Elizabeth Gilbert no longer believes she’s a bad person

Summary

Wild Card with Rachel Martin: "Elizabeth Gilbert no longer believes she’s a bad person"

Released September 4, 2025 | NPR

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Episode Overview

In this deeply openhearted episode, Rachel Martin sits down with Elizabeth Gilbert—author of the international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love—to discuss Gilbert’s new memoir, All the Way to the River. The conversation explores Gilbert’s journey through grief after the loss of her partner Rayya Elias, her own struggles and recovery from addiction, and major shifts in self-understanding, forgiveness, and the nature of God. Using Wild Card's signature deck of philosophical questions, the two travel through memory, vulnerability, and transformation, offering wisdom, laughter, and some hard-won truths.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. How Should One Be Judged? — The Mercy Card

• [00:50] Rachel Martin: “How do you think your life should be judged?”
• Elizabeth Gilbert: "I'd rather it wasn't. Mercifully. Mercifully. Mercifully."
• Openness to mercy—instead of judgment—sets the philosophical tone for the episode, both for the self and toward others.

2. Childhood Memories and Longing

• Sunday Breakfasts
  • Gilbert reminisces about elaborate family breakfasts on her childhood Christmas tree farm:
    [03:19] Elizabeth Gilbert: "Sunday breakfasts... massive... waffles and pancakes and sausages and eggs. Like multiple courses. ...My mom's an amazing farm woman. She knew how to can berries and make jams and make syrups. ...friends would come over and this was the payoff."
• Homesickness as Longing, Not Place
  • [05:48] Elizabeth Gilbert: "I have always felt a deep longing that feels like homesickness for me, for where I came from, what created me and who I really am. ...It's not for a place. I've experienced the opposite, feeling oppressed and trapped in a home."
  • Rachel and Elizabeth riff on the restlessness versus the depth of commitment that marriage can call forth, and how “finding euphoria by standing still” is sometimes its own adventure.
    [08:46] Rachel Martin: "The same amount of spaciousness, vastness... in one place rather than all the places."

3. Transitions, Movement, and ‘Leaving’

• Gilbert describes her tendency to leave, even after investing deeply:
  [10:26] Elizabeth Gilbert: "A friend of mine came and said, after all you've put into this house and how beautiful it is, you can never leave. And I was like, you have no idea what I'm capable of leaving. ...three years later, I was like, I don't want this anymore."

4. The New Memoir: Grief, Addiction, and Honest Reckoning

• Life After Rayya:
  • The memoir tells the story of Gilbert’s relationship with Rayya Elias—her best friend turned partner—who died from cancer. Rayya’s battle with addiction deeply shaped the experience.
  • [14:07] Elizabeth Gilbert: "What we both thought was going to be a... devastating and beautiful love story turned out to be very devastating. ...Rayya was a heroin and cocaine addict... picked up her addiction again at the end of her life. ...If I had written that book right after she died... it would have been the story of a very nice me and a terrible thing that happened to me. ...there is no story that is quite as simple as I'm a really nice person and a bad thing happened to me."
  • A Masterclass in Self-Accountability: Glennon Doyle, upon reading, described the book as “a masterclass in self accountability.”
  • Addiction and Enabling: Gilbert bravely discusses the realization that her own patterns of ‘enabling’ and ‘love addiction’ were as much a focus as her partner’s substance use.
• Courageous Honesty:
  • [17:14] Rachel Martin: "I would get angry at you, Elizabeth. ...So many red flags in front of you."
  • Gilbert acknowledges, laughingly:
    [18:06] Elizabeth Gilbert: "Whenever I see red flags, I think it's a parade in my honor and I run toward it."

5. The Call to Write & Relationship with the Dead

• Gilbert credits her late partner Rayya with the push to tell the full story—no protective editing.
  • [18:51] Elizabeth Gilbert: "Rayya told me to do it. ...She was somebody who was incredibly candid about her own life. ...On the morning of my 54th birthday, Rayya visited me... 'Dude, sit down. Write that book. Go full punk rock with it. Don't worry about protecting my dignity, I'm dead. ...It's time to do that now.'"
• On Afterlife Presence:
  • Gilbert describes “hearing” (not seeing) the dead, feeling Rayya’s “vivid” presence after her death, and how letting go of that presence is part of healing and ending codependence. [22:09] Elizabeth Gilbert: "She was absolutely available to me. ...Now that's faded, which is a little heartbreaking, but also... she can see I can do my life now without making somebody else into my higher power."

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The Wild Card Questions

Insights

• What’s Something You Thought About Yourself You Had to Unlearn?

  • [22:32] Rachel Martin: "What's something you thought about yourself that you had to unlearn?"
  • [22:40] Elizabeth Gilbert: "I'm afraid I'm not a good person... that I'm fundamentally a bad person. ...That's a thing I used to believe about myself, that I was bad and wrong, and I don't believe that anymore. ...Even when I do things that fall short... there's a way that I can now speak to myself very lovingly and be like, 'You are not bad and wrong.'"

• Relationship to Pain

  • [25:57] Elizabeth Gilbert: "Not a fan. 0 out of 5 stars is my review. ...Pain avoidant... emotionally as well. ...But the very things that I have most not wanted to feel are the portals through which I have grown and evolved."

• Are You Good at Forgiveness?

  • [27:22] Rachel Martin: "Are you good at forgiveness?"
  • [27:26] Elizabeth Gilbert: "Depends. ...A word I like better than forgiveness is mercy... I would rather sit with somebody in a shared space of mercy... a recognition of what a difficult thing it is to be a human being and how much mercy is needed... Mercy feels like it's two souls looking at each other... not an easy assignment to be embodied on this planet. I get it."

Beliefs

• How Have Your Feelings About God Changed Over Time?

  • [32:07] Elizabeth Gilbert: "I've always loved God... I see nothing but evidence of it... But I never, ever, ever, ever, ever trusted God. ...At best, I felt like we were colleagues... What’s changed is a deepening of trust that perhaps there may be an intelligence in the universe greater than mine."
  • Rachel shares about the longing for a connection with God despite her religious upbringing:
    [34:06] Rachel Martin: "I play fast and loose with the term God... I know there's something bigger than me... It is a work in progress for me."
  • [34:34] Elizabeth Gilbert (on living with mystery, quoting Rob Bell): "Life is not a mystery to be solved, but a mystery to be lived in."

• When Do You Feel Most Connected to the People You’ve Lost?

  • [36:19] Elizabeth Gilbert: "When I'm in my integrity. ...Like, when I feel like they would approve. ...The Buddhists talk about skilled and unskilled choices, rather than right and wrong. ...When I've managed to get through a day and remain relatively skilled... that's when I feel them. ...It’s like this council, who are like, 'Good job, Lizzie. You're doing good. It's hard and you're doing good.'"

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Enabling and Addiction:
  "Why do I keep pouring myself into people and then blaming them for leaving me feeling empty? What is this?"
  —Elizabeth Gilbert, [15:22]

• On Recovery and Self-Compassion:
  "It's taken me years to learn how to find that tenderness and compassion toward myself."
  —Elizabeth Gilbert, [25:21]

• On Mercy, Not Just Forgiveness:
  "Mercy feels like it's two souls looking at each other and being like: Not an easy assignment to be embodied on this planet. I get it."
  —Elizabeth Gilbert, [28:00]

• On Changing God-relationship:
  "At best, I felt like we were colleagues. What's changed is a deepening of trust that perhaps there may be an intelligence in the universe greater than mine."
  —Elizabeth Gilbert, [33:04]

• On Red Flags:
  "Whenever I see red flags, I think it's a parade in my honor and I run toward it."
  —Elizabeth Gilbert, [18:06]

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Time Machine: One Moment to Linger In

• Gilbert recalls dinner at her grandparents' home:
  [38:16] Elizabeth Gilbert: “I would go back to 1978... my grandparents’ home in upstate New York... All the men in my family at that point, still active, alcoholics. ...Those nights were so wild. Those guys were so wild. ...There was something spectacular about it.”
  • She explains that these wild family gatherings—the chaos, laughter, and lack of boundaries—influenced her lifelong comfort with “wild” people and places, for better and worse.

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Episode Tone

Open, unguarded, and at times gently funny, the conversation is marked by mutual warmth and a strong sense of reflection. Gilbert is radically honest about both pain and joy, never shying from her own flaws or the complexity of healing. The host’s curiosity is met with gratitude, and even the heaviest topics are handled with grace, humility, and just enough levity.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:50 – How life should be judged: "Mercifully."
• 03:19 – Sunday breakfast memories
• 05:48 – Existential homesickness
• 14:07 – Writing the memoir and the complexity of grief and addiction
• 18:51 – The ‘call’ from Rayya to write honestly
• 22:40 – Unlearning the belief of being a ‘bad person’
• 25:57 – Relationship to pain
• 27:26 – The difference between forgiveness and mercy
• 32:07 – Changes in belief about God
• 36:19 – Connection to people lost: living with integrity
• 38:16 – Memory time machine: wild family dinners

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In Summary

This is an episode about moving past self-judgment into self-acceptance, about the messiness of love, loss, and codependency, and about learning to trust—in oneself, in others, and perhaps even in God. Through her candor and willingness to inhabit the full spectrum of life’s questions, Gilbert offers listeners a model for mercy, accountability, and, ultimately, hope.

Recommended for anyone interested in memoir, recovery, spiritual exploration, and the art of being human.

Transcript

[Rachel Martin]

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial for many families, remembering loved ones means honoring the details that made them unique. Dignity Memorial is dedicated to professionalism and compassion in every detail of a life celebration. Find a provider near [e-mail] hey, it's Rachel. It can feel impossible to find your next favorite podcast. And hey, we are so glad that you're here listening to Wildcard. But when you want to switch it up, check out NPR's Pod Club newsletter. Sign up and you'll get fresh podcast recommendations every week, handpicked by the people that live for this stuff. You can subscribe for free using the link in Today's show notes [e-mail] podclub how do you think your life should be judged?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I'd rather it wasn't Mercifully. Mercifully. Mercifully.

[Rachel Martin]

Yes.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah. Yes, please. And that is also, I hope, how I not judge, but regard others.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life, questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one back on me. My guest this week is Elizabeth Gilbert.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

That is a thing I used to believe about myself, that I was bad and wrong, and I don't believe that anymore. And even when I do things that fall short of my own very high expectations for myself, there's a way that I can now speak to myself very lovingly and be like, you are not fundamentally bad and wrong.

[Rachel Martin]

It is hard to overstate what a big deal the book Eat, Pray, Love was when it came out almost 20 years ago. Elizabeth Gilbert's story then was raw and vulnerable in a way you just didn't hear a lot about at the time. It was a story of a woman buried under the weight of unmet expectations who travels the world, discovers how to be happy, and finds new love in the process. But here's the thing. As honest as she tried to be in that book, it wasn't nearly the whole story. Her newest book is another memoir, but this time the author has lived more life and has the benefit of seeing her patterns in hindsight. It's a book about grief after losing her partner, but it's also about reckoning with her own addiction as she maps out a new way to live. It is a profoundly beautiful book. It's called all the Way to the river. And I am so glad to welcome Elizabeth Gilbert to Wildcard. Hi.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Thank you so much. Hi. I'm gonna Ask you to send me that introduction because you just described the book so well, like, that's it. That's what it's about. And. Yes. And the context of Eat, Pray, love and all of it. So I am so happy to be here. Thank you. I love the show and I'm delighted to be a guest.

[Rachel Martin]

Thank you for being game. And on that note, let's just play the game. What do you think about that?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I mean, that's what we came to do.

[Rachel Martin]

All right, you ready?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yep.

[Rachel Martin]

Here we go. First round. Three cards. Memories.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Two, please.

[Rachel Martin]

Two. You knew right away. It's interesting how long some people take and others are like, two. What's a routine from your childhood that you miss?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Oh, Sunday breakfasts. I grew up on a small family Christmas tree farm, and my mom grew up on a big midwestern dairy farm. And my dad is a forester. And it was a very kind of traditional rural upbringing. And my mom used to make these massive Sunday breakfast farmer breakfasts that were insane. They were so good. Like waffles and pancakes and sausages and eggs. Like multiple courses.

[Rachel Martin]

Waffles and pancakes?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah, everything. All of it. It's like we would start with cereal. It was like cereal was the envy of bouche. It's like, yeah. So like, here, help yourself to a bowl of cereal while you're waiting for this other part of this giant nine course breakfast. And also the very best part of it was that we did a lot of berry picking in the summer. And my mom's an amazing farm woman. She knew how to can berries and make jams and make syrups. And so we had all these exotic things, like elderberry syrup, like things that were not on the typical fare. I don't know. It was really fun. And if I had a friend over for sleepovers on a Saturday night, this was the reward. Because our family, we didn't have any heat in our house. My parents didn't heat them. And so coming to my house for a sleepover was kind of an adventure for my friends because they knew they were gonna be cold. They knew they were gonna have to do chores. But then there was this thing on Sunday morning, this payoff. And that was amazing, and I miss it very much.

[Rachel Martin]

How many people were gathered at that table, excluding your friends? Did you have something?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

It's just the four of us? Yeah. No, there was just. We were a pretty small family, but we ate for like 20. It was great. And then we would kind of go into like a food coma. I mean, my mom jokes about it later and she's like, we did have, like, these 30,000 calorie breakfasts that were intended, like they come from a tradition of. Now you're going to go plow the back 40. But we didn't have a back 40. We had, like, a back two. So, like, we didn't really have the physical labor to match the amount of food that we were eating. But it was fun and it was exciting.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, next one.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Thank you for that. Thank you for that.

[Rachel Martin]

One, two or three? Three, please. Three. When have you felt the most homesick?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Never in a way of lonely for a particular house or even the people in the house. It's a terrible thing to say, but it's true. Like, it's. But I have always felt homesick. Wow. I mean, I don't know how to answer this, except for spiritually, like, I think that I have been. I have always felt a deep longing that feels like homesickness for me, for where I came from, what created me and who I really am. Like, that is like the sort of the most, like, deep existential homesickness. And I've spent, and I think I've always known I can't get that answered. That's not something that can be answered here in this realm. So, yeah, I'm a traveler, so homesickness isn't a pathology that I have. The pathology I have is more longing for something other. Like this, isn't it? This place isn't the place. It's gotta be somewhere else. Where's the next place that I'm gonna live? Where's the next place that I'm gonna move to? Who' person who's gonna answer this deep sense of longing? So it's not. I'm not. I don't even really understand, I think, what people mean when they talk about feeling homesick. I can feel home. Like, I've experienced the opposite, which is feeling deeply oppressed and trapped in a home and being like, I gotta get out of here. Like a kind of sickness for escape and a desire to be free. But, yeah, I don't miss any particular place ever.

[Rachel Martin]

That's so interesting. I mean, there was a period of my life when I was also moving around a lot and did not want to be in one place and found myself feeling very stuck. If I existed in that same place.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

For longer than, like, a year, I know it well. I know that you may be familiar. I've encountered that.

[Rachel Martin]

And then I started thinking. Just in my mind, the image that came to me was that instead of, like, the lily pad, this is an Unformed metaphor.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I love. Keep going, keep going. Let's see where it goes. Yes, Right.

[Rachel Martin]

You're right. Okay, so instead of just like, leapfrogging across, you know, lily pads to bliss, happiness, euphoria, excitement, ambition, all those things that I decided at one point, it was really when I met my person who would become my husband to, because it was a little scary, and then try to go down and see what I could excavate. And if that would give me the same kind of euphoria, to stand still and just be there and go deeper there and stay there.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

That's beautifully put. Yeah. The same amount of spaciousness, vastness, curiosity, and interest, but in one place rather than in all the places.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah. That's beautiful. Yep.

[Rachel Martin]

I guess my question to you is, obviously everybody who read Eat, Pray, Love.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Millions and millions of people know you.

[Rachel Martin]

To be that vagabond after you did stay put for a while, did you not?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yes and no. So my wonderful ex husband is also a traveler. And so within the space of the 12 years that we were together, I think we lived in five different places. So we stayed put with each other.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

At one point, I lived in this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Victorian house on the top of a hill that's, like, such a dream house. And I started gardening and remembering everything my mother had taught me about gardening. And my parents are people who stay. They've lived in. My parents have lived on the farm where I was raised for 52 years. Wow. And, you know, like, they stick and stay, so I'm very different from them in that regard. But I remembered, like, the joys of the garden and, like, I want to do. I want to plant a fruit tree that won't bear fruit for 10 years. Like, there's a commitment in that anyway, making this house so beautiful. And we made it so beautiful. And a friend of mine came and said, after all you've put into this house and how beautiful it is, you can never leave. And I was like, you have no idea what I'm capable of leaving.

[Rachel Martin]

Hold my beer.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

And the day, walk out the door, like, three years later, I was like, I don't want this anymore. You know, like, buy garden. Buy beautiful house. Like, I poured so much into it. And then I was like, no, I'm done.

[Rachel Martin]

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial. For many families, remembering loved ones means honoring the details that made them unique. Dignity Memorial is dedicated to professionalism and compassion in every detail of a life celebration. Find a provider near [e-mail] this message.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

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[Elizabeth Gilbert]

For me, sometimes I just need to go and talk to somebody that is not gonna judge me right is gonna be there and they're gonna listen to me and I can start just saying, look, I'm not feeling right today and it feels natural. I love it.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

To get matched with a therapist, visit betterhelp.com NPR for 10% off your first month support for this podcast and the following message come from Strawberry Me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Are you stuck in a job you've outgrown or never wanted in the first place? Are your reasons for staying really just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from Strawberry Me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner and claim a special offer at Strawberry Me NPR this message comes from NPR's sponsor, Shopify. No idea where to sell? Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. It is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to start, run and grow your business without the struggle. Once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the Internet's best converting checkout to help you turn them from browsers to buyers. Go to Shopify.com NPR to take your business to the next level today.

[Rachel Martin]

Hey, it's Rachel. Before we get back to the show, I'm hoping you can take a quick minute to leave us a rating or a review on your podcast app. It's an amazing way to support our show by helping more people find it. Shout out to KRS 1238 who left a review saying, I love this show so much. I recommend it to everyone I know and cry happy tears almost every episode. I've even started using the questions for discussions in the classroom with my high schoolers. I love that very much. If Wildcard has ever made you tear up or laugh out loud or just pause while you're washing the dishes to think about the meaning of life, leave us a review and help spread the word. Okay, thank you so much. Back to the show. Okay, so I want to push back from this game and talk about your book, which is. Can I call it a masterpiece?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I don't know.

[Rachel Martin]

I love this book, Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

It's so beautiful. Oh, thank you sweetie.

[Rachel Martin]

And it feels very different from Eat, Pray, Love. There are a lot of people, you've had a varied career. You have written so Many books and essays, but still a lot of people know you from Eat, Pray, Love. But this book to me feels like it has a similar potential. And I should just say it's called all the Way to the river. But it has for me. When I'm reading it, I could see how it has life changing potential for people.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Well, it was life changing for me to write it. And the story of the book is about my relationship with my partner, Rayya Elias, who was my best friend for many years and then who I fell in love with and kept that secret even from me, certainly from her and definitely from my marriage. And then she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and liver cancer and given six months to live, at which point it was no longer physically, emotionally or spiritually possible for me to continue to pretend that I was not in love with her. And it was actually essential that I go be her partner for the last months of her life. And what we both thought was going to be a sort of devastating and beautiful love story turned out to be very devastating. But for reasons beyond what the mirror merely that somebody was dying of cancer. Rayya was a heroin and cocaine addict with a long, long recovery who picked up her addiction again at the end of her life. Once she was a terminal cancer patient for reasons we all understood, and then didn't die in the expected amount of time that was given and ended up living a year past what anyone expected. She would live in a state most of that time, in a state of addiction, heightened drug addiction. And if I had written that book right after she died, which I couldn't and somehow knew not to, I think it would have been the story of a very nice me, a very nice person and a terrible thing that I went through. And I have just enough maturity and sort of self awareness to know that there is no story that is quite as simple as I'm a really nice person and a bad thing happened to me. And the book is when my friend Glennon Doyle read it, she said, this is a masterclass in self accountability, which I think is the highest praise I could ever get. Because the entire book is an effort for me to be like, what is my part in this? How did I end up in a situation where I was being so degraded? Not just where somebody's addiction caused them to be so degraded, but where I was such a world class enabler? Why again did I end up in a relationship where I was such a world class enabler? Why do I keep ending up in relationships, not just romantic, but friendships? Why do I Keep pouring myself into people and then blaming them for leaving me feeling empty. What is this? And over the course of the years since Rhea died, a really beloved friend sat me down and said, who was an addict in recovery in 12 step recovery and was like, you know, there's a 12 step room for people like you. Like, there's 12 step rooms for people who suffer from sex and love addiction, which is what it looks to me like you do. And maybe you might want to go get some help. And so the book is not only about my partner's addiction, but also about my addiction.

[Rachel Martin]

It's exactly what Glennon told you. Because I would be reading and I would think to myself, this is so bad. And I would get angry at you, Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I would get angry.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm reading the book like, what are you doing? Don't. This is. These are. This is so many red flags in front of you. And. And it. And then there would be a moment just after I. My anger would crest and you would. You would interrogate your own behavior in this way that was so real and zero protection performative. And I found it incredibly moving and very courageous. It's a real courageous thing to do to put all your stuff out there and take.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Thanks, sweetheart. I appreciate that. And I was smiling when you said there were so many red flags. And I just got a big smile on my face because I heard somebody once in one of my 12 step recovery rooms say, whenever I see red flags, I think it's a parade in my honor and I run to toward it. I'm like, flags. It's a parade. So, yes, that is not just what I did in this relationship. It's what I do. And it's what I seem to be powerless, overdoing.

[Rachel Martin]

How did you know it was the right time to put this down on the page? Because it was. Ray has been gone for how long?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Almost eight years. Yeah, so, yeah, it was about seven years after she died. And to be very honest, Rhea told me to do it. You know, I mean, she wanted me to. She always wanted me to write about us and she wanted me to write about her. And she was somebody who was incredibly candid about her own life. I mean, what I loved more than anything about Rhea was her unflinching honesty when she was sober. And there was nobody who would go right to the white hot radioactive center of the truth faster than Rhea did, which I loved in her. You know, she used to say, the truth has legs. At the end of the day, it's the only thing that's gonna be left standing. Everything else blows up but the truth. So all the other stories are gonna blow up, and all the drama and all the trauma, it's all gonna blow up. And the last thing left standing in the room is always going to be the truth. And since we're gonna end up there, why don't we just start there? Let's just start with it. But on the morning of my 54th birthday, and the book begins with this, Rhea visited me. I woke up and Rhea's spirit was in the room as clearly as I'm talking to you. She was like, dude, sit down. Write that book. Go full punk rock with it. Don't worry about protecting my dignity. I'm dead. I don't need any dignity. Don't worry about protecting your dignity. It's of no use to anyone. And I have a friend in 12 step who always says God can't use perfect people to help others. And it's like the highest service that you could do is to tell the truth about you. And it's time to do that now. So get to it. And I started writing the book that day.

[Rachel Martin]

I can't let you talk about seeing Rhea without asking you more about that, because I know in the book you also. You also saw Rhea's mom. You have the ability or you're open to seeing spirits.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Elizabeth, I don't actually. I want to be really clear. I don't see them. Tell me. I hear them. You hear them? I hear them.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm pondering an image.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

No, I don't see visions, but there have been times where I've been cracked open enough where it's been very clear. Like, your sister's here, your mom's here, and they want to say this, and I hear them saying it and then they go. So, yeah, I don't pretend to understand it, but I do. But with Rhea, particularly in the. In the two years after she died, she was absolutely available to me. I said, she's more vivid and present in death than most people are in life. She was a very vivid and present person in life. She had incredible charisma. And the thing about vivid people is when they die, they don't seem to go away very fast. Like, their vividness seems to remain so. I mean, I could ask her anything. And I did. Like, we were in constant, constant conversation. That's not the case anymore. And that has faded, which is a little heartbreaking, but also, I think is, in a way, the end of codependence. I think she's left because she can see That I can do my life now without making somebody else into my higher power.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, this is round two. This is about insights. I've already talked a lot about insights because that's what happens when you write a memoir. But we'll talk.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Hopefully, one hopes.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, we'll see what these open up. One, two or three?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Three, please.

[Rachel Martin]

What's something you thought about yourself that you had to unlearn?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Oh, I'll share one that I'm still in the process of unlearning. I'm afraid I'm not a good person. I'm afraid that I'm fundamentally a bad person. I'm afraid that there's something fundamentally wrong and dark and bad about me. And it is so deep in the groundwater of my being that I'm. I mean, the words I would use to identify as fundamentally bad and wrong, that I'm fundamentally bad and wrong. And there's been nothing anybody could ever tell me that would dislodge that. And no amount of Meritus action on my part of giving and loving and sharing and being generous and being kind could dislodge this deep, fundamental fear that I am not good. And I tried.

[Rachel Martin]

I mean, you write in the book, your generosity is beyond, but you give with abandonment.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I just want to be good. I just want to be good. I just want to be a good person. And whatever wounding that I have that I either sort of. That my spirit came in with or that I picked up in trauma from childhood or that I picked up in trauma from culture has indeed it caused me to act sometimes in ways that are objectively not good in terms of, this is harming another human being. This is using a person for something or exploiting a person in a certain way. But anyway, recovery is all about learning how to not do that. But I actually don't believe that anymore. So I think that that's a huge. Like, I don't believe that I'm not a good person. I believe that I am a good person. And that's new. Like, that's new. Like, just. That's, like, been a part of recovery. It's a part of, like, recovering my true nature. And my true nature is that I'm very sweet and very kind and very loving and good. I'm a good one. And it's taken me a really long time to learn that, and it's taken me a lot of healing to get to that. So that is a thing I used to believe about myself, that I was bad and wrong. And I don't believe that anymore. And Even when I do things that fall short of my own very high expectations for myself, there's a way that I can now speak to myself very lovingly and be like, you are not bad and wrong. You are not fundamentally bad and wrong. You are a lovely, innocent child of the world who made a mistake. And that's okay. And so it's taken me years to learn how to find that tenderness and compassion toward myself. That was a simple, quiet question. That was a good one. Okay. One, two or three? One, please.

[Rachel Martin]

What's your relationship to pain?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Not a fan. 0 out of 5 stars is my review. Super pain avoidant. Not courageous about physical pain. Never was. I knew that I would never be an athlete, even though I had some athletic skill. You can't be an athlete if you're as afraid of pain as I am. So that's why I went to theater in high school instead of doing sports. Because I went into every single sports encounter thinking of all the ways that I could get hurt and not wanting to be hurt and pain avoidant emotionally as well, in many ways. And it's been a great teacher. And the very things that I have most not wanted to feel are the portals through which I have grown and evolved. And so it does seem to be in this realm, on this planet, a non negotiable part of the experience.

[Rachel Martin]

Isn't it though? Isn't it though?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

It really does. Nobody seems to care for it but. But it seems like you don't get to do this world without it. Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

Three new cards. One.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Two or three? Two, please.

[Rachel Martin]

Are you good at forgiveness?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Depends. You know, I'll say there's a word I like better than forgiveness because I do think that forgiveness, there's a trap that's inherent in it, which is there can be an arrogance and a superiority on the part of the person forgiving the miscreant. It's like I am the good innocent party. I hand it to you. I hand this to you, even though you did not even ask for it. That is how good I am, because I am that good. So there can be a real piousness. The word I like better is mercy because I actually almost always get tears in my eyes when I even hear that word or feel what that word does to me. Forgiveness feels like a sort of job, whereas mercy feels like I would rather sit with somebody in a shared space of mercy, which is I am sitting with you in this shared recognition of what a difficult thing it is to be a human being and how much mercy is needed for us to be able to move through this earth school curriculum with one another and just be like, yeah, it's also hard for me to be here. And I think that's slightly different from forgiveness. To me there's a we're equal. Like mercy feels like it's look, it's two souls looking at each other and being like, not an easy assignment to be embodied on this planet. I get it there. And to me, what makes the amends process of 12 step the most sublime spiritual experience I've ever had is that because of the way that I've been taught to offer amends by a sponsor who's really masterful at it, I've been able to have that exact conversation with some people who I thought there is no way on earth this is ever gonna be addressed. There's no way on earth that this wound will ever heal. I never wanna see them again. They never wanna see me again. And we have actually been able to say, wow, that was hard, wasn't it? You know, that was hard. And so to be able to do that before you die. And I actually, and I'm forgiving enough of myself and others. I don't expect that I will have lived a non emission like an admissions free life. I think I'll probably go to my grave and there will still be some people that, that I have not been able to reach that level of healing with in person. But I trust fully that we'll get around to it. You know, we might have to do it next time and we might do it, you know, we might do it differently next time. So yeah, we got all the time in the universe. Doesn't all have to be solved today. Thank God. Thank God, my God, I'm trying, but thank God.

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[Rachel Martin]

Elizabeth, we're on round three. We still have to do the beliefs round. Okay, here we go. One, two or three?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Two.

[Rachel Martin]

I feel okay. I'm not going to prejudge it. You can skip it or flip it. How have your feelings about God changed over time?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I'll say a quick answer and then I kind of would love to hear yours. I have always loved God, which is weird because I didn't grow up with much religion. Or maybe that's why I always, like, instinctively, first time I heard about God, I was like, I get it. I love it. I'm here for it. I believe in it. I've always believed in it. I see nothing but evidence of it, you know? And so I always felt this. I always felt this great love for God, not necessarily even knowing what that meant. What I didn't feel was trust of God. So I believed God and I loved God and I thought God was amazing. And I pursued God and I went on spiritual journeys looking for God. But I never, ever, ever, ever, ever trusted God. I was like, I'll handle my life. Thank you. I got this. At best, I felt like we were colleagues.

[Rachel Martin]

This is like your work friend.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yeah. Yeah. I love your work. And now I'm gonna go over here.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm just gonna sell it with you.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I'm gonna do things my way. And what's changed is a deepening of trust that perhaps there may be an intelligence in the universe greater than mine. And perhaps I don't even know what I'm looking at. But when I'm looking at things and judging them, it's very possible that I don't even know what I'm looking at. And so maybe I should just see how God handles this. So there's a lot more trust. And what about you?

[Rachel Martin]

They've changed immensely. God was very much a part of my upbringing, very religious family. God was alive in our world, and I could not find that for myself. And I had too many other questions. But I also, like, I feel homesick. Getting back to the homesick question without a sense of God, if that makes sense.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Yes, it does. And I.

[Rachel Martin]

So I play fast and loose with the term God. I don't really know what it is. I know there's something bigger than me. I tried to find language to explain it to my kids and fail. I know you in your book, you just say, it is just love. I call God love. And that feels simplistic but also appropriate to me. So it is a work in progress for me.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

That's beautifully expressed. My beloved friend Rob Bell, who used to have a. He wrote a book called Love Wins. He used to be a megachurch minister. He had a church in Michigan with 10,000 people in it. Now he just surfs. He doesn't do any of that anymore. God does love him, and he had to leave the church because he couldn't reconcile all the questions and things that you've addressed with what he's. But he has this beautiful line. He says, life is not a mystery to be solved, but. But a mystery to be lived in. And I think what I hear you saying is that you live in those questions. And learning to live in mystery and learning to live in doubt and learning to live in this isn't quite working for me, but I don't want to throw the whole thing away either. Like, you're living in the mystery. Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

One, two, or three?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Two.

[Rachel Martin]

How do you think your life should be judged?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I'd rather it wasn't. Mercifully. Mercifully. Mercifully, yes, exactly. Yes, please. And that is also, I hope, how I not judge, but regard others. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Since that one was short, I'm gonna ask one more. One, two, or three? You pick it.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, the old dealer's choice. Okay, fine. I'm gonna pick this one. When do you feel most connected to the people you've lost?

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Hmm. When I'm in my integrity. Like, when I feel like they would approve. Not that they're judging me, but just that I like the way the Buddhists talk about skilled and unskilled choices rather than right and wrong choices. You know, they're not like, that was a bad thing you did. They'll be like, that was an unskilled thing that you did. It's like, that is such a merciful way to do it. Right. It's like, that was unskilled, you know? And lots of times, you know, part of my ongoing spiritual journey is to when I'm unskilled, as quickly as I notice it, to see if I can make that right, you know, and say to somebody, like, the thing I just said isn't exactly. That wasn't at the level that I would like it to be. You know, can we try that again? When I've managed To get through a day and remain relatively skilled at the way that I speak, the way that I regard others, what I give, the boundaries that I set, how I speak those, that's when I feel them. And it's a kind of like, it's like this council, you know, who are like, good job, Lizzie. You know, you're doing good. It's hard and you're doing good. Like, that's when I feel that and when I feel that, that sort of deep love and approval, it's really sweet.

[Rachel Martin]

We end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine in which you pick.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

One moment from your past to revisit.

[Rachel Martin]

It is not a moment you would change anything about. It's just a moment you would like.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

To linger in a little longer. Gosh. I would go back to 1978, 1977, 1978, my grandparents, home in upstate New York, dinner. All the men in my family at that point, still active, alcoholics.

[Rachel Martin]

Not where I thought you were going.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Those nights were so wild. Those people, those guys were so wild. My great grandfather, my grandfather, my uncle, my other uncle, my dad, drinking like monsters. And they were all hilarious. And being a little kid and being like, just having this. Knowing that my family was very special because they were so funny and my grandmother's still alive, sitting there, maybe smoking, throwing out a funny comment, having a. Everyone's drinking. I just wanna say it's a weird.

[Rachel Martin]

Memory time machine for a recovering addict.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

I know. But it also goes a long way toward explaining why I have always been drawn to people who are wild and charismatic and ungovernable. And actually I love the memory because I had a feeling that I was very lucky to be there. That I was very lucky to be a little girl who got to sit at the grownup table. Because there was no distinction made in my family of like, you shouldn't talk about these subjects. Cause there's an 8 year old child in the room. Like nobody was going out of their way to be concerned about protecting the virgin ears of this tiny little girl. Right. I was hearing jokes that were so filthy. I was hearing stories that were so inappropriate and the roars of laughter and the sense of grown upness, you know, that was. That I got to be part of and that then I went out in the world and I became a bartender and I worked on ranches and I was always comfortable around wild. Around wild people and around wild men and around drinking. I would love to see all of those people again and I would love to see them all when they were totally out of control and when no one was holding it together because there was something spectacular about it.

[Rachel Martin]

All the Way to the river is available September 9th. Elizabeth thank you. Thank you so much.

[Elizabeth Gilbert]

Thank you. It has been an absolute joy. Thanks for having me on.

[Rachel Martin]

If you like that conversation, you should go back and check out my episode with Ann Patchett. Her answer about why she's still a Catholic despite all of her reservations about the church is one of my very favorite answers on this show. This episode was produced by Summer Tamad and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Maggie Luthar. Wildcards executive Executive Producer is Yolanda Sangweni and our theme music is by Ramtin Arabloue. You can reach out to [e-mail] and you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.

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