based on the words I can imagine, right?
- [87:02]
Elizabeth Gilbert
You can work it out in context.
- [87:04]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, I think I can work it out.
- [87:05]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Well, I mean, the story that most of us were taught was some variation of. Each of you was born with one unique offering, special spark that is only yours and only you can deliver on that thing. It is your job. It is your job to find out what that thing is that only you can do. Meanwhile, there's what, almost 8 billion people on the planet. So already here's some pressure, because it's got to be something that nobody else can do, which is. Is going to be unlikely because there's a lot of us, and 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 way before you're out of adolescence. You should already be 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. 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, because you must leave a legacy and you must change the world. So no pressure, but 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 they must know you are here. You must leave your mark on the world. And I think the world at this point is like, I wish maybe that you stopped leaving marks on me, like maybe we could use a little less of that. And I hardly know anyone who doesn't suffer from purpose anxiety. And I know people who are living, living lives that look from the outside like they have achieved tremendous purpose and it's a scarcity anxiety. So they're up at night wondering if they've done enough. Have they done the right thing? Have they left enough of a legacy? Is this where their energy should have gone? It's 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 are so admired 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 a never enoughness to it that feels a lot like capitalism. It'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. It's the same with purpose. It's like, when will you know that you've made a big enough impact a little more? And what would be the opposite of a purpose driven life would be, 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. But it's like, that's it. You're like, how much did I make, how much did I leave, how much did I impact? Meanwhile, the world is happening and you're in it and you're missing it.
- [90:23]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, I'm reflecting. I can't recall the exact. You might actually know the attribution here. I don't know if it's a fictional quote or not, but there's some, I want to say this huge statue in the desert that has deteriorated over time and it's half buried and the inscription reads something like, I am Osymedias. Lord, look upon my works and my works and tremble.
- [90:47]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Yeah, yeah.
- [90:49]
Tim Ferriss
And it's like, yep, yep. That's where it's all headed. On the side of. It's along similar lines. I often think to myself, I'm like, all right, all these guys are talking about legacy and gals too. But a lot of the guys that.
- [91:02]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I'm surrounded by, a lot of guys, yeah.
- [91:04]
Tim Ferriss
And it's. They're reading books and so am I about, you know, whether it's like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan or Titan, about Rockefeller, whatever it might be, hoping to glean things from, from these lives. And Alexander the Great. Tell me his last name. What was his full name? Nobody can tell me.
- [91:21]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Great.
- [91:21]
Tim Ferriss
Do you know what I mean?
- [91:22]
Elizabeth Gilbert
His middle name was the.
- [91:23]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And it's like we're 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 for what you deem a life well lived? And I'll tell you a story. So the story takes place 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 something.
- [91:58]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I love the picture.
- [91:59]
Tim Ferriss
So I would sometimes go because I was spending time in upstate New York, beautiful campus, amazing groundhogs everywhere. So I would go sit in the cafe and I would write. And I remember this conversation happening next to me. So I wasn't getting any work done, but I was eavesdropping on this conversation, and it was this man and this woman. And the guy asked the woman, hi, I know you've been looking for a job for a while. Do you find a new gig? And she's like, no, I've been really busy being non dual.
- [92:25]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Oh, my God. Oh, that's like a New Yorker cartoon. So good.
- [92:29]
Tim Ferriss
Okay, so there is maybe the shadow side of presence, which could be a lot of navel gazing, and maybe that's totally fine. And in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't make a difference. But for yourself personally, recognizing that presence seems to be very additive to one's life. Are there other ingredients that you weigh?
- [92:53]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Can I first tell you a story?
- [92:54]
Tim Ferriss
Yes, please.
- [92:55]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Okay, So I want to tell you a counter story about a purpose driven life.
- [93:00]
Tim Ferriss
Okay.
- [93:00]
Elizabeth 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. 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 guy standing on the top of a ladder painting the awning of his storefront. And I instantly was able to see that the ladder was not steady. And I have a very severe ladder sensitivity because I grew up on a farm and my mom was constantly telling me, like, go hold your father's ladder. Because my dad was always doing jackass things on the ladder in the farm. So. So just I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be. And I was the perfect person for the job to cross the street and just hold the guy's ladder. And I probably held his ladder for 45 minutes that day. 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 it was lovely. And then when he started to come down and I felt like he was at his. 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?
- [94:21]
Tim Ferriss
Just that moment.
- [94:22]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Just that moment. Not things like that, like, try to be kind to people, but that particular moment that they were like, however this thing works, it's essential that that guy not fall off his ladder. So we're gonna need in, like, sector 7, you know, block D on this date. We're gonna need somebody to really be alert and notice that, and we're gonna have to send them in, have the.
- [94:47]
Tim Ferriss
Proper farm training, Put her on a.
- [94:49]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Farm, have her grow up with a father who does jack. How are we gonna get her to la? Make her a writer, give her a career, have her. Have her read, like, every single other thing I was doing in my life was just killing time until the moment when I was needed. And maybe I'm not needed again after that. And I would challenge, prove to me that that isn't true, because nobody can, because nobody knows what's going on and nobody even knows what they're looking at. So, yes, you could go a little too far into that and you could just smoke weed all day and be like, are we just a paperweight in God's desk? Or we're like, ask questions like that. But I think presence is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself and to the world. And I think that line that I so often hear in meditation and on the page when I do two way prayer of you'll be notified is the very opposite of a purpose driven life. Because a purpose driven life is some sense that I'm going to forge. I'm going to hack through this forest and make this trail. It's going to be named after me and this is what I'll be remembered for. And it's so self centered and you'll be notified is a much humbler position to take, but it requires a great deal of listening and it requires also lately I've been doing these one day a week without my phone because I want more moments like that where I notice somebody on the ladder because I'm not on my phone and I'm super addicted to my phone. It's like no, I'm not throwing shade against anyone who's addicted to their phone. We all are. Like an affront that I don't stare at my phone 90 million hours a day. I do, but that's why I take Thursdays off from it's because I don't want to miss what's actually happening and I want to be present to the notification when it comes.
- [96:35]
Tim Ferriss
How did you choose Thursday? Is it because you might be social on Friday and the weekends?
- [96:39]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Yes. Okay, Monday's like too much going on Thursday just felt like a day that the world could maybe for eight without me.
- [96:46]
Tim Ferriss
So I'm going to play devil's advocate and defend folks who may be in the purpose driven lane for the moment because I agree that at face value, very self absorbed, self centered. However, do you think it's possible, and 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 leads them to think about these things more than you.
- [97:18]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Wow, that's such a. Did not think that was going to be the second half of the question. And I also want to say, hey, here's the thing about purpose. 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 you have what I like to call not a problem. Right?
- [97:38]
Tim Ferriss
Right.
- [97:39]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Yeah, keep going. Great. You're doing great. But if you. Yo yo, Masa critics. The cello thing seems to be working for you. But if you're berating yourself because you feel like there was something you were supposed to be doing, maybe they just need you to hang out until you get notified of something that could be as small as holding the ladder, I just want to say, and that maybe the future of the universe depended on that ladder being held that day. We don't know. But your question about death, I don't want to get cocky about, Like, I don't care about death. But it's not a fear that lives in me. And I know it's a fear that lives in a lot of people. I'm much, much, much more afraid of people not liking me than I am of dying. 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 in this lifetime. But death to me, it doesn't keep me up at night. I'm not in an argument against it. I went with my partner Rayya all the way to her death. And I wasn't afraid of the death. There were things around it that were scary.
- [98:42]
Tim Ferriss
But has that always been the case? When did that fear drop away?
- [98:49]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I'm afraid of pain, don't get me wrong. Like, I'm not interested at all in being in suffering. Maybe that's why I'm not afraid of death. I'm like, well, that seems better than suffering. So what's so bad about that? So I don't know. I come from, like, really pragmatic people. My mom's a nurse, My dad's a farmer. Like, I saw a lot of death growing up. My mom worked with the dying a lot. By the time it came, it seemed like it was such a relief for everybody. Like, there was grief, but also people were shredded by end of life stuff. And she sat in a lot of dying people's houses for weeks and months on end and dying and struggling. And then there was this exhale of death. Okay, now that person has safely been delivered into death. That's the feeling I felt when Rhea died. Those of us who were taking care of her and she had a pretty raucous death. But those of us who were taking care of her was like, we safely got her there. We safely got her dead. I know it's a strange thing to say, but it was hard. She was really willful. It was a difficult death. But then the moment of the death, the instant after the death. There's such an incredible thing. Like something happens. It isn't what it was. Like, something leaves. And then this look that was on her face after she died of, like, absolute delight. Absolute delight. We were all aghast at it. Like, what did. Why is she so happy? She looks so happy, so peaceful. It feels like going home to me. This place feels a lot weirder to me than death. Like this planet's bananas, you know, like having a body. I mean, that's why I used to love to do psychedelics so much before I started. Stop doing all that stuff. It's like, who wants a body? Who wants to be incarnated? Oh, God, it's so awkward. So no life feels scarier to me than death.
- [100:49]
Tim Ferriss
How did you choose to create your newsletter? How did that make the cut for you? How did that come in?
- [100:56]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Two things. One is I'm trying to get off of the nicotine, crack pipe, booze bottle. That is social media.
- [101:06]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah.
- [101:06]
Elizabeth Gilbert
And it's not easy to get off it because I feel like social media is like a party drug. That started off as really fun and now I heard somebody say so beautifully about social media. I wish I could remember who said it. Everyone's now everyone's abusing it and no one's getting high anymore. Everyone's addicted to it and the high is gone. And I'm looking for ways. I love connection. I loved that feeling at the beginning of social media that. That we can all connect with one another.
- [101:31]
Tim Ferriss
Yeah. Before everyone started peeing in the pool.
- [101:33]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Oh, my God. Before everyone started propping up Putin. And it's like, wait, what pool party is this? What just happened to democracy? We've just discovered that this thing is very, very, very dangerous and venomous. And so I've been looking for another place to go to be able to have dialogue with people. And Substack so far has been a really good spot for that. It's like a reverse technology.
- [101:57]
Tim Ferriss
So could you explain how that works? Because I think a lot of people thinking of a. They're like, well, hold on a second. How does interaction work in that type of format?
- [102:06]
Elizabeth Gilbert
You can comment. So I send out a newsletter once a week. It's essentially like a 90s technology. It's basically a blog. So it's like a high end blog. So people subscribe and then a newsletter goes out to them and there's video attachments and things. And then you can comment and people can comment on each other's comments. So it's very similar. It looks very similar to what social media looks like, but because it's a subscription, it keeps the haters out because it's self selecting. And I've been on this thing for a year and have had not one problem with.
- [102:39]
Tim Ferriss
That's incredible.
- [102:40]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I know, it's incredible. I mean, it's also like a self selecting thing because this is a group of really lovely people who are doing this beautiful project together. So that's how I decided to go over there.
- [102:49]
Tim Ferriss
What could people expect if they went to Elizabethgilbert.substack.com to subscribe to your newsletter.
- [102:56]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Letter 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 and just bringing a different voice into the cacophony of voices in your head. And I'll read one of the letters that I've written to myself from Love and then there'll be a special guest. And the special guests are really the best part because it's everybody from Act Like Toni Collette did one and Glennon Doyle did one, and musicians and poets and artists and writers, but then also random people who I meet and I meet them in my travels and I'm like, you are radiating so much light that I want to ask you, why are you so lit? Like why are you so bright and shiny? And what is that? And what would love have to say to you if it could speak to you? And people who I meet and find inspiring. There was a young woman who I met in Denmark this year. I was on tour and so she had read my book Big Magic. And because of that book, she was Japanese and she was an engineer and she worked on a construction site in Japan. But she'd always wanted to be an artist and she started making art again after she read Big Magic. And then she took the leap and she quit her construction job in Japan and saved her money and moved to Denmark and is going to graphic design school. And her art is gorgeous. And I was like, hey, will you do a letter from Love? Because obviously there's something moving through you that's really special and I would love to hear what love has to say to you through you. And so, and it's like 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 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 kids. You don't have to be everybody's cup of tea. Like we love you. 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 consortium operates as a we. It's some sort of consortium of ancestors and spirits and guides. And it's like your team, like there's this feeling that people are getting where they're like, do I have a team? Like I seem to have some sort of a team that wants to love me. So I've had developmentally disabled people do it 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. And he did a song about himself called I love BJ three different ways. That's one of the greatest songs I've ever heard. It's basically just him talking about how lovable he is. So that's what you can expect. 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 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. Internet I truly think. And slowly I feel like it's dissolving and breaking down the walls of self hatred. That's what we're doing over there.
- [106:18]
Tim Ferriss
I love it. And people can go to Elizabethgilbert.substack.com, we'll put that in the show notes as well. That's the best place to direct people.
- [106:25]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Yeah, I mean, I'm on social media, but who cares anymore? That's where my heart is. My heart is in the Substack newsletter. And after years of doing this privately in my own space and then starting to gradually teach it in workshops, I finally feel like I'm ready to really bring this to anybody who wants to try it.
- [106:46]
Tim Ferriss
I love it. I know I said that, but I'll say it again. It's solid cause solid mission.
- [106:53]
Elizabeth Gilbert
It's my purpose.
- [106:55]
Tim Ferriss
It's your purpose. Purpose that follows the presence. Is there anything else, Liz, that you'd like to say and any requests you'd like to make of my audience comments, public complaints about My podcasting style. Anything at all that you'd like to say before we land the show?
- [107:12]
Elizabeth Gilbert
Thank you for giving me the chance to make the public complaints about your podcasting style. I've been crawling out of my skin. I'll send you a bunch of notes. No, I just want to say, can you imagine that something might love you? There's a quote that's often misattributed to Einstein. It wasn't Einstein. It was this 19th century philosopher named Frederick Myers. And his friend asked him, if there was one thing that 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? 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. I hate to gender God, but anyway, 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, 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 if it's friendly, what might the point be? And where can I find that? And how do you want me to move through this? Now, assuming that it's friendly, how do you want me to move through this terrible looking thing? And so the question I think that I'm constantly bringing to people, especially when they say, 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 going to be hard and it's going to feel awkward and it's going to feel. It definitely doesn't feel normal because normal is you are history's greatest garbage can. You are just a pile of worthless, you know, like, 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 most of our heads at all the times. And what about 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.
- [109:57]
Tim Ferriss
Thank you. Liz. I love spending time with you.
- [109:59]
Elizabeth Gilbert
I love spending time with you. Tim. You are such a delight. You are just such a delight. I never know where we're going to go.
- [110:07]
Tim Ferriss
Me neither.
- [110:08]
Elizabeth Gilbert
And I'm always so happy about where we went. It's a fun adventure always talking to you. So thank you. I really appreciate it.
- [110:14]
Tim Ferriss
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@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. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off off. And that is five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between 1 and a half and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange, esoteric things end up in my field. And then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short. A little tiny bite of good goodness before you head off for the weekend. Something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim Blog Friday, type that into your browser. Tim Blog Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. I don't know about you guys, but I have seen a lot of crazy stuff in the last few weeks. I saw an AI generated video. Looks like a video of an otter on a flight tapping away on a keyboard having a stewardess ask him if he would like a drink and it goes on from there. And this was generated with AI and it looks photorealistic basically. I mean it would have cost hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars to do in the past, taken forever and now it's boom, snap of the fingers. It's crazy. So AI is changing everything. We know that. It is also changing the way startups and small businesses operate. Things are are going to get crazier. The rate of change is only going to get faster. And while a lot of good is going to come of that, it also means security and compliance headaches for one thing. And that is where today's sponsor Vanta comes in. I'd already heard a lot about them before they ever became a sponsor. Just like 10,000 plus other companies that rely on Vanta. My friends at Duolingo Shout Out Duolingo and Ramp Shout Out Ramp one of this podcast sponsors and and an ultra fast growing company use Vanta to handle security compliance. Why would they do that? Well, Vanta automates compliance for frameworks like SoC2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA, making it simple and fast to get enterprise grade compliant. 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