Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, Wherever you are in
Speaker 1: the world, it is so great to have you here
Speaker 1: back for another episode as we, of course break down
Speaker 1: the psychology of our twenties. If you have been a
Speaker 1: long time listener of the podcast, you will know that
Speaker 1: there is one ted talk I reference probably three to
Speaker 1: four times a year, and it's titled Your Elusive Creative
Speaker 1: Genius by Elizabeth Gilbert. This ted talk entirely changed how
Speaker 1: I thought about success, how I thought about inspiration, failure,
Speaker 1: and on a deeper level, what it really meant to
Speaker 1: be human. When Elizabeth or or Liza she's more commonly
Speaker 1: known as, released her book Big Magic, it once again
Speaker 1: changed my life and it is firmly one of my favorite,
Speaker 1: probably most read books of all time. When I was
Speaker 1: first really getting listeners with the podcast back in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, someone asked me who my dream guest would be,
Speaker 1: and I said Liz, because of that book, because of
Speaker 1: how incredible her mind is, because of all the books
Speaker 1: that she has since written, and all the wisdom that
Speaker 1: she really has to share. And it was a huge dream.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty twenty one one that I really never
Speaker 1: thought was going to happen, but now in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: it's somehow finally come true. And I couldn't be more
Speaker 1: excited to have Liz on the podcast to discuss how
Speaker 1: to find our purpose, how to keep making and creating things,
Speaker 1: dealing with failure, managing success, and the best advice she
Speaker 1: has for people in her twenties. This episode is so
Speaker 1: very special to me and will forever have a place
Speaker 1: in my heart. But I also just hope you all
Speaker 1: enjoy it and you learn something all right. Without further ado,
Speaker 1: I want to welcome on Liz Gilbert to the show,
Speaker 1: to the Psychology of your twenties. Liz, can you briefly
Speaker 1: introduce yourself and tell us about your work?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: First, I'm so happy to be here and honored to
Speaker 3: be here talking to you. My name is Liz Gilbert.
Speaker 3: I'm known, I guess professionally as Elizabeth Gilbert, but that
Speaker 3: feels weird to introduce myself that way. I'm the author
Speaker 3: of Eat, Pray, Love, and Big Magic and the Signature
Speaker 3: of All Things, and City of Girls and a bunch
Speaker 3: of other books, and I also have I'm a fiction
Speaker 3: and nonfiction author. But I also spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time teaching, and I don't teach writing because I don't
Speaker 3: know how. But I teach a sort of general spirit
Speaker 3: of creativity, what I call creative living, a way of
Speaker 3: living where I simply define it this way where you
Speaker 3: make your decisions based on your curiosity rather than your fear,
Speaker 3: and that ends up becoming a very creative life. So
Speaker 3: I'm sort of known also for that as being a
Speaker 3: teacher of creativity kind of spirituality.
Speaker 1: That would be an amazing job title to have a.
Speaker 2: Teacher teacher of creativity and spirituality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, all right, so new career path unlocked.
Speaker 1: That sounds amazing. I think great, let's change the vision
Speaker 1: board up. I think I said this in my introduction,
Speaker 1: but most people know you for Big not for Big Magic,
Speaker 1: for Eat Pray Love. Probably. I think I was a
Speaker 1: little bit too young to really understand Eat Pray Love.
Speaker 1: But I did really understand Big Magic, and it was
Speaker 1: just such a beautiful book that I continue to reference
Speaker 1: to this day. Do you remember, you know, in the
Speaker 1: interest of understanding purpose, do you remember when you kind
Speaker 1: of realized, like, oh, I'm going to be a writer.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be this creative, curious person. This is
Speaker 1: my calling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm really glad you used the word calling,
Speaker 3: because I would love to just launch in with some
Speaker 3: thoughts that I have about the word purpose and how
Speaker 3: how much anxiety that word causes. Can we can we
Speaker 3: just start with.
Speaker 1: That up absolutely, because it's something obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: people listening to this like in their twenties, and the
Speaker 1: amount of them that email me being like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what my purpose is.
Speaker 2: Oh God, okay, let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Please get into it.
Speaker 3: My honeys, my sweeties, you have been so terribly misinformed.
Speaker 3: This is my opinion. Everything I'm saying is my own opinion.
Speaker 3: Take what you like and leave the rest. But I
Speaker 3: will throw out into the void and it will land
Speaker 3: on whoever it needs to land on. That there's this
Speaker 3: thing called purpose anxiety, and I scarcely know anybody who
Speaker 3: doesn't suffer from it. And I know some of the
Speaker 3: people who appear to be at the very very very
Speaker 3: top of a purpose driven life and have apparently achieved it,
Speaker 3: and they also still suffer from purpose anxiety. And the
Speaker 3: reason that everybody suffers from purpose anxiety is because everyone
Speaker 3: in Western contemporary culture has been told this same theology,
Speaker 3: and it really is theology. And you've been told vary
Speaker 3: it's of this from the time you were born, and
Speaker 3: you've heard it in every graduation and commencement speech and
Speaker 3: in every self help book, and no one who's ever
Speaker 3: questioned whether it even makes sense or whether it is
Speaker 3: even true. But here's the theology. Everyone is born with
Speaker 3: a unique purpose that is completely their own and totally
Speaker 3: unrelated to anybody else. It's one thing that only you
Speaker 3: can do. Nobody but you can do it. So already
Speaker 3: that creates anxiety and me because there's eight billion people
Speaker 3: on the planet, and so what I'm supposed to find
Speaker 3: something in me that is that no one else can
Speaker 3: do like that doesn't the math don't even add up
Speaker 3: on that, right, And you should. You should know it
Speaker 3: from the time that you're born, and you should always
Speaker 3: know what it is. It should be extremely clear what
Speaker 3: it is. And then your job is to devote your
Speaker 3: entire life to that one thing too. And if you
Speaker 3: miss the boat and it's too late and you haven't
Speaker 3: gotten on that, you should be extremely anxious and ashamed
Speaker 3: of yourself that you don't know what it is. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is what people are taught. And then you must
Speaker 3: become the master of that thing. You must devote an
Speaker 3: enormous amount of time, attention, and money to mastering whatever
Speaker 3: that thing is, that unique spark that nobody else has.
Speaker 3: And then you must monetize it, because if you make
Speaker 3: your money doing anything other than the thing that is
Speaker 3: your unique spark and purpose, then you are a failure.
Speaker 3: And it's not enough that you must monetize it. You
Speaker 3: must become the best at it, and you must also
Speaker 3: create opportunity for others, and you must then change the
Speaker 3: world through your purpose. This is what literally everybody is
Speaker 3: told and no wonder everybody is full of anxiety about it.
Speaker 3: And I mean, if we can just break it down
Speaker 3: for a minute, it's for well, it comes from a
Speaker 3: place of enormous hubris and arrogance to portend to believe,
Speaker 3: like to think that you can know what you are
Speaker 3: here for, when we don't even know what this is,
Speaker 3: this planet, consciousness, this experience, like we don't even know,
Speaker 3: We literally have no idea what's going on, and like
Speaker 3: why your soul was dropped into your particular body and
Speaker 3: born into your like we can't know, and anybody who
Speaker 3: pretends that they know you should be very suspicious of them.
Speaker 3: So there's an enormous arrogance. Also, can you hear how
Speaker 3: self centered it is. Purpose theology comes from Western men,
Speaker 3: and so it's all about I have to be incredibly important.
Speaker 3: I actually have to be the most important, and I
Speaker 3: have to change the world in my own image. And
Speaker 3: this whole idea, even that you have to change the world,
Speaker 3: there's a tremendous arrogance in that too, because I think
Speaker 3: at this point, if you look around the planet, the
Speaker 3: world is pretty clearly saying like I wish you people
Speaker 3: would stop changing me.
Speaker 1: Yeah you've done take a break, Yeah you've done enough,
Speaker 1: and that's time led.
Speaker 3: The most purpose driven lives are the people who have
Speaker 3: perhaps done the most damaged to the planet and to
Speaker 3: other people. So everything about it is so distorted and
Speaker 3: and and it's all it does is cause people to suffer.
Speaker 3: And I've met and I've met the people who are
Speaker 3: living at the top of that game, and they are
Speaker 3: not relaxed, they are not at peace, and they never
Speaker 3: know whether they've done enough, Have they changed the world enough,
Speaker 3: have they made a big enough impact? Oh and if
Speaker 3: you're thinking great, I can't wait to die, because then
Speaker 3: this will this whole purpose anxiety thing will be over.
Speaker 3: You're also supposed to leave a legacy, right, So it
Speaker 3: like never ends. The self centeredness, the arrogance, and the
Speaker 3: anxiety of purpose theology never end. So what I am
Speaker 3: gently here to offer as a counterpoint to a purpose
Speaker 3: driven life is a life of presence, because the other
Speaker 3: thing about a purpose driven life is that it constantly
Speaker 3: has you in the future. You can't live a purpose driven,
Speaker 3: anxiety driven theology without always being locked in the future
Speaker 3: of like, who am I going to become? What am
Speaker 3: I going to do? What is my impact going to be?
Speaker 3: Who am I going to affect? And you completely miss life?
Speaker 3: You completely miss life. I mean, my favorite spiritual teacher
Speaker 3: Byron Katie says, if you want to suffer, get a future.
Speaker 3: So this obsession with the future will bring you nothing
Speaker 3: but pain. So the contrary position to take is a
Speaker 3: life of presence, which is simply being a witness to
Speaker 3: the extraordinary, unknowable, miraculous strangeness of being a human being
Speaker 3: on this planet and observing it and being like this
Speaker 3: is so I mean, because it is objectively interesting. It's
Speaker 3: not safe this planet it never has been for people.
Speaker 3: But it's a really interesting experience.
Speaker 1: It definitely is.
Speaker 3: It's a really interesting experience to be who you are
Speaker 3: in your culture that you were dropped in at this
Speaker 3: moment of history. And I think that experience itself would
Speaker 3: like a few people to relax and observe it and
Speaker 3: actually be like this is wild, Like this is absolutely wild.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what I am, and I don't
Speaker 3: know who I am, and I don't know where I'm going,
Speaker 3: and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing,
Speaker 3: but it is very interesting to be here. And if
Speaker 3: you start from that perspective and you begin to follow
Speaker 3: the track of your curiosity of what's most interesting, you
Speaker 3: will have an interesting life. You may not have a
Speaker 3: life that certain kinds of people would look at and
Speaker 3: say is successful.
Speaker 2: But I'm not interested in those kinds of people.
Speaker 1: I'm not part of the conversation.
Speaker 3: Like I have a friend who says, everybody's got a
Speaker 3: brother in law named Phil Who's like, yeah, but what
Speaker 3: are you doing?
Speaker 2: Like what are you doing for your job? Like what's
Speaker 2: your plan?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Must be nice to take you know, must be nice
Speaker 2: to you know, Like just everyone's got back in their life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and fil must be ignored.
Speaker 1: Phil must be ignored. It's so funny, Like I see
Speaker 1: this on social media all the time, where it's like
Speaker 1: often some young woman or young man like exploring some
Speaker 1: creative side of them, making our posting just for fun
Speaker 1: whatever it is, writing just for fun, And there's always
Speaker 1: someone in the comments being like, must be nice not
Speaker 1: to have work a full time job, like must be
Speaker 1: nice to take a break, And I'm like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is really nice. I'm sure it is really nice
Speaker 1: for them.
Speaker 2: In fact, it is, thank you, it's yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's lovely, Like I get it all the
Speaker 1: time with people, Like people will come across like the
Speaker 1: podcast and come across like my online presence and we'll
Speaker 1: be like, wow, you call that work, you call that whatever,
Speaker 1: like and get really upset with me, and I'm like, honestly,
Speaker 1: all I'm hearing there is a desire to have what
Speaker 1: I have, Like you think that your reality of needing
Speaker 1: to prove yourself and work hard and never take a
Speaker 1: day off and always be like thinking about your family
Speaker 1: and thinking about everyone else like that doesn't actually sound
Speaker 1: particularly desirable. So I often like that's how I try
Speaker 1: and treat it, and like, I just feel kind of
Speaker 1: bad for those people who are raised again with the
Speaker 1: theology that you have one purpose and if you haven't
Speaker 1: found it, bad luck, time to be miserable and just
Speaker 1: work the ninety if.
Speaker 3: You have wasted your life. You know, it also treats
Speaker 3: life rather than being a miraculous, mysterious, unknowable gift. It
Speaker 3: treats it as something that must be earned, that you
Speaker 3: must earn your place, You must earn your right to
Speaker 3: be here. And whatever created you doesn't seem to think so,
Speaker 3: because it just dropped you here. It didn't seem to
Speaker 3: think you had to earn your right to be here.
Speaker 3: And you know, I also I would love to just
Speaker 3: take a moment and talk about these four different things
Speaker 3: that people often amalgamate into one thing and that also
Speaker 3: causes anxiety. And the four things are hobby, job, career,
Speaker 3: and calling. So I just want to take a moment
Speaker 3: and distinguish between these four things. Okay, So a hobby
Speaker 3: is something that you do because it's fun and you
Speaker 3: like it, and that's the thing that you post on
Speaker 3: social media and people are like, must be nice to
Speaker 3: take a pottery class.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is nice. You know, and hobbies.
Speaker 3: Actually bring an end to anxiety, like huttering about making
Speaker 3: things for no reason, doing something simply because it's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Until very recently, everyone had hobbies and most of life
Speaker 3: was just people doing stuff because they liked doing it
Speaker 3: and it was fun. And it doesn't have to be monetized.
Speaker 3: You don't have to be the best at it, you
Speaker 3: don't have to become famous at it. My biggest suggestion
Speaker 3: to people who are in purpose anxiety is to get
Speaker 3: a hobby that has absolutely no connection to anything productive
Speaker 3: and enjoy it, because life is also meant to be enjoyed,
Speaker 3: So that's a hobby.
Speaker 2: A job.
Speaker 3: A job is a thing that, unless you are a
Speaker 3: trust fund baby or landed gentry, you have to have.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing, you don't.
Speaker 2: Have to like it.
Speaker 3: Like I've had so many jobs in my life that
Speaker 3: I didn't like. You don't have to like it. It
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be your purpose. You don't have to
Speaker 3: be great at it, you don't have to come It
Speaker 3: doesn't have to consume your entire life. It's just a
Speaker 3: thing you have to do to make some money so
Speaker 3: that you can go home and have hobbies.
Speaker 1: Right like that, I love that thinking about it.
Speaker 2: Get a job, you know, just get a job.
Speaker 3: It doesn't like like and it's like, don't give your
Speaker 3: heart to it. Deliver thirty percent at work, you know,
Speaker 3: like they'll never know, Like a job is a place
Speaker 3: where you can go and just phone it in and
Speaker 3: they'll never know.
Speaker 1: Yes, I always say to people. I'm always like, just
Speaker 1: act your wage, like, act your wage, like if.
Speaker 2: You act your wage exactly, like.
Speaker 1: If you're getting paid minimum wage, minimum worm perfect.
Speaker 3: And this goes totally against capitalism purpose anxiety to say
Speaker 3: that in theology, But just to show up, do the
Speaker 3: least you can do to get to keep your job,
Speaker 3: and then have your life be outside of your job,
Speaker 3: with the things that you're curious about, the things that
Speaker 3: you enjoy, the people that you like being with. So
Speaker 3: that's a job. It's not the same as a hobby.
Speaker 3: The next thing is a career. So a career is
Speaker 3: a job that you're passionate about, right, that's all a
Speaker 3: career is. Don't act like your job is your career
Speaker 3: if you're not passionate about it, Like, don't try to
Speaker 3: make a job into a career. If you're just like,
Speaker 3: this is just my job. You know, But if you
Speaker 3: are passionate about it and you feel like this is
Speaker 3: what I'm here to do, and I'm here to serve
Speaker 3: humanity in this way, then you pour yourself into your job.
Speaker 3: So a career is a job that you pour yourself
Speaker 3: into because it brings you so much love and satisfaction.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't even matter how much they pay you. You
Speaker 3: would want to do it anyway, and like you really
Speaker 3: do show up for But you don't have to have
Speaker 3: a career, like you do have to have a job,
Speaker 3: but you don't have to have a career, right, And
Speaker 3: if you are in a career and you don't love it,
Speaker 3: you should quit and get a job. Yeah, I love
Speaker 3: Your career is to start your life.
Speaker 2: Just go get a job.
Speaker 3: There's lots of jobs. Just go get a job, and
Speaker 3: then have hobbies and then have friends. And then the
Speaker 3: final thing is a calling, and a calling is something
Speaker 3: that you feel you are compelled to do because it's
Speaker 3: a spiritual fulfillment and not everybody has one, and not
Speaker 3: everybody needs to have one. And if you have one,
Speaker 3: you'll know because you already have it. And if you
Speaker 3: don't have one, you don't have to go out there
Speaker 3: searching for it, because don't worry about it. It's something
Speaker 3: you can't create. You can't create a calling. You either
Speaker 3: like higher power gave you one or didn't, and maybe
Speaker 3: one will come later or maybe it won't, So you
Speaker 3: can just relax about it. And if you've got a calling,
Speaker 3: then you devote yourself to it, and it's got absolutely
Speaker 3: nothing to do with whether you're being paid or not,
Speaker 3: and no one can ever take it away from you.
Speaker 3: I can lose my career. So my calling is to
Speaker 3: be a writer, and I knew that ever since I
Speaker 3: was nine years old, but it wasn't my career until
Speaker 3: I was thirty. But through that entire time before it
Speaker 3: became my career, it was my calling. So I did
Speaker 3: it while I had jobs. I did my calling. Nobody
Speaker 3: wanted me to do it, nobody paid me to do it,
Speaker 3: nobody was interested in me doing it, and then over
Speaker 3: time it became my career.
Speaker 2: My career can be destroyed.
Speaker 3: AI can take my career away, people can fire me,
Speaker 3: the world can decide it doesn't want to read a
Speaker 3: Liza with Gilbert books anymore. Like, there are so many
Speaker 3: ways I can lose my career. I'm not in control.
Speaker 3: Of that, and I'm aware of that, and if I
Speaker 3: ever lose my career, I'll just go get a job
Speaker 3: and go back to having hobbies. But nobody can take
Speaker 3: my calling away. Nobody could stop me from writing when
Speaker 3: I wanted to write even though they weren't paying me to,
Speaker 3: and nobody can stop me from writing now if my
Speaker 3: career folds. So that's the difference between a hobby, a job,
Speaker 3: a calling, and a career. And it's so important to
Speaker 3: know the difference because we live in a culture that
Speaker 3: has pushed them all together and said that you should
Speaker 3: you should have one thing that's all of that, and
Speaker 3: it isn't It isn't true. So I just want to
Speaker 3: just clarify that for everybody.
Speaker 1: I can honestly feel the anxiety fading from people right now,
Speaker 1: because that is probably the biggest serious slash dilemma of
Speaker 1: questions that I get, which is, how do I know
Speaker 1: what I'm meant to do? How do I choose between
Speaker 1: these two jobs that one I'm more passionate about, one
Speaker 1: I'm less passionate about. How do I, you know, get
Speaker 1: the spark back for life? And honestly, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the questions come back to that distinction between
Speaker 1: these four very distinct when you think about it, categories
Speaker 1: of being and categories of existing. I actually when I
Speaker 1: first started the podcast, it was very similar, like if
Speaker 1: it's this weird thing where I just knew that this
Speaker 1: is what I was meant to do. It was a calling,
Speaker 1: and I genuinely had no listeners. I recorded it in
Speaker 1: the back of my car, and I always tell the
Speaker 1: story of like in the first episodes, you can literally
Speaker 1: hear like trucks going by, you can hear birds in
Speaker 1: the background because I'm recording it on my phone, and
Speaker 1: it really didn't matter who listened. I just felt like
Speaker 1: I had to do it. There's an analogy that you
Speaker 1: have in your book and also in your ted talk
Speaker 1: about how an idea will sometimes just be dropped in
Speaker 1: your lap and you kind of have to make a
Speaker 1: contract with it and it kind of appears out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: right and it's just like, oh, oh my god, I've
Speaker 1: just had this brilliant idea. Some spirit has given it
Speaker 1: to me, the wind has shifted and brought it to me.
Speaker 1: And I just love how you say it's like whatever
Speaker 1: it is is trying to find the person who's going
Speaker 1: to make it reality, like it's going to try and
Speaker 1: find the best conduit for it to be real. And
Speaker 1: I honestly felt that about the psychology of your twenties.
Speaker 1: It was like, people ask me how I came up
Speaker 1: with the idea, and I'm like, I genuinely have no idea, Like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea. It just came to me, and
Speaker 1: I just knew I had to do it. But I
Speaker 1: do think that my relationship with it changed when I
Speaker 1: started making money and when it did become the thing
Speaker 1: that paid my bills, that allowed me, you know, it
Speaker 1: became a job, a hobby, a career, and a calling
Speaker 1: all it was. And I'm sure that was probably the
Speaker 1: case with writing for you as well. What happened when that,
Speaker 1: when that shifted, when the dynamic shifted entirely.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, when money is introduced, it changes everything. And
Speaker 3: it's not that I'm anti money. I'm very delighted that
Speaker 3: I can make my living doing this. I think the
Speaker 3: really important thing that that I have that I had
Speaker 3: to remember, and I've had to carry this through my
Speaker 3: entire career, is that well, I mean, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: what your career is. This is and I'm just thinking
Speaker 3: this is actually the truth no matter what you're doing,
Speaker 3: whether you're a civil engineer or a or a painter,
Speaker 3: like it doesn't you know, nothing is promised. You know,
Speaker 3: nothing is promised and nothing is owed. Nowhere was there
Speaker 3: some sort of contract, either a social contract or a
Speaker 3: spiritual contract that said you're assured this, you get to
Speaker 3: you know, like this will continue, or you're allowed to
Speaker 3: have this, like you know, we're seeing that that as
Speaker 3: societies are breaking down in unions of raid and like,
Speaker 3: none of this is promised. And you can get angry
Speaker 3: about that, or you can just be a Taoist about
Speaker 3: it and sort of just go with the flow of
Speaker 3: energy of reality. And there's a beautiful line that I
Speaker 3: quote to myself all the time. That's from the Bug
Speaker 3: of a Gita, which is this ancient Indian Hindu spiritual text,
Speaker 3: and there's a line in there where one of the
Speaker 3: gods says to one of the heroes, you are entitled
Speaker 3: to the labor, but you are not entitled to the
Speaker 3: fruit of the labor. And that is something that is
Speaker 3: hard to land on modern years, because we have a
Speaker 3: lot of sense of entitlement and it's like, well, I
Speaker 3: worked really hard, I should I worked really hard. I
Speaker 3: therefore should That's the that's the calculus of capitalism, you know,
Speaker 3: Like I worked hard, and therefore I should have this.
Speaker 3: And the actual reality of life on earth is nobody
Speaker 3: told you that.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: I mean, some people told you that who don't know
Speaker 3: how the world works. The way the world actually works
Speaker 3: is like it shrugs. It's like the world, you know,
Speaker 3: the universe is a little bit indifferent. You know, the
Speaker 3: universe is a little bit like, oh, maybe you'll have it,
Speaker 3: maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have it for a while,
Speaker 3: maybe you won't. You know, Like I love that about
Speaker 3: like the sort of classical Indian theology and ideas of
Speaker 3: God is like God is much less a sort of reasonable,
Speaker 3: reigning judge than a kind of batty old lady who
Speaker 3: lives on the top of a hill and has money
Speaker 3: and gives it to some people who don't deserve it
Speaker 3: and gives it to other people who you know, and
Speaker 3: like makes promises and doesn't keep them and is a
Speaker 3: little bit senile. And it's like that's the actual reality
Speaker 3: of life, you know. And so I'm not entitled. I'm
Speaker 3: not entitled. I've had books canceled, you know, like I
Speaker 3: had a book canceled two years ago, right before it
Speaker 3: was published, you know, and it was like, wow, I
Speaker 3: could freak out about this and be like, I worked
Speaker 3: for four years on this. This is a tragedy for
Speaker 3: me that this book isn't being published, or I can
Speaker 3: live in accordance with reality and be like, well, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: That is objectively interesting that that happened. That is not
Speaker 3: what I expected. I think so much of life is
Speaker 3: just that is not what I expected. That's interesting. And
Speaker 3: the difference between living a life of anxiety and living
Speaker 3: a life of creativity. And my friend Martha Beck just
Speaker 3: recently wrote a book about how the antidote for anxiety,
Speaker 3: the opposite of anxiety is not relaxation, it's creativity. It's
Speaker 3: creativity is the only way out of anxiety. And the
Speaker 3: only way into creativity is to live from a spirit
Speaker 3: of that's interesting, rather than a spirit of like, what
Speaker 3: a nightmare. It's also a drama free life, to live
Speaker 3: from a place of like, that's interesting. Oh, somebody broke
Speaker 3: up with me who I thought I was going to marry.
Speaker 3: That is interesting. Wow, I really wanted kids and I
Speaker 3: can't have them. That is really interesting. The person I
Speaker 3: love the most in the world died who I thought
Speaker 3: was going to be like my anchor forever. That's interesting,
Speaker 3: you know, that is so interesting? What am I going
Speaker 3: to do now?
Speaker 2: So on the.
Speaker 3: Video game of life? Like what is my next move?
Speaker 3: And the next move? If you want to have a
Speaker 3: life without a lot of anxiety, is what would be
Speaker 3: the most interesting thing I could do now?
Speaker 1: I also a very equal quote, which is the opposite
Speaker 1: of anxiety is trust, and I think that also comes
Speaker 1: into play here where you can be thrown like the
Speaker 1: most awful, terrible circumstances, but if you trust that you
Speaker 1: are going to make it through, maybe if you trust
Speaker 1: that you are capable of finding a route out, of
Speaker 1: finding your way back to a life that you really
Speaker 1: love and that you want, you will make it through.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, Like self trust is just such
Speaker 1: like I don't know, it's just such an antidote to
Speaker 1: so much. It's an antidote to imposter syndrome. It's an
Speaker 1: antidote to a lot of anxiety. And I really want
Speaker 1: to link back to what you were saying before of
Speaker 1: you know, God, the universe is somebody old lady like
Speaker 1: living on the top of a Hill just giving out money,
Speaker 1: because I see this a lot with people in their twenties,
Speaker 1: where it's like, if I work X amount of hard,
Speaker 1: I will receive why amount of reward. And I always
Speaker 1: think about it in the context of people studying for exams, right,
Speaker 1: very common thing that you do during this decade. Someone
Speaker 1: could study the exact same amount of hours of you
Speaker 1: as you have the exact same content and get a
Speaker 1: completely different grade, could understand it completely differently, and sometimes like.
Speaker 2: Luck, somebody can study a lot less than you and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly, and it's like, okay, so we all
Speaker 1: think that it's just hard work, and it was actually
Speaker 1: something I had to really accept where I was like,
Speaker 1: it's okay for a bit of this to be luck.
Speaker 2: Like it's actually okay, sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I kept worrying. I'd be like, well, luck
Speaker 1: isn't luck isn't promised. So if my life has been
Speaker 1: given to me by luck, like as soon as the
Speaker 1: tables turn, I could not have my life anymore. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to use hard work as an insurance. And
Speaker 1: eventually you have to kind of let that go because
Speaker 1: it makes you feel like every single thing that you
Speaker 1: do is tied to how much you want it and
Speaker 1: how many hours you're willing to put into it, which
Speaker 1: is not true.
Speaker 3: It's just simply not It's all based on the devastating
Speaker 3: wish that life would be fair and sensible, and there's
Speaker 3: very little evidence that I have seen to support that
Speaker 3: it is either of those things.
Speaker 2: But it is once again interesting.
Speaker 3: The batty old lady who lives on the top of
Speaker 3: the hill, who's half seen aisle and holds all sorts
Speaker 3: of power and forgets your name, like promises you in
Speaker 3: inheritance and then that's.
Speaker 1: Name, yeah, is like I already gave it to that Poste'm.
Speaker 3: Sorry, give it to the gardener, like you know, like wait,
Speaker 3: but I'm your grandchild.
Speaker 2: Well are you? You know? Like it's it's so.
Speaker 3: And this is why I think that the manifestation theology
Speaker 3: is a bit dangerous. This idea you made a sort
Speaker 3: of joke about vision boards, and vision boards can be
Speaker 3: really sweet. And there is something about that. There is
Speaker 3: a it's not that you're helpless, there is a there's
Speaker 3: a push and a pull. There's a part that you
Speaker 3: have control over and there's a part that you don't.
Speaker 3: And the way I describe it in neat prey love.
Speaker 3: It's like a circus trained circus acrobat riding on two
Speaker 3: horses at the same time, you know, like one foot
Speaker 3: on two horses around a ring. And the play that
Speaker 3: I feel in my own life between my own will
Speaker 3: and what can only be called destiny or fate is
Speaker 3: I've only got a foot on one of those horses,
Speaker 3: you know, and the other one it looks like it's
Speaker 3: running right alongside me.
Speaker 2: But at any moment, anything could.
Speaker 3: Happen, you know, like anything could happen that changes the game,
Speaker 3: and how do we hold our equanimity? And they're both
Speaker 3: running at full speed, by the way, you know, And
Speaker 3: the really good acrobats are the ones who are just
Speaker 3: like and they're sparking, and there's sparkly leotard with.
Speaker 2: A big smile like and a plume of like here
Speaker 2: we are, We're on the ride, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's yeah, but there's there is no promised outcome.
Speaker 3: The outcome is not promised. You're entitled to the labor,
Speaker 3: but you're not entitled to the fruit of the labor.
Speaker 3: And if, gosh, if there's one thing that could make
Speaker 3: you happier than anything else, it would be to release
Speaker 3: any sense of entitlement to anything, because the most depressed,
Speaker 3: outraged and anxious that I have been in my life
Speaker 3: has been when I didn't get what I want and
Speaker 3: I had to suffer through some sort of a tantrum
Speaker 3: about it for however amount of time until I surrendered too.
Speaker 3: You're not You ain't getting it.
Speaker 2: Don't matter how much you want it, you ate.
Speaker 3: You cannot make that person love you. You cannot make that
Speaker 3: person love you. You cannot change the past, you cannot
Speaker 3: change people's opinions of it.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 3: And so I think the reason I'm a lot more
Speaker 3: serene in my fifties than I was in my twenties
Speaker 3: was because in my twenties I was still pretty sure
Speaker 3: I could get what I wanted if I tried hard
Speaker 3: enough and worked hard enough or manipulated enough, and I couldn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lesson. That's a lesson in that we
Speaker 1: all learn eventually. And I always think about it, as
Speaker 1: have you seen the Harry Potter films?
Speaker 2: Yep? Of course, do I not have eyes?
Speaker 1: Sometimes if you've got to ask, because there'll be people
Speaker 1: who are like what No. I always think about this scene.
Speaker 1: It must be in the first movie where they're going
Speaker 1: to find the Philosopher's stone, and they fall into this
Speaker 1: pit of vines that like choke them and like just tightening,
Speaker 1: and every time they like struggle against it and they move,
Speaker 1: it just gets tighter and tighter and tighter. And it
Speaker 1: must be like COMIONI or someone realizes, like if I
Speaker 1: just relax, they'll let me go, They'll let me go,
Speaker 1: and I will just fall straight through. And it is
Speaker 1: such a hard thing to do because naturally you want
Speaker 1: a good life and you want to be happy, and
Speaker 1: you want to find love, and you want to feel
Speaker 1: like you're here for a reason. Obviously, like you can't
Speaker 1: know what that is. So sometimes you do just have
Speaker 1: to do the opposite of what every single instinct in
Speaker 1: your body is telling you to do, and that is
Speaker 1: to just relax. And I think that there is a
Speaker 1: difference between like survivor like survival instincts and an instinct
Speaker 1: for living. And I think our living instinct and our
Speaker 1: life is instinct is to relax and is to just
Speaker 1: have a little bit more fun. But we're confusing that
Speaker 1: with our survival instincts, which are like no run produced
Speaker 1: like hit scream somewhere along the way, like those have
Speaker 1: gotten crossed, and so now we just feel a lot
Speaker 1: more panicked about everything, and we think that small things
Speaker 1: are going to cost us our life, you know, not
Speaker 1: having a job that we love, not having people like us,
Speaker 1: like all these things are a lot more going to
Speaker 1: be a lot more costly than they actually are. That's
Speaker 1: just how I see it. And when I relaxed into that,
Speaker 1: it felt a lot better. I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about a bit of a turning point in your career
Speaker 1: and in your life, and it was the success of
Speaker 1: E Prey Love. Julia Roberts starred you in a movie.
Speaker 1: That's probably something that only three or four people can say.
Speaker 1: But what happened afterwards? You know, you wrote this book,
Speaker 1: it was it's beautiful, it became incredibly popular. How did
Speaker 1: you manage or deal with the expectations that you may
Speaker 1: be experienced for your next book or for after that,
Speaker 1: the initial fame and maybe past.
Speaker 2: Oh what a great question.
Speaker 3: So do you know I mean, I'm talking like I
Speaker 3: know anything about mathematics, but do you know the principle
Speaker 3: of absolute value?
Speaker 1: I'm going to just throw it out there and explain it.
Speaker 3: But like, imagine that you're looking at a number line,
Speaker 3: and there's a zero in the middle, and then the
Speaker 3: positive numbers go out in one direction, positive one through ten,
Speaker 3: and then the negative numbers go out in the other direction,
Speaker 3: negative one through ten.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So pick a number three, right, So there's a positive
Speaker 3: number three and there's a negative number three right on
Speaker 3: that line. But they share the same absolute value. So
Speaker 3: the absolute value means the distance from zero. So there's
Speaker 3: a zero in our emotional life, which I would describe
Speaker 3: as just sort of like are like stability, constancy, a
Speaker 3: sense of belonging, a sense of balance. That's zero, that's
Speaker 3: point zero, right, And then there are these horrible things
Speaker 3: that happen on the negative side of the scale, and
Speaker 3: there use wonderful things that happen on the positive side
Speaker 3: of the scale. Here's where things can get really confusing.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it makes sense that when a horrible thing happens,
Speaker 3: a divorce or an illness, or a death, or a
Speaker 3: terrible breakup or massive disappointment or a natural disaster, it
Speaker 3: makes sense that you would be really shook by it.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't make sense that you would be equally
Speaker 3: shook when a wonderful thing happens. Because we're trained to
Speaker 3: think that the wonderful. Things are great, But to your
Speaker 3: nervous system, there's an absolute value of distance from zero.
Speaker 3: If zero is what I'm used to, what I am
Speaker 3: accustomed to, and what I am normal to, and a
Speaker 3: really big in the positive direction, a number ten. So
Speaker 3: Eppray loves a number ten on that. It's like you
Speaker 3: just wrote I heard the other day that it's like
Speaker 3: the second best selling memoir of all time. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, so famous, Like yeah, Julia Roberts, you're
Speaker 3: a millionaire now Julia Roberts is playing you in a movie.
Speaker 2: You're a famous.
Speaker 3: You never have to get a job again, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: all this stuff has happened. This is a ten, this
Speaker 3: is a plus ten. The absolute value is it's ten
Speaker 3: steps from zero, which has the same impact on my
Speaker 3: nervous system as if there was an earthquake or a
Speaker 3: death in the family, because it has taken me so
Speaker 3: far away from what I thought was normal. Right, So
Speaker 3: it's really important to understand and to expect in life
Speaker 3: that really good news things can also shake you to
Speaker 3: the core because it's a long long way away from normal.
Speaker 3: So what happened was I had to get back to neutral.
Speaker 3: I had to get back to zero. And the only
Speaker 3: way that I could do that was that I took
Speaker 3: a year off, almost a year off from doing anything
Speaker 3: in public, and I started a garden. I literally had
Speaker 3: to get back. I had to get on my knees
Speaker 3: in the ground because I felt so ungrounded.
Speaker 2: People were telling me all sorts of things.
Speaker 3: About who I was and what I was and what
Speaker 3: my cultural importance was, and so I just had to
Speaker 3: get down to the level of the earth and I
Speaker 3: gardened for a year. I didn't do any speaking events,
Speaker 3: I didn't teach, I didn't write anything, and I grew vegetables.
Speaker 2: That's how I got over it.
Speaker 3: And after a year in the garden, I remember it
Speaker 3: was like wintertime and I was raking up the leaves
Speaker 3: and composting things, you know, calloused hands and like just
Speaker 3: dirty clothes is what did it? And I was and
Speaker 3: then I heard in my head the first line to
Speaker 3: the next book. It was like it's like the leaves
Speaker 3: were falling, and like a leaf fell into my mind
Speaker 3: and it was the first line to the next book.
Speaker 3: And I was like, Okay, I think I'm ready to
Speaker 3: write again. So you have to whether you've had a
Speaker 3: hugely positive massively fantastic, big new crazy thing happened in
Speaker 3: your life, or a hugely negative, massively horrible, big new
Speaker 3: crazy thing in your life. You've got to learn how
Speaker 3: to ground, and it's very hard to do in this
Speaker 3: day and age, especially with the constant distractions of everything
Speaker 3: that's on your phone. But you've got to kind of
Speaker 3: get like low to the earth and like go to
Speaker 3: the beach and go on the ocean, like it's you
Speaker 3: have to get kind of animal, you know. It's like
Speaker 3: I've got to get with elemental back down to the
Speaker 3: waters like fire and water and earth, because and you
Speaker 3: have to remember the sort of element of yourself rather
Speaker 3: than all the kind of crazy information that people are
Speaker 3: telling you about you.
Speaker 1: I remember when the Psychle Oldivia twenties was becoming really
Speaker 1: really popular and it was going viral and it was
Speaker 1: just thousands of people listening to it all the time.
Speaker 1: I remember never being more miserable and like crying constantly.
Speaker 1: I would call my partner Tom, and I would call
Speaker 1: my mom and my dad and just be like, this
Speaker 1: is gonna get taken away from me. How do I
Speaker 1: adjust to this? And I remember exactly the moment when
Speaker 1: I was like I'm gonna be okay. And I went
Speaker 1: back to where I grew up, which is Crumbin in Queensland.
Speaker 1: It's paradise on Earth. And I went on this hike
Speaker 1: and I found a mango tree that had dropped all
Speaker 1: these exactly. And it's so funny you were saying that
Speaker 1: because I literally remember picking up a mango and like
Speaker 1: I didn't have a knife or fork, and I just
Speaker 1: like ripped it open with my hands and like was
Speaker 1: eating it. And I was like, oh my god, I'll
Speaker 1: always have this, Like I can come and find this
Speaker 1: mango tree if anything terrible happens.
Speaker 3: And yeah, Earth, yeah exactly, you belong What is Mary
Speaker 3: Oliver has a poem your part in the belonging of things?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, great.
Speaker 3: Great success and great failure can lose your sense of belonging.
Speaker 3: But if you get close to nature, you'll remember that
Speaker 3: you belong here.
Speaker 2: I love that story.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. I still remember the taste of that
Speaker 1: mango like it's very vivid. But and I went back
Speaker 1: actually recently in the mango tree wasn't there, so I
Speaker 1: guess it just appeared when I needed it. It's actually
Speaker 1: something you may not know, is that to celebrity name
Speaker 1: drop in here, Taylor Swift actually referred one of your
Speaker 1: Ted talks. Do you know this?
Speaker 2: I did hear the head.
Speaker 1: You do know this, okay? And I feel like what
Speaker 1: was so interesting was she was saying referencing you and
Speaker 1: her creative process and being like the drive to keep
Speaker 1: creating even when people hate what I've done, even when
Speaker 1: I've failed, even when I've you know, not had the
Speaker 1: success that I wanted. I just have to create. And
Speaker 1: I always like that analogy as well, like not to
Speaker 1: not that anyone's theory about how they should live their
Speaker 1: life requires proof, but you know, seeing that her creative
Speaker 1: processes continue to evolve and allowed her great success, I
Speaker 1: feel like she's kind of onto something. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you know that's came from you. So I think when
Speaker 1: it comes to like imposters in him and feeling like
Speaker 1: we're going to fail because we've had some success, or
Speaker 1: feeling like we need to now do things for other people,
Speaker 1: true creatives really understand that again, it's not just a job,
Speaker 1: it's not a profession. It's a calling. And whether you
Speaker 1: have zero readers, zero listeners, zero viewers, or a million,
Speaker 1: hopefully like what you're creating will be the same. But
Speaker 1: within that journey, how have you dealt with failure? I
Speaker 1: know you talked about you had a book canceled. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what that means. To be completely honest,
Speaker 1: neither happened.
Speaker 3: I wrote a book that was set in Russia and
Speaker 3: a novel that was set in Russia, and when I
Speaker 3: announced it, there was an enormous outcry from Ukrainians saying like,
Speaker 3: you know, how could you be doing this right now
Speaker 3: and pulling the world's attention to Russia when we're being
Speaker 3: killed and murdered. And actually, I'm it made a lot
Speaker 3: of sense to me when I heard. So when I
Speaker 3: say that it was canceled, that's a dramatic way to say.
Speaker 3: I like drama. I'm an artist, but it's a dramatic
Speaker 3: way to say. I mean, it was quite dramatic because
Speaker 3: it was like trending on Twitter, and you know, they, yeah,
Speaker 3: you thousands of people are hating me and telling me
Speaker 3: that I work for Putin and that I'm awful and
Speaker 3: going on Goodreads and putting one star reviews for a
Speaker 3: book that wasn't even published yet. So there were thousands
Speaker 3: of one star reviews saying like this is the worst
Speaker 3: book in the world. We hate this book, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was you know, it was a dramatic moment.
Speaker 3: But I grounded myself. I have practices that I do
Speaker 3: and spiritual practices that I've learned over the years to
Speaker 3: ground myself so that I could actually listen to what
Speaker 3: they were saying rather than feeling that I was being persecuted.
Speaker 3: And when I listened to what they were saying, it
Speaker 3: made a lot of sense to me, and I was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I get it. I'm going to postpone
Speaker 3: this book. So it just we just decided not to
Speaker 3: publish it. Someday maybe it'll be published. But it became
Speaker 3: very simple. Once you're grounded, the decisions become very simple.
Speaker 3: When you're in anxiety or fight, flight or trauma, you
Speaker 3: don't have access to your reasonable mind and everything feels
Speaker 3: like it's on fire. So that's why it's so important
Speaker 3: to learn how to ground. But I was going to
Speaker 3: say one other thing about the creativity. I think part
Speaker 3: of the thing is that I know how creativity works
Speaker 3: through my nervous system and through my mind, and I
Speaker 3: know that my fear center is the oldest part of
Speaker 3: my conscious mind. So before we had anything else, when
Speaker 3: we were evolving into these humanoid forms, we were given
Speaker 3: this incredible capacity for fear and alarm. My friend Martha
Speaker 3: calls it fifteen puppies in a snake. So are fifteen
Speaker 3: puppies in a cobra, Which means if you're in a
Speaker 3: room and there's fifteen pups and a cobra, your attention
Speaker 3: is going to be on the cobra, you know, Like
Speaker 3: if it isn't, you're not going to live long. If
Speaker 3: you're the kind of person who's like, oh, there's about
Speaker 3: the poppies. You know, like you your mind will be
Speaker 3: and until that cobra is taken care of, you will
Speaker 3: not see those puppies, you know. Like that's reality of survival.
Speaker 3: That's the survival gene that you were talking about.
Speaker 2: We all have that.
Speaker 3: We're only here because our ancestors paid attention to the cobras. Right,
Speaker 3: So this is deeply embedded in my brain that I'm
Speaker 3: looking for things all the time that are going to
Speaker 3: kill me. I'm looking for things that are going to
Speaker 3: go wrong. It's it's wired in my creative mind. Only
Speaker 3: came in online about one hundred thousand years ago. Our
Speaker 3: shared creative mind, but based on what anthropologists and scientists believe,
Speaker 3: so it's new. The other one is billions of years old.
Speaker 3: The fear center is billions of years old. It's just
Speaker 3: been evolving and evolving and evolving. Even tadpoles have it,
Speaker 3: you know. But so whenever I create something, the creative
Speaker 3: impulse comes and says, I want to make something that's new.
Speaker 3: My fear center, its number one job is to never
Speaker 3: let me do anything new, because it has to assume
Speaker 3: for my survival that anything new has the potential to
Speaker 3: kill me. So my fear only wants me to do
Speaker 3: what it does every what I do every day, because
Speaker 3: my fear is like, it's safe if you do this.
Speaker 3: No one has died yet from you doing this. So
Speaker 3: when I introduce into my mind I'm going to do
Speaker 3: this new thing, my fear freaks out and it's like,
Speaker 3: you cannot do that.
Speaker 2: That will kill us. We don't know.
Speaker 3: My fear is not allowed. My fear's job is to
Speaker 3: not let me do anything where it doesn't know what
Speaker 3: the outcome is.
Speaker 2: And creativity is nothing but doing.
Speaker 3: Things where you don't know the outcome is. That's all
Speaker 3: it is, and that never changes I mean, I've written
Speaker 3: ten books now and I still don't know what the
Speaker 3: outcome is going to be. When I start writing a
Speaker 3: book and I still have my fear saying you can't
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: I've got to shut it down. You're going to die.
Speaker 3: And so the fact that I know that that's what's
Speaker 3: happening from an evolutionary standpoint makes it easier for me
Speaker 3: to be like, oh, this is a natural process that
Speaker 3: my fears is saying these things. But my more evolved,
Speaker 3: more recent part of my brain, the Liz four point zero,
Speaker 3: actually would really like to try to do this thing.
Speaker 3: And I need to tell my fear that it's unlikely.
Speaker 3: No one has yet died from my books, so it's
Speaker 3: unlikely that somebody will die.
Speaker 1: Maybe a severe paper cut, but yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 1: I think we're already it.
Speaker 3: Fell on someone's head off a bookshelf, but I think
Speaker 3: that's about, yeah, the worst damage that it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk about now that we're on
Speaker 1: the theme of writing books. You literally, like three days
Speaker 1: ago announced all the Way to the River, and I
Speaker 1: watched the video that you've put out explaining it. Semi
Speaker 1: cried about it, not to like make myself seem like
Speaker 1: too much of a fan. But can you explain the
Speaker 1: premise of this book for people who may not know
Speaker 1: what went into making it.
Speaker 3: So this is a memoir, and it's about my relationship
Speaker 3: with my best friend in the entire world ever, whose
Speaker 3: name was Raya Elias. And we were friends for gosh,
Speaker 3: we're friends for sixteen years, fifteen or sixteen years, and
Speaker 3: then we very gradually over the course of that friendship,
Speaker 3: we fell in love with each other. And I was
Speaker 3: married to somebody who I loved very much. I was
Speaker 3: married to a man. She was gay, I wasn't or whatever.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what that means. I don't even care.
Speaker 3: And she was then diagnosed with terminal cancer. And at
Speaker 3: the time of her diagnosis, I.
Speaker 2: Was no longer able to.
Speaker 3: Knowing that she had six months to live, I was
Speaker 3: no longer able to continue just pretending that this was
Speaker 3: my best friend, and I needed to find my voice
Speaker 3: to her and to my now ex husband that I
Speaker 3: need to go meet with this person in a different way.
Speaker 3: And she started to call her death the river, and
Speaker 3: she said, I want you to walk with me all
Speaker 3: the way to the river. And I did, and that
Speaker 3: may sound to people who are listening to it who
Speaker 3: don't know the story like a very romantic story, and
Speaker 3: there were aspects of it that were very romantic.
Speaker 2: It was also an insane journey.
Speaker 3: She was a drug addict in recovery who went back
Speaker 3: into active drug addiction before her death in a way
Speaker 3: that just ripped the rug floor and ground out from
Speaker 3: under both of us. I fell into a state of
Speaker 3: totally toxic codependency and love addiction with her. It was
Speaker 3: a hell of a time and it was a hell
Speaker 3: of a story. And it's taken me seven years to
Speaker 3: write it because it took me this long to heal
Speaker 3: from it and to find my grounding again after that
Speaker 3: and to even understand what had happened. And in many ways,
Speaker 3: it's a book about how lost we can get from ourselves.
Speaker 3: Raya got very lost from her grounded center during that time.
Speaker 3: I got very lost from my grounded center during that time.
Speaker 3: And it's a book about recovery and resilience and finding
Speaker 3: your way back to back to your center after having
Speaker 3: been through a time of such drama and trauma.
Speaker 1: When you were writing it, did it feel most like cathartic?
Speaker 1: Like do you feel like you've wrote it more for
Speaker 1: yourself than for an audience, or is there something you're
Speaker 1: kind of hoping that people are going to get out
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: I always feel, I mean, I write things in order
Speaker 3: to understand my life, and I write my way into understanding.
Speaker 3: So it was absolutely cathartic that said, it's the book
Speaker 3: I didn't want to write. You know, interesting are parts
Speaker 3: of that story that I was like, I just still
Speaker 3: want that to not have happened that way, Like I
Speaker 3: still want and I know we all have this in
Speaker 3: our lives, like chapters of our life where it's like listen,
Speaker 3: I've reconciled with it and I've moved on, but like,
Speaker 3: don't think I still don't wish it went a different way,
Speaker 3: you know, that I had gotten a different outcome or
Speaker 3: that they had gone in a different way. But it
Speaker 3: is a lot of the books about surrender as well,
Speaker 3: and surrendering into reality. So yeah, I wrote it for myself,
Speaker 3: but I also I think that it's part of my
Speaker 3: destiny to be a person who has things happened to
Speaker 3: her there are really hard, and then interprets and translates
Speaker 3: those things and puts them out in public to say,
Speaker 3: like here, has this ever happened to you? If so,
Speaker 3: here's some thoughts I have on this, you know, here's
Speaker 3: some things I've learned from this, And I think that's
Speaker 3: part of what I'm I think that's part of what
Speaker 3: I'm meant to do. So even as I was writing
Speaker 3: the book and exposing these absolutely horrific aspects of her
Speaker 3: and me, or it's like, this is exactly the stuff
Speaker 3: I don't want people to know about me. This is
Speaker 3: exactly like this is counter to image management.
Speaker 2: Is to write a book like this.
Speaker 3: And my friend Glennon Doyle, the writer Glenn and Doyle,
Speaker 3: read it when it was a manuscript and said, this
Speaker 3: is the most what did she say, the most self
Speaker 3: accountable thing I've ever read, Like this is a masterclass
Speaker 3: in self accountability. But that's also what I feel. I
Speaker 3: really want to be a very self accountable person. I
Speaker 3: don't want it because the opposite of being self accountable
Speaker 3: is being a victim. And you know, that book was
Speaker 3: a forensic effort for me to try to is a
Speaker 3: forensic effort for me to try to be like, what
Speaker 3: was my part in this? You know, like how did
Speaker 3: I I do feel that a multiple points in our lives.
Speaker 3: We will find ourselves saying how did I end up here?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: How did I end up in this? How did I
Speaker 3: end up in this toxic thing? How did I end
Speaker 3: up in this dysfunctional relationship? How did I end up
Speaker 3: in this abuse? How did I end up in this
Speaker 3: self abnegation and self betrayal?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: How is that me? You know? And it's very easy
Speaker 2: to end up in.
Speaker 3: Those sorts of fields of confusion and not so easy
Speaker 3: to find serenity and clarity again, but it's findable.
Speaker 2: So this is the book helps people.
Speaker 3: Reya always wanted me to tell the story and said
Speaker 3: it'll help some people, and so.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that it will. And when does it come out?
Speaker 1: That's probably the first thing I should have had.
Speaker 2: September ninth of twenty twenty five. So it's it's it's coming.
Speaker 1: Right around the corner. It's going to be an amazing
Speaker 1: that maybe very dark and deep Christmas present for someone.
Speaker 2: Last morning, I have been told by those who have
Speaker 2: read it.
Speaker 3: A friend just texted me yesterday and I gave him
Speaker 3: a copy and he said, I've been with your book
Speaker 3: all day and I'm He's like, I just keep going
Speaker 3: back and forth from laughing my head off to cry
Speaker 3: my eyes out, and I'm like, well, that feels about right.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what that time felt like to me.
Speaker 1: So yeah, sounds like life. That's giving me a hurt. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much. Now I want
Speaker 1: to ask you one final question. This is the question
Speaker 1: I ask all of my guests, and I want to
Speaker 1: see what your answer is going to be. So, what
Speaker 1: is your biggest piece of advice for people in their
Speaker 1: twenties or the thing you wish you knew when you
Speaker 1: were in your twenties? You know it is a big one.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Okay, for me, I'll give two because they're separate.
Speaker 3: My biggest piece of advice is again I'm going back
Speaker 3: to the blog of a Gita. It is such a
Speaker 3: I mean, wisdom texts, Ancient wisdom texts are so handy
Speaker 3: because they are the distillation of millennia of human experience
Speaker 3: and wisdom. So it's not an accident that I keep
Speaker 3: reaching for this seven thousand year old text.
Speaker 2: And quoting from it.
Speaker 3: But one of the lines in there is it is
Speaker 3: better to live your own life imperfectly than to live
Speaker 3: a perfect imitation of somebody else's life. And that sounds
Speaker 3: like it could be a meme on Instagram right now,
Speaker 3: but it is that is deep, deep wisdom. It is
Speaker 3: better to live your own life imperfectly than to live
Speaker 3: a perfect imitation of somebody else's life. I did a
Speaker 3: pretty good imitation in my twenties of a lot of
Speaker 3: lives that I had seen modeled for myself, and it
Speaker 3: almost killed me, and for me personally, it would have
Speaker 3: What I wish I had known is to avoid romantic
Speaker 3: immashment at such a young age. Even though it was
Speaker 3: the thing I wanted more than anything, and longed for
Speaker 3: more than anything, and hunted more than anything, it actually
Speaker 3: took me the farthest away from myself, especially as a woman.
Speaker 3: It made me be in a constant state of response,
Speaker 3: especially to men, where from the minute I woke up
Speaker 3: in the morning till I always lived with somebody. For
Speaker 3: the minute I woke up in the morning till the
Speaker 3: minute I went to bed at night, I was aware
Speaker 3: of him. I was responding to him, ape shifting around him.
Speaker 3: I was trying to deliver. I was trying to deliver
Speaker 3: some version of myself that would be pleasing. And it
Speaker 3: was a part time job. I mean maybe a full
Speaker 3: time job. In order to get from him, whoever the
Speaker 3: hymn was fill in the blank hymn, in order to
Speaker 3: get from him love, validation, acceptance, and affection. I turned
Speaker 3: myself into all sorts of people, and I gave all
Speaker 3: this time energy that I wish I could have every
Speaker 3: single minute of that time back, every single minute of
Speaker 3: time that I spent trying to get somebody to love
Speaker 3: me the way I wanted them to love me. I
Speaker 3: would like every single minute of that time back. And
Speaker 3: do you know what I would do at that time.
Speaker 2: Nothing. I would just sit.
Speaker 3: Around looking at things like reading books, walking around, eating
Speaker 3: mangoes off the tree, smelling pine cones, jumping in water.
Speaker 3: I would do nothing of any value if I had
Speaker 3: every minute of that time left. But the amends that
Speaker 3: I'm making to myself is that for the next half
Speaker 3: of my life, I'm keeping it all. I'm keeping all
Speaker 3: that time for myself and to do nothing with.
Speaker 1: I think that's an amazing philosophy, an amazing philosophy to
Speaker 1: have the center romantic partners in your twenties. Honestly, it's
Speaker 1: a great tip. So I want to just thank you
Speaker 1: one more time for coming on the podcast and for
Speaker 1: sharing all of your wisdom. I honestly feel like I've
Speaker 1: just done an hour of therapy, free therapy, So thank.
Speaker 3: Me too to gain Yeah, it works both ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was so light and I am.
Speaker 3: I hope it's not patronizing for me to say this
Speaker 3: to you, like sister to sister, woman to woman.
Speaker 2: I am so fucking proud of you.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I am wow proud of you.
Speaker 3: For creating what you created out of your own imagination
Speaker 3: and out of your own creativity. And I will I
Speaker 3: will tell you something. What you have and what you are.
Speaker 3: Nobody can take away. Nobody can take away what you
Speaker 3: have and what you are. You did this and I
Speaker 3: am so so proud of you for it.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, thank you so much. That genuinely probably
Speaker 1: made my year. What a what a highlight. I appreciate
Speaker 1: it so much, and you also have Sorry, I just
Speaker 1: need to gain my words back. You have. You're in
Speaker 1: Australia at the moment for some amazing live shows and
Speaker 1: a workshop in Sydney, I believe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll make.
Speaker 1: Sure I leave tickets for that. But what cities are
Speaker 1: you visiting while you're while you're down on.
Speaker 3: I'm going to Sydney Melbourne. Sorry Sydney melms brizsy.
Speaker 1: Oh she's a local. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: And Hobart, which is the one that I demanded to
Speaker 3: go to. I'm so sorry. Perth, don't at me. I
Speaker 3: really really really wanted to come to Perth, but they
Speaker 3: didn't have a venue available that would have been the
Speaker 3: right size for what we needed.
Speaker 2: So wasn't it. Will do it.
Speaker 3: But I have a fascination with Tasmania, and I also
Speaker 3: make it a point whenever I do these tours to
Speaker 3: try to go to places people don't normally go. And
Speaker 3: so if you're in if you're in Tasi, calm because
Speaker 3: it's gonna be great. And Adelaide as well. So Adelaide,
Speaker 3: and if anybody's listening to this in New Zealand, I'm
Speaker 3: going to Auckland as well. Not to say that I'm
Speaker 3: lumping you together with Australia and New Zealand. I fully
Speaker 3: recognize your your absolute beautiful autonomy and separateness, but well,
Speaker 3: well I'm in the neighborhood. I'm also to Auckland, so
Speaker 3: so please come and if you've never I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm on the tourism board for Tasmania right now. But
Speaker 3: if you've never been to Tasmania, like I came there
Speaker 3: ten years ago and I'm obsessed with it, and I'm
Speaker 3: going back to the Museum of Sex and Death because
Speaker 3: it's the most incredible place like I've ever been to.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's the most wild thing I've ever
Speaker 3: seen a human create. Is that entire like the whole
Speaker 3: city is beautiful. So there's still tickets left there, There's
Speaker 3: still tickets left in Adelaide. I think there's a few
Speaker 3: tickets left in Brizzy. But but come and come and
Speaker 3: join us. It's going to be more like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which relates. Yeah, tidbit. I was literally in Hobart
Speaker 1: like three days ago because my best friendly then yeah,
Speaker 1: and I got her ticket to your show, so hopefully
Speaker 1: she loves it. It's honestly magical. I saw a white
Speaker 1: I saw an albino stag. I picked like fresh blackberries
Speaker 1: off of the trees, like just like only a kilometer
Speaker 1: out of the city. It's beautiful. Go to preachers the bar.
Speaker 3: It's the best, Okay, And thank you, sweetheart for sharing
Speaker 3: me with your audience and and everybody out there listen.
Speaker 2: It's uh it's all going to be all right.
Speaker 3: Just just just relax and just relax as you're being
Speaker 3: tormented and tossed about in wild seas.
Speaker 1: I feel like that summarizes it. Just surrender us. So
Speaker 1: surrender was the theme of this episode, and I want
Speaker 1: to thank everyone for listening. If you've made it this far,
Speaker 1: what's our emoji for the day, Let's choose the Earth.
Speaker 1: Can If you've made it to this part of the show,
Speaker 1: drop an Earth emoji in the comments so that we
Speaker 1: can talk and chat about your thoughts, feelings. Maybe you'll
Speaker 1: questions your qualms about this episode. Make sure that you're
Speaker 1: following along on Instagram at that Psychology podcast. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself,
Speaker 1: and we will talk very very soon.