WEBVTT - Single Needs A Rebrand. Uncut with Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat, Pray, Love. 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:12.800 This episode was recorded on cameragle Land. Hi guys, and 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:14.640 welcome back to another episode of Life on Cut. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.160 I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and I'm excited. 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.000 Well, okay, you might remember we did an episode with 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.680 Tory Dunlap a couple of months ago. Now, now, she's 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:25.840 an incredible money expert, has loads loads of follows on Instagram, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.240 and she said, quote unquote on that episode, if you 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.440 ever get the chance to spend all of the money 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.200 that you have to see Elizabeth Gilbert live, you should 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:36.640 do it. And now let me tell you this, you 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.760 don't have to spend a single penny because you're going 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.839 to get it for free. Right here today, Elizabeth Gilbert 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.040 is joining us and she is one of the most 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.200 brilliant authors of our time. She authored Eat, Pray, Love, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.760 which sold over twelve million copies and then, as so 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:52.839 many of you would know, it was turned into a 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:54.720 massive movie starring Julia Roberts. 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:56.040 She's also written. 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.600 Books like Committed, Big Magic, and City of Girls. Elizabeth 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:04.480 shares so many teachings throughout her books around vulnerability, connectedness, 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:06.960 and living a life that is led by love. And 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.640 now how also to become is what she describes a 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.760 relaxed woman, which is pushing back on the expectations of 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:13.920 what society wants from you. 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:15.880 Liz, Welcome to the pod. 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.199 Hi, that's so nice to be here. Thank you. Gosh, 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.559 that's a really nice thing to hear that somebody thinks 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.240 you should spend all your money. Better money expert thinks 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:27.520 that you. 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:32.319 Should spend She is the biggest money expert female lad 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.240 money expert. She has the biggest podcast in the world. 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:37.679 And she was like, every dollar you have spend it 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:38.080 on Liz. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:38.640 So there you go. 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:43.240 Wow, listen, listen, the return on investment is enormous. On that. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.520 It's so lovely to be here with you both. Thank you, 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:47.960 thanks for inviting me. 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.840 Just to double down on that, we just like ten 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.800 minutes ago, finished an interview with a psychotherapist in New 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.720 York who's just written a book on toxic productivity. Her 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.120 name's isra Here, and we were like, hey, we've got 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:00.520 to go. We've got this interview. She's like, who are 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.680 you interview? We said, oh, this is Gilbert. She goes, 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.000 no way, She's like in the book that's just released. 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.200 She's like, I quote Liz in the book. She's like, 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:07.960 please tell her. 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:10.040 So you've got a lot of super fans out there. 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.400 Oh that's so sweet. Thank you. 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:16.680 Well, now that we've puncturitized up enough, it's time to 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.120 take the gas out of them. So we did just 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.680 mention to you that we do accellent and filtered stories, 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.240 and then I could just see you crumble into the 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.359 shell of what I think is coming. Liz, Please share 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.000 your most embarrassing story with us. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.880 Okay, so I will share that. When you asked me this, 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.760 I immediately had one. But I was like, yeah, that 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:37.520 was kind of a cute one. And then I thought 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.320 of the real one, and I was like, oh, no, 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.720 I can't. I can't, but we're going to go. I'm 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.320 going to tell you the real one. So when I 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.440 was in high school, my best friend Jenny, and she 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.120 and I are still friends all these years later, we 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.359 got invited to a party from a girl who was 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.400 way above our status and who was also in college 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.320 and she was home for the summer. And I don't 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:00.880 even know how we got invited to this party. We 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.720 had no business being there. It was cool older kids, 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.440 and it was outside in a lawn and people were 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.360 hanging out and drinking. We were trying to act cool, 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.919 and this is such an awful story. He had brought 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.560 with her her two roommates from college home who didn't 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.200 know any of us, and they had just come from 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:27.359 the funeral of their best friend who had drowned. This 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.960 is a great way to start a comedy podcast. So 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.880 they were grieving. Those two girls were grieving, and everyone 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:35.600 else and they didn't know anyone else at the party, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.119 and everyone else was trying to have a good time, 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.080 and every time a song came on that reminded them 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.840 of their friend who died, they would start crying. Oh anyway, 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.080 at one point, we were all sitting in a circle 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:49.280 of lawn chairs and there was one empty lawn chair 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.080 next to them, and somebody walked in and said, is 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:57.080 anybody sitting there? And I said there was somebody. There 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:58.960 was somebody sitting there, but she died. 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.000 Why did she say, you just forgot? 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.360 I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.200 I said that talk about I don't. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.120 Know why I said that to those two girls whose 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.560 friend said died. And that was a thing I thought 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.040 that I thought would be funny. I thought, I think 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.640 I didn't I don't know. All I know is that 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.239 they both started to cry. 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.520 Was that when your career in comedy ended? 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.919 It's like you say it like I watch, It's the 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:29.960 worst thing I've ever said. I watched it was like 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.560 I wanted to reach through my mouth with my arm 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.240 and grab me by the neck and pull me back 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.000 into myself like I was like, I can't, why would you? 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:42.400 It was just a completely uncensored, unfiltered thought. And then 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.919 we re Jenny grabbed me and my friend grabbed me, 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.320 and we ran into the bathroom and she was like 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.839 what the fuck did you just why what? She was 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.239 like she I remember her falling into the bathtub with laughter, 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.520 like what And I'm like, I don't know. I was screaming. 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:00.880 I'm like, I don't know why I said that. I 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:02.880 don't know why I said that. And then we had 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:04.960 to figure out how to leave, but we had run 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:06.840 into the like the party was in the front of 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.000 the house, so there was no escape other than to 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.479 walk through the whole thing again with the car. It 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.440 was that's the most. It's so beyond embarrassing. It's like 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:20.480 the definition of mortifying. Wrong thing to do. I don't 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:22.600 even I can't answer for it. 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.800 Sometimes something sounds really great, in your head and it 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.960 just doesn't land. But sometimes words escape and you have 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:31.960 no control over it. It was like that was an internal 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.040 thought and somehow my mouth started moving and it came 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:34.680 out of my body. 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.640 Well, i'll tell you just to make it this conversation. 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.839 Fancy and literary Gertrude Stein told a story about how 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.000 in Paris between the Wars, when all those cool people 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.680 were all hanging out, they had a friend, an acquaintance 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:49.599 who was a Frenchman whose father had been in the 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.279 French Foreign Legion and he had been trampled. The man's 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.039 father had been trampled to death by a camel, and 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.360 Gertrude Sein said, you would think that you don't bring 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.920 up camels very much, but every time this guy was 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:08.120 in the room, somebody would start talking about animals, stop 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:12.240 talking about camels, Stop talking about camels. But they it 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.400 just happened every single time, Like there's some sort of 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.160 deadly magnetism that we have towards the most inappropriate thing 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.599 that you could possibly say. So it's not just us, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:25.320 it's also fancy literary people and France between the worst. 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:27.440 Well, I hope you've forgiven yourself now, I hope you've 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.200 gotten too a place where you're okay with the things 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.240 that you've said in the past. But speaking of the 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:33.839 things you've said in the past, the success that you 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.839 had with Eat Prey Love is something that most authors, 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.039 well every author can only dream of, Like people can't 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.480 fathom that level of success, especially on something that's been 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.680 written about your own life and your own experiences. Can 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:49.680 you tell us a little bit about who you were 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.400 before that moment, because I have this picture of just 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.480 like being a struggling author that's just. 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:56.240 Going to every corner of the world to try and 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:56.840 write a hit. 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:58.000 What was life like? 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.800 What was that before that? I mean, right before that, 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:08.240 I was like practically suicidally depressed, you know, total failure, divorced. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.280 The love affair I had left my husband for had 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.560 crashed and burned. I was so full of shame, you know. 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.800 I was really a wreck, heavily medicated and very lost. 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.640 So that's what I was right before that. And then 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:24.920 I went on that journey and it shored me up 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:26.760 and kind of boosted me up, and then he Pray 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.600 Love became me Pray Love. But the weird thing for me, 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.160 like the thing that felt like such a cultural and 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.760 emotional disconnect that I had to figure out how to 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.080 kind of absorb is that prior to that, I had 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.400 been a woman who wrote only about men, and only 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.640 four men. I wrote for all these big men's magazines 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.720 back in the nineties, for Spin magazine and Esquire, GQ, 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.560 back when magazines were king. I'd written three books. Two 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:53.520 of the books I wrote before He Pray Love had 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:55.760 the word men in the title, like one was called 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.520 The Last American Man, and one was called Stern Men 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.320 that was about lobster fishermen. Like I was known as 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.240 a woman who was very sympathetic to the male experience, 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.120 and I never wrote anything about women, and I never 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:12.040 wrote anything about myself. And when I quit my really 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.320 good job at GQU to go travel the world for 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.760 a year and sold everything that I had, what I 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.800 felt like as I was writing that book was this 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.360 is something I have to do for myself, and nobody 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.480 is going to want to read this because it was 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:28.920 so out of character from what I had been doing. 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.480 And I even felt apologetic about it, like I'm sorry 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.800 I have to write this like super emotional, vulnerable girl thing, 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.320 but I have to do that in order to save 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.559 my life, and then suddenly I was catapulted into being 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.160 like the ultimate chick lit writer and suddenly like a 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.960 voice of for women. And I was like, whoa, I'm 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.000 all about women now, okay? Cool. I used to all 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.080 like be all about masculinity, and now it's all And 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:59.080 that was the really wild shift, and then learning how 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:04.600 to how to respectfully hold that space. Because another thing 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.360 that happened is that even though I wasn't a wealthy 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.600 author before that, I was an award winning author before that, 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.080 and I got all the big awards and the big 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.280 award nominations, the National Book Award nomination and the National 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:22.000 Book Critic Circle Award nomination and National magazine awards, all 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:24.560 of this stuff because I was writing about men and 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.160 so I was considered serious and important. And when I 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.920 wrote about myself and sold twelve million copies, I've never 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:38.120 gotten another award since. Wow, I've instantly lost all my 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:43.480 literary legitimacy, you know, and instantly got shunted into like, oh, 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.280 she's a lady writer for ladies, so nothing important can 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.920 it possibly be coming out of that mind? And I 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.520 would do it again. I would do it again. I 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.160 would give up all my literary legitimacy in order to 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.959 have written a book that inspired untold members of women 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:03.560 to get divorced, that inspired them to leave jobs that 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.199 they hated, that inspired them to realize that they didn't 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.200 have to have children, that inspired them to travel alone. 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.480 Like that's the award, right, Like that ends up being 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.800 a thing that is so much more valuable to me. 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.800 Those felt like the sort of really startling differences between 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:19.560 before and after. 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.840 What I think is also so incredible about EP Pray 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.319 Love and the phenomenon that happened obviously after you published 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.079 the book. I've heard you speak about how it went 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.120 to the best seller's list for a little while and 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:32.760 then it kind of dropped off and had like the 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.280 normal trajectory that some of the books that you'd published 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.840 had had in the past. But Eat Pray Love was 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.800 before social media, it was before book talk. It was 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.760 before how some authors now become super viral really really quickly. 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.920 But your book had this groundswell. It was like women 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:49.760 who had read it and then passed it on to 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.760 the people that they loved, and then that's how this 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:56.640 momentum organically grew from word of mouth. How and what 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.800 does it do to you as a person. When something 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:03.439 that you've written that's so authentically you, that's based completely 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:05.160 on your life, that you've put out into the world, 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:09.000 When you know that that many people have resonated with 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.480 your life experience, when you go from being someone who 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.640 nobody knows to everyone knows and they also know your 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.319 deepest heartbreak, your your deepest traumas, how do you reconcile 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:19.520 that it's not. 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:24.560 My deepest heartbreak and traumas, it's our deepest heartbreak and traumas, 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.200 you know, Like that's that's where the reconciliation is. Like, 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:30.880 I don't think that it would have had the impact 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.920 that it had if I wasn't telling a story that 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:35.800 so many women recognize themselves. 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:36.959 Of course. Yeah. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:41.480 And in addition to that acting out, you know, there's 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.320 a line in the Brain Love where I said, like 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.800 I didn't want to hurt any feeling, anybody's feelings. I 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.080 didn't want to cause me trouble. This is me Like, 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:49.800 as I was trying to figure out how to get 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.880 out of my marriage, I just wanted to run out 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.480 of the back door of my house and not stop 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.880 till I got to Greenland, you know, like just run, 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:05.880 like to escape this life that was so inauthentic to me, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.559 and that I had been taught and told was the 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.280 ultimate of what a woman wants, which is to get 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.240 married in her twenties and buy a nice house and 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.320 have children. And I was about to do that third piece, 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.800 and instead I ran for the hills. And the fact 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.559 that twelve million women read that book makes me know 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.240 how much we want to run for the hills, like 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.120 makes me know that that story that we've been sold 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.800 about what makes women happy must not be true because 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.679 every like a lot of people want out of like 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.880 whatever they're in because they wouldn't have identified with it 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.760 so much. And so what felt to me like my 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.720 private shame because I was really young, you know, I 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.760 was twenty nine when my marriage started falling apart, and 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.760 my whole orientation in my mind was there's something wrong 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.800 with me. There's something wrong with me, because I've got 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.440 everything that you were supposed to get, and I either 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.840 want to die or run away. And my friend Martha Beck, 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.800 who's a great teacher and writer, has described how many 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.240 when she was coming up in psychology and sociology, how 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.360 essentially they were being taught how to medicate women. So 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.600 that women wouldn't run for the hills, Like the question 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.160 was how much medication do we have to give you 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.280 so that you will be happy? Because women like me 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.760 were coming into psychiatric settings and saying like, I have 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:40.960 everything that I was told I was supposed to want. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.840 I have a husband, I have a house, I have children, 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.679 and I want to kill myself. And they were like, well, 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.240 let's up your dosage of whatever we have to give you, 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.200 because you're right, you do, you do have everything that 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.560 you should want. And so I had so much shame 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.480 about not wanting what I had. And now now I'm 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.360 sixty five and I'm living like I'm like the patriarchy's 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.200 nightmare the way I'm living, Like I'm like twice divorced. 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:12.640 I'm like a woman who were taught to pity, like 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:19.120 twice divorced, widowed, childless, living alone, you know, like I've 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:23.880 given up on my looks. I shaved my head like 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.920 like I don't care, I'm not even trying anymore, you know, 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.320 And I'm like, now this is the life, you know, Like, 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.520 now this is the life like this, and like I 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:35.400 wish I could have shown my twenty nine year old 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.400 self what was coming like wait till you're in your 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.600 fifties and answering to nobody, and you see how good 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:44.080 it gets. 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.120 So much of what you said I have lived myself like, 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:49.960 I went through a horrific breakup bort Awa, my ticket, 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:52.640 moved to Italy for a year, went around the world 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:53.480 for three years. 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:54.240 I live alone. 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:58.160 Now I'm thirty seven. I'm constantly fighting whether or not 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.720 I have kids and settle down and have life, because 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.280 deep inside, I'm not convinced I still even want it. 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.200 But the internal battle comes from society telling me that 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:07.960 you should want it and you should. 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:09.960 Have it, or you're going to miss out if you don't. 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.440 Or you're missing out on something. And I still can't 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:14.640 reconcile with. 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:16.200 That within myself. 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:17.920 And I know that I'm not alone. 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.640 And everything that you have written has just hit so 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:27.000 many women so deeply. Did you get to cast Julia 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:28.120 Roberts to play you? 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:29.080 Like? 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.760 Do you get to pick who gets Because that's the. 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:33.920 Biggest question, right we all ask our friends at dinner 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.400 parties if you were ever in a movie, who would. 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:37.080 You cast to play yourself? 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.000 Because like, I'd probably choose Julia too. 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.840 No, I don't have that kind of power no, here's 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:49.200 how it works, ladies. Julia Roberts chooses you right, like, like, 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.560 I don't have that kind of power. Like that was 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.120 a phone call that I got one day saying that 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.480 Julia Roberts wants to make this film and wants to 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.080 be when I was like, oh, you have my consent. 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:04.680 That's how that conversation went. 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.840 Watching something that's so precious to you back and being 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.520 involved in the production of it. Was the movie adaptation 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.040 what you wanted for yourself? Was it something that you 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:16.720 felt deeply proud of in the way that you feel 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.120 about your own book or were there variations in it 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.720 that you kind of, I don't know, reflect on and 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:23.640 don't feel as though there as a lie? 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:25.360 And how do you see the two projects? 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.440 The movie is exactly aligned to the book. They were 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.720 so incredibly loyal to the book, and that's very rare, 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.120 I think. And I wasn't involved in the production at all. 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.360 I've had other instances where things that I've written have 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:43.120 sold the film rights, and I learned I'm lucky enough 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.240 that I learned very early on to just stay out 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.720 of it because you don't really have any power or control. 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.200 I mean, they don't even really have. The director doesn't 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.120 even have all that much power control. It's such a 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.120 different art form. Like I get to sit in this 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.600 exact room that I'm talking to you guys, with my 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:01.240 bookshelves and my plants and my and the door shut, 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.040 and this is where I spend my life doing what 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.520 I want, you know, like doing what I want and 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.600 making what I want and creating what I want, all 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.920 within my own imagination. And then when you sell that 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.920 thing to have a film made out of it, you're 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:22.760 suddenly selling a singular, very intimate art form into a mass, 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.040 collaborative hourt form. Like when you look at think the 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.200 credits rolling up at the end of that film, how 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:31.560 many people are involved in making that vision. It's entirely 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.320 different from the way that I work. And I happen 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.480 to know that they don't really want me there, you know, 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.800 like they already have enough, the producers and the director 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.399 and the actors already have enough people with opinions. Like 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.960 the last person whose opinion should be there is mine. 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.600 So I stay out of it, and I'm like, i'll 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.240 see you, I'll see it at the premiere, I'll see 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.679 you on the red carpet. I actually just sold that. Recently, 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:56.600 I'd sold the movie rights to City of Girls, and 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.520 I think the producer was a little shocked because we 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:00.280 went to lunch and they were trying to say, will 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.119 include you, and I'm like, well, you don't need to 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:06.399 like it's yours now. You know it's yours now. And 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.080 when you sell something, I feel like you must let 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.600 it go, you know. Just it's like selling a house 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.280 and then driving by the house every day for five 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.480 years and being like, they took down the perg a lot. 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.400 You know, it's not yours anymore. You sold it. And 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:21.600 so that was the decision I made with You Pray Love, 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:23.720 was to just like it's yours. You guys, do whatever 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:25.800 you want. But what they did was so true to 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.080 the book that it ended up working out really nicely. 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.199 Your writing is so deeply personal to you, but it's 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.159 writing something that you've always had an affinity for. Has 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.280 it always been something that's been purposeful for you? 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:40.600 Yes? Always. I mean there's never I've been really lucky. 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.400 There's never been anything else that I wanted to do. 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.920 And it's been like thirty five years now that it's 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.159 the only thing I've had to do to make a living. 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.720 And that's extraordinary and far beyond what I ever could 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.320 have dreamed. But I was writing the entire time. I 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.040 always tell people it's not that I When people say, like, 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.320 when did you start write, I always say, it's not 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.160 about the fact that I started. It's about the fact 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.919 that I never stopped because I grew up with a 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.760 lot of a lot of your kids are intuitively creative, 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.560 and all the people that I grew up with when 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:14.680 I was kids, we were all doing, we were all writing, 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:16.639 we were all singing, we were all dancing, we were 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.320 all creating. And then as people get older, you know, 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.000 they drop one art form after another, and I never dropped. 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:26.640 I wouldn't drop it. So it's been with me. 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.800 Always, LIZI, you've spoken a lot and written a lot 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.920 about pouring yourself wholeheartedly completely into relationships and giving everything 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.720 to that relationship, and then, as we know, they hadn't 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:40.720 worked out for you a few times. 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:42.720 What do you think you've learned. 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.840 From heartbreak and from those experiences, from being in such 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.000 a relationship like that and putting the pieces back together. 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.520 Well, I just want to say I really did the research, y'all, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.640 Like I, like I have committed I went out there. 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:02.040 I really did the research out there, all bent to 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:06.159 find like the platonic ideal of a romantic love, to 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:11.000 find a soulmate, to find perfect love multiple times, you know, 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.959 and I've tried like every possible kind of combination of 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.480 ways that you can do it, you know, Like I've 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:19.600 been with men, and I've been with women, and I've 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.600 been in open relationships, and I've been in closed relationships, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.080 and I've cheated on people and I've been cheated on. 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.520 And I've tried to be with somebody who loved me 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:29.919 more than I loved them, and been with people who 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:31.360 I loved more than they loved. 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.040 Me, you know, like like tried to be with people 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.359 I didn't really love but liked, and then tried to 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:38.920 be with people that I was obsessed with. And I 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.199 really do feel that I put the years in, you know, 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.280 like I really put the years away, and. 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:47.720 Some of those I really did. Man, I did the work, 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:49.919 so you don't have to. But I guess, you know, 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:51.240 we all have to do the work that we have 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.760 to do. This wonderful thing happened after my second divorce. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.680 My mom wrote to my grandmother, who at the time 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.520 was almost one hundred and said Liz is getting divorced, 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.720 and must have said Liz is getting divorced and my grandmother. 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:07.040 I was going through my grandmother's things when she died, 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.040 and I found this note that my grandmother wrote back 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.600 to my mother that I cherish, and she said maybe 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.480 Liz just doesn't like being married. And I was like, 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:20.639 you know, Grandmama, I think you're right. I think that 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:26.280 maybe all that trying to make it work with like 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.119 one person after another person, after another person after another person, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:36.399 and just always finding disappointment somehow, always finding heartbreak or 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:43.399 disappointment or boredom or ambivalence or shadowedness or devastation, like 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.359 it might be that after thirty five uninterrupted years of 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:51.280 doing that, the universe was like, are you getting the pattern? 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:56.480 Are you starting to notice that maybe you just don't 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:01.560 like this? And have you noticed that you really like 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.880 being by yourself and all of that sort of shatteredness 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:12.480 and boredom and ambivalence and trying and striving. When I'm 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.000 on my own, I don't have any of that, Like 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:15.920 I don't. 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:20.280 Have ambivalence about being on my own, and I always 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:23.520 have ambivalence about being in a relationship, always like, no 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:25.960 matter how passionate I am about the person, there's always 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:26.840 a part of me that's like. 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:30.720 But is this the right person, the right time, the 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.840 right thing, the right way. And because I'm passionate, and 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.119 because I'm intense, and because I haven't had great boundaries, 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.640 my answer to ambivalence is to just double down. It's like, well, 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:42.960 just pour more of yourself into the like make it 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.919 work by just pouring even more yourself into this person 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:50.280 until there's really nothing left of me. So I'm starting 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:52.920 to get the message that where I seem to really 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.560 bloom is the way I've been living for the last 0:22:56.560 --> 0:23:02.560 almost six years, which is single and solitary and emotionally 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:05.280 autonomous is the word that I keep using, because all 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.560 of that energy and emotion that I've poured into the 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:12.359 other I suddenly have freed up. It's like it's like 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:17.320 a reserver reservoir of like just this massive amount of energy, 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.560 like this massive amount of energy that I'm pouring now 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:24.040 into my spiritual work, into my creative work. Evert in 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:26.280 three books in the last six years, like I used 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:27.760 to used to take me four or five years to 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:30.359 write one book. But it's because I was shunting and 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:36.600 draining so much of myself into creating, sustaining, leaving, managing 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:40.520 these intimate sexual and emotional relationships. I feel like I'm 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:43.280 having this tremendous renaissance. I have a friend who wrote 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:46.080 a book about menopause and said that in some African 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:52.120 culture's menopause is called second childhood because you're not menstruating anymore, 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:58.159 you're not sexualized, You're free, you know. That's the feeling 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:00.359 that I feel right now is just I'm going to 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:02.560 Costa Rica for three months in two days and I 0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:06.400 don't have to ask anyone I can do that. It's 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:08.400 like I don't have to I don't have to run 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:11.680 it by anybody. I'm just like, oh, well, you know, 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:14.439 people invite me to thing and I'm like yeah or no, 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:18.080 Like there's none of this negotiating, Like it's this so 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:22.280 emotional autonomy is what I think the second half of 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:23.919 my life is going to be all about. And I 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:29.480 think there's a blossoping happening that feels more ecstatically alive 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:32.240 than anything I've experienced yet. 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:34.600 The way you just sell the fact that, like you're 0:24:34.640 --> 0:24:37.000 so comfortable in your own skin and in your own 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:39.040 company it's such a beautiful thing that I don't think 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:42.119 a lot of people ever get to truly experience. 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:46.000 Well, traditionally, women have never gotten to experience it. Women's 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:50.920 jobs throughout history, in all traditional societies, which is all societies, 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:55.240 have been jobs of service. And it's chilling. And I 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:57.000 knew this when I wrote the book Committed, and I 0:24:57.040 --> 0:24:59.200 got married again anyway, and I don't regret it because 0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:01.959 I love the twelve years that I spent with my 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:06.040 Brazilian husband. I loved those years, and then it was 0:25:06.080 --> 0:25:08.520 time to move on. But I did this research when 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:11.000 I wrote the book Committed, because I had such ambivalents 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:15.440 about marriage. And it's devastating to see the statistics what 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:19.119 marriage does to women. You know, there's not a single 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:23.960 sociological data point at which married women do not fall 0:25:24.080 --> 0:25:27.479 so far below unmarried women. Married women don't live as 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:32.280 long as single women. They're more likely to report being 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:36.440 depressed and anxious. They're more heavily medicated on average, they 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:40.560 weigh ten pounds more, they have more autoimmune diseases, they 0:25:40.600 --> 0:25:43.959 have more addiction. They're more likely to dive suicide or homicide. 0:25:44.119 --> 0:25:46.439 Most likely person to kill them being their partner, like 0:25:46.480 --> 0:25:51.080 it's so freaking grim. And it's because we pour our life, 0:25:51.160 --> 0:25:54.960 our actual life force into the people that we love. 0:25:55.359 --> 0:25:58.080 It may be from just having all this estrogen that 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:02.359 tells you to nurture, but it's like the job of 0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:07.719 women like biologically and traditionally has been empty into you, know, like, 0:26:08.119 --> 0:26:10.600 out of your body will come life. From your breasts 0:26:10.600 --> 0:26:13.280 will come milk. From your hands will come food for 0:26:13.400 --> 0:26:16.480 the entire family. From your heart will come the love 0:26:16.520 --> 0:26:20.600 that nourishes everyone. And deplete yourself and just be depleted 0:26:20.760 --> 0:26:24.240 into love. Right. And on the other hand, married men 0:26:24.800 --> 0:26:29.480 fucking thrive. It is the best idea that a man 0:26:29.520 --> 0:26:32.080 can have to marry a woman. They will live on 0:26:32.160 --> 0:26:35.120 average seven to ten years longer than single men. All 0:26:35.160 --> 0:26:38.240 the opposite things will happen. They are healthier, they are 0:26:38.320 --> 0:26:41.240 less likely to suffer from addiction, they take care of 0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:43.920 their health better. They're more likely to hold property. Married 0:26:43.920 --> 0:26:46.280 women much less likely to hold money and property than 0:26:46.320 --> 0:26:50.639 single women. Like it's incredible the benefit it's called the 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:54.200 marriage benefit and balance about how much more strongly a 0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:58.120 marriage benefits men than women. And yet culture because it's 0:26:58.160 --> 0:27:02.399 opposite day into women like as though they are like 0:27:02.560 --> 0:27:07.439 fois gras Geese force these women this story that without 0:27:07.480 --> 0:27:11.960 this union you are incomplete, when in fact be wary. 0:27:12.400 --> 0:27:15.880 I think it's taken me fifty five years and two 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:20.480 marriages and many many more relationships and watching myself again 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:24.280 and again and again deplete, deplete, deplete into the other 0:27:25.240 --> 0:27:28.399 and see them shine and rise because I'm uplifting them 0:27:28.440 --> 0:27:30.680 and I'm supporting them, and I'm encouraging them, and I'm 0:27:30.680 --> 0:27:33.239 loving them. The really big important question to ask in 0:27:33.280 --> 0:27:36.440 any relationship is who in this relationship is doing the 0:27:36.480 --> 0:27:39.720 traditional work of the woman, And that includes emotional work 0:27:40.000 --> 0:27:47.680 like who is the one nourishing, encouraging, uplifting, sacrificing, tending, nurturing, 0:27:48.160 --> 0:27:50.560 and what is the cost to the one who is 0:27:50.600 --> 0:27:52.920 doing that. My friend Mark Beck was telling me about 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:55.840 this sociological debta that says the happiest people in culture 0:27:55.840 --> 0:27:59.600 of married men right at at the top, right underneath 0:27:59.600 --> 0:28:04.440 that unmarried women, right underneath that single men, right underneath 0:28:04.520 --> 0:28:09.360 that married women lowest, lowest, right. So like to know 0:28:09.440 --> 0:28:12.760 that that's true and then to see every fucking romantic 0:28:12.840 --> 0:28:17.080 come in the world, be like, the messaging is completely 0:28:17.320 --> 0:28:20.679 opposite to the reality. And I think that's why so 0:28:20.720 --> 0:28:24.760 many women in relationships feel crazy because they're like, wait, 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:27.560 I was told that reality was this, But what I'm 0:28:27.600 --> 0:28:31.119 experiencing in my body and in my life and in 0:28:31.200 --> 0:28:33.800 my bank account and in my energy and in my 0:28:34.400 --> 0:28:36.879 moods and in my mind is the opposite of what 0:28:36.960 --> 0:28:41.240 I was told, So I must be crazy, like I 0:28:41.600 --> 0:28:44.200 just I mean, I remember going to couple's therapy with 0:28:44.240 --> 0:28:46.400 my first husband and him saying to the therapist, were 0:28:46.440 --> 0:28:48.160 here because my wife is going crazy? 0:28:48.640 --> 0:28:52.000 Oh wow, Can I just ask that daughta that you 0:28:52.000 --> 0:28:55.920 were just saying, is that linked solely to marriage or 0:28:56.280 --> 0:28:57.360 marriage with kids? 0:28:58.080 --> 0:29:00.440 Only's marriage way worse. 0:29:00.720 --> 0:29:02.480 I'm going to say, the kids haven't even entered the 0:29:02.560 --> 0:29:03.200 chat yet. 0:29:03.840 --> 0:29:04.400 How great. 0:29:04.440 --> 0:29:08.680 It's even worse now that I get to be the crone. 0:29:08.920 --> 0:29:10.959 I feel like I get to walk around and share 0:29:11.200 --> 0:29:14.480 illegal knowledge with young women and be like just so 0:29:14.680 --> 0:29:18.080 you know, like look at the data, you know, and. 0:29:18.000 --> 0:29:24.120 It's it's so interesting to me because I had a 0:29:24.240 --> 0:29:27.560 very similar conversation not with the data points by any means, 0:29:27.600 --> 0:29:29.960 with my mother in law recently. My mother in law, 0:29:30.040 --> 0:29:32.160 she lives with us, She's completely single and has been 0:29:32.160 --> 0:29:34.840 for the better part of fifteen years, and everyone always 0:29:34.880 --> 0:29:37.040 says like, but maybe you'll meet someone, or maybe you'll 0:29:37.200 --> 0:29:39.600 you'll be with someone again, Like, aren't you lonely? Don't 0:29:39.640 --> 0:29:41.840 you want the companionship? All of these tropes that we 0:29:41.960 --> 0:29:44.080 kind of expect you get from a relationship, or the 0:29:44.120 --> 0:29:47.520 expectation that you can't be possibly happy being completely single 0:29:47.520 --> 0:29:49.880 and on your own, because it must equate to loneliness. 0:29:50.240 --> 0:29:52.840 And she said, I have never been more unhappy than 0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:55.480 when I was in relationships. And I don't trust myself 0:29:55.520 --> 0:29:59.479 to make good relationship choices and not commit everything to that. 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:01.960 She's like, and I just love being a grandma, and 0:30:02.000 --> 0:30:05.040 I love having my friends, and I love having my time. 0:30:05.160 --> 0:30:08.720 She's like, and people cannot comprehend that that is a possibility. 0:30:08.920 --> 0:30:11.440 She's like, people cannot comprehend that I am not lonely. 0:30:11.720 --> 0:30:13.800 They won't let you have it. It's interesting when she 0:30:13.840 --> 0:30:16.600 said I've never been lonelier. I could tell you the 0:30:16.640 --> 0:30:20.680 loneliest I've ever felt, and it was sleeping three inches 0:30:20.720 --> 0:30:24.040 away from somebody. And it's happened multiple times in my life. 0:30:24.360 --> 0:30:26.160 It hasn't happened all the time. It's not like every 0:30:26.200 --> 0:30:30.680 relationship left me lonely, but like there was there have 0:30:30.760 --> 0:30:32.880 been a couple of relationships that I was in. Two 0:30:33.000 --> 0:30:35.960 can be lonelier than one. You know where I was 0:30:36.160 --> 0:30:39.760 so lonely. I was so lonely inside that relationship that 0:30:39.800 --> 0:30:44.239 I remember in one case, my body. What happened in 0:30:44.280 --> 0:30:49.480 all these cases is that my body, because bodies can't lie, Like, 0:30:49.920 --> 0:30:53.520 you can't sell a story to your body. You can't. 0:30:54.000 --> 0:30:57.760 It knows truth that your mind is trying to gaslate 0:30:57.800 --> 0:31:02.040 itself around. Right. My mind was like, I should be happy, 0:31:02.080 --> 0:31:03.880 I should be grateful, I should be this, I should 0:31:03.920 --> 0:31:06.040 be that. And my body was like, I can't live 0:31:06.080 --> 0:31:08.640 in this house. I can't live with this person anymore. 0:31:09.160 --> 0:31:11.480 And then the relationship I was in where I experienced 0:31:11.520 --> 0:31:14.760 such loneliness, I remember waking up in his bed and 0:31:14.800 --> 0:31:18.120 I remember hearing. If my body could speak, what it 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:21.360 said was, if you don't get me out of this, 0:31:21.360 --> 0:31:24.040 this is not a place for us. We should not 0:31:24.120 --> 0:31:27.360 be here. This is not safe, this is not I loved, 0:31:27.480 --> 0:31:30.720 this is not warm, like we're not being seen, we're 0:31:30.760 --> 0:31:33.240 not being met. And if you don't get me out 0:31:33.240 --> 0:31:35.840 of here, I'm going you either leave or I'm jumping 0:31:35.840 --> 0:31:38.239 out that window, like I will jump us out that 0:31:38.280 --> 0:31:40.640 window to get you out of here because this is 0:31:40.680 --> 0:31:45.480 not okay. But the emotional autonomy that I feel now 0:31:45.680 --> 0:31:49.080 is less about I don't even want to frame it 0:31:49.120 --> 0:31:51.800 where it's like I'm happy because I'm not with someone, 0:31:52.120 --> 0:31:54.240 because that still includes them in the story. 0:31:54.680 --> 0:31:55.520 Yeah, you know what I mean. 0:31:55.680 --> 0:31:58.760 Like to even talk about not having a partner makes 0:31:58.800 --> 0:32:02.120 the story about me not having a partner. And what 0:32:02.400 --> 0:32:07.240 is actually happening in the ecosystem of my spiritual life 0:32:07.320 --> 0:32:10.960 and my physical life and my emotional life is a 0:32:11.000 --> 0:32:16.040 garden is blooming. You know, That's what's actually happening. It's 0:32:16.120 --> 0:32:19.800 not about who isn't here, It's about what is here. 0:32:20.120 --> 0:32:23.240 You have this beautiful friendship for fifteen years with a 0:32:23.280 --> 0:32:26.000 woman named Raya, and you ended up falling in love 0:32:26.320 --> 0:32:29.880 before she very sadly passed away. How did you guys 0:32:30.400 --> 0:32:33.080 find each other? And how did you know that this 0:32:33.280 --> 0:32:36.000 was your person? Why was it different to any other 0:32:36.080 --> 0:32:37.320 relationship you'd had before? 0:32:37.800 --> 0:32:43.720 Raya was so extraordinary. She it took so long for 0:32:43.840 --> 0:32:46.440 us to become what we became, which is the very 0:32:46.480 --> 0:32:48.840 opposite of all my other relationships, which tend to be 0:32:49.000 --> 0:32:52.040 like very fiery and fast and you know, and immediate. 0:32:52.120 --> 0:32:55.800 But we were friends. We were acquaintances, and then we 0:32:55.800 --> 0:32:59.560 were friends, and then she moved to my small town 0:33:00.040 --> 0:33:03.920 and we became neighbors, and then we became best friends. 0:33:04.480 --> 0:33:06.920 And all this was happening while I was married in 0:33:06.960 --> 0:33:12.360 my really contented second marriage, and then gradually we became 0:33:12.560 --> 0:33:14.720 something that we didn't even have a word for anymore, 0:33:14.840 --> 0:33:17.720 because we would say, like, Liz is She would say, 0:33:17.760 --> 0:33:20.520 Liz is my person. You know, Ray is my person. 0:33:21.200 --> 0:33:26.120 And what we weren't saying was this is the love 0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:29.440 of my life, because it would have been extremely inconvenient 0:33:29.560 --> 0:33:33.080 to say that, because it would have meant like, now 0:33:33.920 --> 0:33:36.920 lives have to be flipped again, you know, like and 0:33:37.080 --> 0:33:42.960 chaos has to enter, and you know, contrasts and relationships 0:33:43.000 --> 0:33:44.880 have to end, and you know, every There was just 0:33:44.960 --> 0:33:48.080 no way. And we both loved each other too much 0:33:48.160 --> 0:33:51.040 to do that, I think, to ever put the real 0:33:51.120 --> 0:33:53.640 name on it, and we loved we both loved my 0:33:53.760 --> 0:33:56.280 husband too much to do that, like all of us 0:33:56.360 --> 0:33:58.840 would just we didn't want anything to change. But I 0:33:58.880 --> 0:34:02.520 feel like I always say that after like thirty five, 0:34:03.160 --> 0:34:05.920 I think every woman can write a memoir with the 0:34:05.960 --> 0:34:08.840 same title, and that same title is not exactly what 0:34:08.880 --> 0:34:15.440 I had in mind, or an alternative title is everything changed, 0:34:16.320 --> 0:34:19.600 you know? And then everything changed, and that's the nature 0:34:19.880 --> 0:34:22.840 of reality. Is not exactly what I had in mind, 0:34:22.960 --> 0:34:26.359 and then everything changed. What I loved about her, and 0:34:26.400 --> 0:34:29.120 I loved talking about this because she was, when she 0:34:29.239 --> 0:34:33.160 was at her best, the most fearlessly honest person I've 0:34:33.160 --> 0:34:37.160 ever met, And it was so exciting for me to 0:34:37.239 --> 0:34:41.920 be around her honesty. He would stale her ships straight 0:34:41.960 --> 0:34:44.719 into the teeth of the gale if there was if 0:34:44.719 --> 0:34:48.279 there was any conflict, if she sensed that there was 0:34:48.280 --> 0:34:51.280 something that was being withheld, if she sensed that somebody 0:34:51.560 --> 0:34:54.440 was having a problem with her, like she'd go right 0:34:54.480 --> 0:34:57.120 into it, like she would shoot herself right into the 0:34:57.120 --> 0:34:59.640 person like an arrow. And she used to say, like, 0:35:00.480 --> 0:35:02.439 the sooner we put this on the table and look 0:35:02.480 --> 0:35:04.440 at it, the sooner we can fix it. So like, 0:35:04.760 --> 0:35:07.359 just what is it? What is actually going on? Like 0:35:07.760 --> 0:35:10.000 Raya at her memorial service, a friend of ours said, 0:35:10.440 --> 0:35:13.040 she didn't want your fake self. She wouldn't let you 0:35:13.200 --> 0:35:16.640 have your fake self. She could smell it from like 0:35:16.719 --> 0:35:19.319 three blocks away and she could read it, and she 0:35:19.520 --> 0:35:23.040 was like, dishonesty is happening right now? What is it? 0:35:23.160 --> 0:35:25.239 And she was one of the only people I've ever 0:35:25.280 --> 0:35:27.880 met in my life who actually meant it when she 0:35:28.000 --> 0:35:33.080 said I would rather hear the truth. That's a dangerous 0:35:33.120 --> 0:35:36.600 thing to say, because you might hear the truth and 0:35:36.640 --> 0:35:38.879 you might not like it. But she meant it, and 0:35:38.960 --> 0:35:42.680 she could handle it so beautifully. There was a fortitude 0:35:42.880 --> 0:35:45.440 in her, in the honesty and truth that I've learned 0:35:45.440 --> 0:35:47.759 so much from and that I aspire to be, even 0:35:47.800 --> 0:35:50.759 though I'm much more frightened of the truth than she is. 0:35:51.400 --> 0:35:54.319 Was powerful and incredible. And then she was diagnosed with 0:35:54.400 --> 0:35:56.640 terminal pancreatic and liver cancer, and they gave her six 0:35:56.680 --> 0:36:00.400 months to live, and it was no longer possible for 0:36:00.719 --> 0:36:03.400 any of us, I mean, not her, not me or 0:36:03.480 --> 0:36:06.279 my ex husband to anymore pretend that she and I 0:36:06.280 --> 0:36:08.960 didn't love each other and so we needed to go 0:36:09.040 --> 0:36:09.520 be together. 0:36:10.080 --> 0:36:13.359 What impact did it have on you? And I love 0:36:13.400 --> 0:36:16.320 the way that you speak about her having this truth 0:36:16.400 --> 0:36:18.640 teller in your life. When you, I mean, I've heard 0:36:18.719 --> 0:36:22.120 you describe yourself as a people pleaser and someone who 0:36:22.640 --> 0:36:24.920 kind of wanted that affirmation from other people that you're 0:36:24.920 --> 0:36:26.600 doing a good job. You know that you're almost being 0:36:26.640 --> 0:36:29.120 a good girl. What impact does it have on you 0:36:29.160 --> 0:36:32.400 having someone in your life who is so unapologetically a 0:36:32.400 --> 0:36:34.920 truth teller when you are on the opposite of that 0:36:34.920 --> 0:36:36.280 spectrum and you're a people pleaser. 0:36:36.480 --> 0:36:38.640 I mean, that's why she was sent to me, and 0:36:38.719 --> 0:36:41.760 I was sent to her because she was so frightened 0:36:41.800 --> 0:36:45.399 of creativity and I'm not and I'm scared of people 0:36:45.440 --> 0:36:48.200 and she isn't. I say all this in the present 0:36:48.239 --> 0:36:52.319 tense because people, I don't know. We're still in relationship. 0:36:52.520 --> 0:36:55.400 You know, she didn't happen to be here in a body, 0:36:55.440 --> 0:36:58.799 but we're still in relationship. And that was you know, 0:36:58.880 --> 0:37:01.440 that was what we brought to each other, was that 0:37:01.520 --> 0:37:05.000 I was able to fortify her and show her how 0:37:05.000 --> 0:37:10.000 to be really fearless and courageous with expression and with vulnerability, 0:37:10.040 --> 0:37:12.200 and with creativity and with daring to do something even 0:37:12.200 --> 0:37:14.400 if you might fail, Like that stuff is so easy 0:37:14.440 --> 0:37:17.600 for me, Like it's easy for me to do and 0:37:17.800 --> 0:37:21.279 being honest and directive people was easy for her. What 0:37:21.360 --> 0:37:23.480 was hard for her was easy for me, and vice versa. 0:37:24.160 --> 0:37:27.720 But before she died, she said, I refuse to leave. 0:37:28.239 --> 0:37:30.640 I'm not going to leave until we're both ready, and 0:37:30.680 --> 0:37:33.640 I'm not going to leave until I see you standing 0:37:33.680 --> 0:37:36.440 on your own two feet in every circumstance in your life. 0:37:36.480 --> 0:37:39.720 That's what I want for you. And I wasn't ready 0:37:39.760 --> 0:37:42.040 for her to go because I wasn't sure that I 0:37:42.040 --> 0:37:46.200 could do that. But the impact has been and I'll 0:37:46.239 --> 0:37:49.080 add a caveat too, as I came to no Raya, 0:37:49.719 --> 0:37:52.480 and I saw her toward the end of her life, 0:37:52.840 --> 0:37:55.640 and I saw more of her frailty and her humanity, 0:37:56.239 --> 0:37:59.400 and I saw the places where she was dishonest, you know, 0:37:59.560 --> 0:38:03.000 with her off in others, and you know, the pedestalization 0:38:03.120 --> 0:38:05.880 that I am so often guilty of of, you know, 0:38:05.960 --> 0:38:09.719 just really thinking that somebody's this perfected being who's got 0:38:09.760 --> 0:38:12.640 all the answers, which never is true. One of the 0:38:12.760 --> 0:38:15.240 legacies I've been left with, and what I've been hearing 0:38:15.280 --> 0:38:19.840 in meditation sometimes is you have the opportunity now to 0:38:19.960 --> 0:38:24.440 become what you always thought she was, because she wasn't 0:38:24.480 --> 0:38:28.840 necessarily always what I thought she was, But that same 0:38:29.040 --> 0:38:33.960 value of radical courageous honesty, I can now embody that 0:38:34.239 --> 0:38:38.319 and make that like a singularly important characteristic of my 0:38:38.400 --> 0:38:41.200 own existence. I have the opportunity to do that. Now. 0:38:41.760 --> 0:38:45.040 You mentioned that it took her terminal diagnosis for you 0:38:45.160 --> 0:38:49.040 both to recognize the love that you have for each other, 0:38:49.200 --> 0:38:51.800 like truly, honestly openly recognize the love and want to 0:38:51.840 --> 0:38:54.000 be together. What do you think the messaging and the 0:38:54.040 --> 0:38:56.440 takeaway there is, because I feel like there's a really 0:38:56.520 --> 0:38:57.560 powerful message in that. 0:38:58.120 --> 0:39:03.000 Oh. I just honestly the word that just drifted into 0:39:03.040 --> 0:39:06.239 my mind was innocence, you know, because I think it 0:39:06.280 --> 0:39:10.040 would be tempting to say, like, don't wait, you know, 0:39:10.239 --> 0:39:13.680 till somebody is dying, to tell them your true feelings, 0:39:14.040 --> 0:39:16.520 you know, don't squander Like so much of my life 0:39:16.600 --> 0:39:20.080 I've made really big, bold, radical decisions because of this 0:39:20.200 --> 0:39:23.120 anxiety about not wanting to waste or squander my life 0:39:23.239 --> 0:39:26.600 or miss the opportunity. And it would certainly be tempting 0:39:26.640 --> 0:39:30.279 to have that be the takeaway here. But the takeaway 0:39:31.000 --> 0:39:35.200 for me having gone through that extremely painful experience was 0:39:35.520 --> 0:39:39.680 how terribly innocent we all are. It was such a 0:39:39.719 --> 0:39:42.839 good guess for all of us, and I say all 0:39:42.880 --> 0:39:46.200 of us, all three of us, to try to preserve 0:39:46.920 --> 0:39:49.719 what we cherished for all those years, you know, I 0:39:49.719 --> 0:39:51.640 mean I was in love with Rea for so many years, 0:39:51.640 --> 0:39:53.839 and I loved my husband, and it was such an 0:39:54.000 --> 0:39:56.759 honorable thing that we were trying to do, you know, 0:39:56.960 --> 0:40:02.680 like let's not create chaos, and like let's not dishonor 0:40:02.880 --> 0:40:04.960 the vows we make to people that we love. Like 0:40:05.800 --> 0:40:09.960 there are times where I would vaguely allow myself to 0:40:10.040 --> 0:40:12.520 have the thought like I'm in love with Raya when 0:40:12.520 --> 0:40:14.439 I was married, and then I would just I would 0:40:14.480 --> 0:40:17.440 put it away. But I don't want to criticize myself 0:40:17.440 --> 0:40:20.839 for that because the thought I had was, well, then 0:40:20.920 --> 0:40:24.319 love her, you know, well, then then love her. That's it. 0:40:24.440 --> 0:40:26.640 Just just love her. You don't have to do anything 0:40:26.680 --> 0:40:30.360 about it. But then life presents all of us with 0:40:30.440 --> 0:40:33.080 these none of us get to move through this curriculum 0:40:33.120 --> 0:40:36.400 of life without these like terrible dilemmas. 0:40:36.760 --> 0:40:40.160 I also think it hugely oversimplifies because I think it 0:40:40.200 --> 0:40:42.560 is so easy to say, well, if that's the way 0:40:42.600 --> 0:40:45.839 you feel, like, run after those feelings. But an entire 0:40:45.880 --> 0:40:48.840 life can't be lived off impulses. Not everything that you 0:40:48.920 --> 0:40:51.200 do in life can be off the back of a 0:40:51.239 --> 0:40:53.560 surge of feelings because you want to do the opposite. 0:40:53.719 --> 0:40:55.680 You know there are and I'm not saying that you 0:40:55.680 --> 0:40:57.680 should deny those feelings if they're screaming at you for 0:40:57.760 --> 0:40:59.840 a long time. But I think if we will always 0:40:59.880 --> 0:41:02.319 just driven by the feelings that we have, we would 0:41:02.320 --> 0:41:05.279 probably be also very conflicted around what it is that 0:41:05.320 --> 0:41:08.160 we want and how we feel in life. Something that 0:41:08.200 --> 0:41:10.880 you touched on, and I know it's been something that 0:41:10.920 --> 0:41:14.920 you have spoken about, is that Raya, prior to your meeting, 0:41:15.160 --> 0:41:18.160 she was an addict, and then when she was going 0:41:18.160 --> 0:41:21.080 through her treatment for cancer, part of that was opioid 0:41:21.280 --> 0:41:24.840 prescriptions for the pain medication, which was obviously something that 0:41:24.880 --> 0:41:27.240 can be very triggering for someone who has addiction issues. 0:41:28.120 --> 0:41:30.960 What was it like discovering a different side of a 0:41:31.000 --> 0:41:33.680 person when they aren't the person that you fell in 0:41:33.680 --> 0:41:34.120 love with. 0:41:34.880 --> 0:41:40.040 Yeah, you know, it was pretty shocking. It was pretty 0:41:40.080 --> 0:41:44.160 shocking because Raya was the person who I trusted more 0:41:44.200 --> 0:41:47.040 than anyone I've ever trusted in my entire life. The 0:41:47.160 --> 0:41:50.239 feeling that I would have somatically for years whenever Raya 0:41:50.320 --> 0:41:53.440 walked into the room, was I'm safe, Raya is here, 0:41:54.280 --> 0:41:57.600 you know, Like that's how my body registered her. That 0:41:57.719 --> 0:42:00.680 was the non lie that my body told is now 0:42:00.719 --> 0:42:04.480 we're safe, Like this is our safe person. And to 0:42:04.680 --> 0:42:09.440 watch as the person who I experienced as being the 0:42:09.520 --> 0:42:13.120 safest person in the world devolve into a raging and 0:42:13.160 --> 0:42:19.120 I use that word in all definitions, a raging junkie 0:42:20.440 --> 0:42:23.319 very quickly and to descend. You know, I had never 0:42:23.400 --> 0:42:26.200 known Raya when she was a speedball heroin and cocaine addict. 0:42:26.600 --> 0:42:28.839 I'd heard stories, and the stories were amazing, but they 0:42:28.840 --> 0:42:31.520 were kind of like the heroic stories of I survived 0:42:31.600 --> 0:42:37.160 this thing. It wasn't the true ugliness of what that 0:42:37.400 --> 0:42:40.680 actually looks like and what it does to a person's 0:42:40.760 --> 0:42:43.960 spirit and what it does to a person's personality. I 0:42:44.040 --> 0:42:47.759 remember her her nephew during the time that she was 0:42:47.840 --> 0:42:49.759 using at the end of her life, saying, I wish 0:42:49.840 --> 0:42:56.040 she was a nicer drug addict, because some are nice, 0:42:56.160 --> 0:42:58.239 some are just sort of nice and tragic, because she 0:42:58.320 --> 0:43:00.640 was not a nice drug adct. She was a mean 0:43:00.719 --> 0:43:03.640 drug addict, and she was a narcissistic drug addict, and 0:43:03.680 --> 0:43:07.080 she was a cruel and demanding drug addict. And adding 0:43:07.120 --> 0:43:11.920 to that the immediacy and the death that she was facing, 0:43:12.080 --> 0:43:15.360 which eroded her in so many ways, but it also 0:43:15.440 --> 0:43:18.320 empowered her with a case of what I now know 0:43:18.440 --> 0:43:20.279 in the rooms of twelve Step they call like a 0:43:20.320 --> 0:43:23.640 massive case of the fuckets, Like she got a really 0:43:23.680 --> 0:43:25.960 big case of the fuckets, and nobody could blame her 0:43:25.960 --> 0:43:28.480 because she was facing a few months left to live. 0:43:29.040 --> 0:43:31.240 So there was an element at which we were all like, well, 0:43:31.400 --> 0:43:34.120 look go for it, like ride the dragon one more time? 0:43:34.120 --> 0:43:37.399 Who cares? Like you know you're dying anyway. But then 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:40.399 she didn't die. She ended up living like a year 0:43:40.480 --> 0:43:44.480 longer than anybody had expected, and a year as a rage. 0:43:44.680 --> 0:43:48.120 Like it was a nightmare. You know. In the Zen tradition, 0:43:48.320 --> 0:43:50.000 they say, I got a back up and look at 0:43:50.000 --> 0:43:52.000 the sort of spiritual view of this, They say, like 0:43:52.760 --> 0:43:54.719 going back to this idea of not exactly what I 0:43:54.760 --> 0:43:58.359 had in mind. And then things changed, And the Zen say, 0:43:59.040 --> 0:44:02.319 first they pulled the rug out from under you, and 0:44:02.360 --> 0:44:04.360 then they pull the floor out from under the rug, 0:44:04.719 --> 0:44:06.720 and then they pull the ground out from under the floor, 0:44:07.320 --> 0:44:10.319 and now you're ready to begin. Now you're ready to 0:44:10.360 --> 0:44:13.640 begin your spiritual journey. There's a whole ground under your feet, right, 0:44:13.760 --> 0:44:16.799 And that was the feeling was I had expected to 0:44:16.880 --> 0:44:18.839 lose her to death, but I had not expected to 0:44:19.840 --> 0:44:22.480 experience her addiction and to lose her before I lost 0:44:22.520 --> 0:44:26.640 her to the nightmare that is addiction and It was 0:44:27.080 --> 0:44:29.320 one of the most shattering things I've ever been through. 0:44:29.560 --> 0:44:32.359 I mean, it took years for me to recover from that. 0:44:32.360 --> 0:44:36.640 That's it's pretty powerful to say you lost her before 0:44:36.640 --> 0:44:39.040 you lost her, And I guess that's what addiction is is, right, 0:44:39.120 --> 0:44:41.719 like you're already mourning someone the person that you know 0:44:42.280 --> 0:44:45.359 before they leave. That actually turns everything we're ever taught 0:44:45.400 --> 0:44:47.640 on its head as well. Like we're taught when you 0:44:47.680 --> 0:44:51.359 get unwell to live the healthiest, best life you possibly can. 0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:53.440 And you hear all these people that do that, they 0:44:53.440 --> 0:44:55.239 don't go down the holistic path and they're getting the 0:44:55.280 --> 0:44:59.640 treatments and it doesn't work. And here Rayer is fuck it, 0:45:00.120 --> 0:45:02.640 going to go hardcore on the drugs and she doesn't 0:45:02.680 --> 0:45:05.160 die like she she continues to extend her life. 0:45:05.160 --> 0:45:06.279 And I wonder if that's got. 0:45:06.239 --> 0:45:06.680 Something to do. 0:45:06.800 --> 0:45:09.560 It's insane, Like it's insane. It goes against everything we've 0:45:09.600 --> 0:45:10.360 ever been told. 0:45:11.000 --> 0:45:13.080 I mean, I remember the doctor at one point saying 0:45:13.120 --> 0:45:16.360 like I don't know how she is alive and not 0:45:16.520 --> 0:45:19.680 just alive, but like alive and being a motherfucker like 0:45:19.760 --> 0:45:23.320 alive and being like a problem, you know, like alive 0:45:23.400 --> 0:45:26.560 and like like a problem to everybody, and and he's 0:45:26.760 --> 0:45:28.799 I'm like, welcome to my world. Like, I don't know 0:45:28.840 --> 0:45:31.440 how she's still He's like, how can someone survive on 0:45:31.600 --> 0:45:39.719 a diet of whiskey, cocaine, opioids, candy, beer, and cigarettes 0:45:39.960 --> 0:45:41.759 was essentially what she was eating, you know, And like, 0:45:42.320 --> 0:45:44.560 but I think what she was surviving on was I'm 0:45:44.560 --> 0:45:47.799 going to do it my way, which I actually sort 0:45:47.840 --> 0:45:51.000 of also love that she was like, no, you're not 0:45:51.040 --> 0:45:54.279 going to give me a green juice it that way. 0:45:54.520 --> 0:45:57.120 I mean, that's not how Ray lived, you know. So 0:45:57.160 --> 0:45:59.360 there was something that was kind of epic about it, 0:45:59.400 --> 0:46:01.680 even it was as it was happening, except for that 0:46:01.960 --> 0:46:04.279 it turned into a disaster for me because you know, 0:46:04.320 --> 0:46:08.320 I was having to try to manage an unmanageable, dangerous, 0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:11.840 exploitative sort of psychopath. Was what it felt like. Suddenly, 0:46:12.239 --> 0:46:15.520 if there's ever been a lesson in like things will change, 0:46:16.360 --> 0:46:19.879 you know, like we all just long to create these 0:46:19.960 --> 0:46:23.440 lives where you can be anchored in your life and grounded. 0:46:23.600 --> 0:46:25.879 And I feel like, I don't know, my curriculum here 0:46:25.880 --> 0:46:28.880 in Earth school is like I get grounded. I'm like, oh, 0:46:28.920 --> 0:46:33.480 I'm doing this really well. Yeah, I figured out and 0:46:33.480 --> 0:46:36.799 then the ground changes and the planets flipped, the sun explodes, 0:46:36.840 --> 0:46:39.399 and it's like, I don't know how to live in 0:46:39.440 --> 0:46:41.600 this world. You know, I figured out how to live 0:46:41.640 --> 0:46:44.960 in that world, and I think that's just maybe what 0:46:45.040 --> 0:46:46.520 life on Earth is. 0:46:47.400 --> 0:46:51.560 You've written so much about loss in relationships, you know, 0:46:51.680 --> 0:46:55.560 about divorce, about the untethering of two humans. But what 0:46:55.800 --> 0:47:00.720 was this experience and learning about loss but through grief, 0:47:00.840 --> 0:47:04.280 about through actually losing someone tangibly they're not here anymore? 0:47:04.680 --> 0:47:07.440 What does that taught you about grief and loss? 0:47:07.480 --> 0:47:10.360 So humbling? I mean, I will say this, I don't 0:47:10.640 --> 0:47:13.520 know that grief can be done right. I have a 0:47:13.560 --> 0:47:16.280 friend right now who just had a terrible sudden loss 0:47:16.280 --> 0:47:19.879 in her family, and she called me and she said, 0:47:19.920 --> 0:47:22.560 I just want the syllabus, Like tell me what I 0:47:22.600 --> 0:47:26.239 have to read, Like, tell me what podcasts I have 0:47:26.320 --> 0:47:28.799 to listen to, tell me what Ted talk I have 0:47:28.880 --> 0:47:31.799 to watch, so that I I mean, essentially, so that 0:47:31.920 --> 0:47:35.440 I don't have to feel what I'm feeling, you know, 0:47:35.960 --> 0:47:40.120 don't like, what do I have to do and not 0:47:40.239 --> 0:47:43.280 go to the bottom of hell? Are there any hammocks 0:47:43.320 --> 0:47:46.239 along the way where I can take or breather and 0:47:46.360 --> 0:47:50.000 my experience with grief is that the bad news seems 0:47:50.080 --> 0:47:53.240 to be that you have to go to the bottom 0:47:53.320 --> 0:47:56.160 of hell. The good news seems to be that there 0:47:56.239 --> 0:47:58.920 is a bottom, you know. I mean, that's what Dante's 0:47:58.960 --> 0:48:01.440 Inferno teaches us. It's like, you keep going down, and 0:48:01.520 --> 0:48:03.560 you keep going down, and you keep going down, and 0:48:03.719 --> 0:48:06.600 it can't possibly get worse, and then it gets worse, 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:08.120 and it gets worse and it gets worse, and in 0:48:08.160 --> 0:48:12.640 the end, you know, he comes out of hell by 0:48:12.719 --> 0:48:16.640 going through the lake at the bottom of the hell 0:48:16.680 --> 0:48:19.120 that is in the center of Satan's heart, like the 0:48:19.160 --> 0:48:22.920 middle of the worst thing. And it's such an easy 0:48:23.000 --> 0:48:25.600 cliche to say that the only way out is through, 0:48:26.000 --> 0:48:31.080 but the only way out is through it. And I think, 0:48:31.120 --> 0:48:34.480 I'm I've spent my life trying to find other ways out. 0:48:35.840 --> 0:48:37.960 Surely there's got to be another There's got to be 0:48:38.040 --> 0:48:40.960 some sort of tack that I can figure out so 0:48:41.000 --> 0:48:43.560 that I don't have to experience grief at this level. 0:48:43.680 --> 0:48:47.040 And I had to experience grief at the deepest, deepest level, 0:48:47.120 --> 0:48:50.759 and it was so humbling. But my friend Gigi, who 0:48:50.840 --> 0:48:54.280 is actually Raya's ex wife and a beloved friend, taught 0:48:54.280 --> 0:48:57.440 me this phrase and She called it a bow down moment, 0:48:58.239 --> 0:49:00.319 and she's like, when the waves of grief come, because 0:49:00.360 --> 0:49:05.480 they come in waves, surrender immediately to it, like, don't 0:49:05.600 --> 0:49:08.560 try to evade it. You can't. It's like a tidal 0:49:08.600 --> 0:49:11.360 wave is coming. You get under it, like get under it. 0:49:11.400 --> 0:49:12.719 And the way you get under it is that you 0:49:12.880 --> 0:49:15.520 literally get on the ground. We also called it starfishing. 0:49:16.120 --> 0:49:18.359 You get on the ground, on your face, with your 0:49:18.400 --> 0:49:21.920 limbs out as low as you can get, and you 0:49:22.000 --> 0:49:24.239 just bow down before the god of grief and you 0:49:24.360 --> 0:49:27.160 let it take you. And you just let it and 0:49:27.239 --> 0:49:30.439 you just sob and you wail and you clean, and 0:49:30.480 --> 0:49:34.560 you don't resist because the resistance actually just makes it worse. 0:49:35.200 --> 0:49:37.960 And the really weird thing about the nature of grief 0:49:38.080 --> 0:49:41.279 is that you think, you're like, I'm not going to 0:49:41.280 --> 0:49:44.319 be able to survive, how hard I'm feeling this, And 0:49:44.360 --> 0:49:51.879 then twenty minutes passes, maybe, and the sobbing diminishes, and 0:49:51.920 --> 0:49:54.799 then you're like, I need to go to bathroom, bell 0:49:55.280 --> 0:49:56.799 like I need to get a glass of water, I 0:49:56.840 --> 0:49:59.960 have to have a sandwich. Like something changes, it moves 0:50:00.120 --> 0:50:02.600 through you, and then you have to stand up and 0:50:02.640 --> 0:50:05.040 go about your life until the next one. Comes. And 0:50:05.080 --> 0:50:08.239 I think I've heard a beautiful description of depression, that 0:50:08.280 --> 0:50:12.000 depression is the refusal to grieve. What depression is is 0:50:12.040 --> 0:50:17.000 like I will shut down rather than feel these terrible, terrible, 0:50:17.080 --> 0:50:20.880 terrible feelings. But I actually want to find this quote. 0:50:20.960 --> 0:50:23.640 I just sent this to my friend by a fella 0:50:23.800 --> 0:50:28.000 named Stephen Jenkinson who wrote a book called Grief Walker, 0:50:29.080 --> 0:50:32.239 and he said, grief is not a feeling. Grief is 0:50:32.280 --> 0:50:36.160 a skill. And the twin of grief as a skill 0:50:36.200 --> 0:50:39.000 of life is the skill of being able to praise 0:50:39.200 --> 0:50:44.480 or love life, which means wherever you find one authentically done, 0:50:45.120 --> 0:50:50.320 the other is close at hand. Depression is I won't grieve, 0:50:50.400 --> 0:50:55.040 and I also won't live. I will control the wild 0:50:55.239 --> 0:51:01.040 ride by not allowing myself to be fully human. And 0:51:01.520 --> 0:51:05.040 I think that I didn't experience depression after Raya died. 0:51:05.440 --> 0:51:09.600 I've experienced depression in my life. I experienced nassid grief 0:51:10.480 --> 0:51:16.640 like level ten grief, but I didn't experience depression because 0:51:16.719 --> 0:51:17.920 I experienced grief. 0:51:19.120 --> 0:51:22.600 Well, this might be an unusual question, but going off 0:51:22.600 --> 0:51:25.000 what you've described that last sort of year of Ray's 0:51:25.040 --> 0:51:29.160 life in your relationship, was there also a complicated level 0:51:29.200 --> 0:51:31.879 of relief that came. I don't want to cause any 0:51:31.880 --> 0:51:34.839 offense by that, but I imagine you would have wanted her 0:51:34.840 --> 0:51:38.319 to live forever. But the state she was in, with 0:51:38.400 --> 0:51:40.680 the addiction and what was happening, it doesn't sound like 0:51:40.719 --> 0:51:43.160 your relationship was quite where it should have been anyway. 0:51:43.680 --> 0:51:46.440 Was there sort of a level of relief that was 0:51:46.480 --> 0:51:47.480 mixed in with the grief? 0:51:48.040 --> 0:51:50.400 One hundred percent. Yeah, I want to take you out 0:51:50.400 --> 0:51:54.120 of the awkwardness of feeling like, no, it wasn't even 0:51:54.120 --> 0:51:57.960 a complicated amount of grief. And I say that openly 0:51:58.000 --> 0:52:00.920 in order to normalize when people have that feeling. I 0:52:00.960 --> 0:52:03.600 mean people who have dealt with even people who are 0:52:03.600 --> 0:52:07.680 in addicts, people who have been caregivers and caretakers of 0:52:07.719 --> 0:52:12.239 people who are dying long, painful, extended deaths where there 0:52:12.360 --> 0:52:17.200 is a feeling of caregiver fatigue and caregiver overwhelmed. Where 0:52:17.760 --> 0:52:20.080 there does you do reach this moment where you're like, 0:52:20.120 --> 0:52:22.600 if this person doesn't die soon, I am going to 0:52:22.680 --> 0:52:25.839 die soon. I can't keep going at this pace and 0:52:25.880 --> 0:52:29.920 giving it this pace. And people always feel guilty about 0:52:30.000 --> 0:52:32.200 saying that they were relieved, and they always want to 0:52:32.239 --> 0:52:35.879 couch it by saying, well, I'm just relieved because their 0:52:35.960 --> 0:52:38.160 suffering is over and they're in a better place. Dude, 0:52:38.200 --> 0:52:41.480 your suffering is also over and you are going to 0:52:41.520 --> 0:52:44.920 be you know, like And it doesn't mean that grief 0:52:44.960 --> 0:52:49.319 won't follow that feeling of relief, but that's one of 0:52:49.360 --> 0:52:55.560 the ingredients, is relief, like you've been freed by this 0:52:55.640 --> 0:53:00.720 person's death. If it was a long, painful, agonizing called death, 0:53:01.000 --> 0:53:03.920 often that is the case. That doesn't make you a monster. 0:53:04.440 --> 0:53:06.440 I do want to go back to asking one question. 0:53:06.800 --> 0:53:09.120 We mentioned it, but then I don't think you gave 0:53:09.160 --> 0:53:12.040 closure to it completely. You said that Raya had said 0:53:12.040 --> 0:53:13.879 that she didn't want to leave until you were able 0:53:13.920 --> 0:53:16.120 to stand on your own two feet. You had this 0:53:16.280 --> 0:53:19.480 chance of embodying all the things that you saw in 0:53:19.520 --> 0:53:21.920 her or that you thought that she was in yourself. 0:53:22.360 --> 0:53:24.000 Do you feel as though you have achieved that? 0:53:24.600 --> 0:53:27.759 You know, I'll work backwards from it. I feel as 0:53:27.760 --> 0:53:30.600 though she has left, like when I said before, like 0:53:30.640 --> 0:53:34.400 we're still in a relationship. I feel her less now 0:53:35.080 --> 0:53:38.480 than I have ever felt her. And at times that's 0:53:39.239 --> 0:53:42.799 disturbing because when she in the year or two after 0:53:42.840 --> 0:53:47.000 she died, especially, she was so present, like she was 0:53:47.080 --> 0:53:49.480 as present as you are right now, like we could. 0:53:49.840 --> 0:53:53.319 She was so present and it wasn't just for me. 0:53:53.400 --> 0:53:55.480 I mean, she was such a vivid person. And the 0:53:55.520 --> 0:53:57.520 thing about really vivid people is that I think their 0:53:57.600 --> 0:54:01.600 vividness remains for a long time after they're gone. But like, 0:54:01.680 --> 0:54:04.160 she was here, you know, she was here, and she 0:54:04.280 --> 0:54:06.600 was inside my head and she was we were in 0:54:06.800 --> 0:54:10.400 constant dialogue. I turned to her for guidance, you know, 0:54:10.440 --> 0:54:15.239 I would say, like, don't go. Don't you dare, Like, 0:54:15.320 --> 0:54:19.120 don't you dare, like vaporize off into the cosmos and 0:54:19.160 --> 0:54:22.160 become music and leave me here with all these motherfucking 0:54:22.239 --> 0:54:25.080 assholes on this dying planet to figure this shit out. 0:54:25.120 --> 0:54:29.160 Like I need you. You can't you like, like don't 0:54:29.280 --> 0:54:31.960 you don't get to go? You know, And also you 0:54:32.040 --> 0:54:34.640 owe me because you were such an asshole for the 0:54:34.719 --> 0:54:36.879 last six months of your life, Like you better stick 0:54:36.920 --> 0:54:39.160 around and help me. I need your assistance, like and 0:54:39.239 --> 0:54:41.640 she did, you know, Like I felt like she really 0:54:41.719 --> 0:54:45.239 honored that and that she was here, and certainly, like 0:54:45.280 --> 0:54:49.600 in the last year, I can't find her, you know, 0:54:49.800 --> 0:54:52.680 like I can't. I can't feel her and I can't 0:54:52.719 --> 0:54:56.239 find her. And actually I'm really grateful that we had 0:54:56.239 --> 0:54:59.560 this conversation because you reminding me like us going on 0:54:59.600 --> 0:55:02.360 this threat that we've gone on. It's sort of my 0:55:02.440 --> 0:55:05.839 own answer of like, oh, she said, I'm not going 0:55:05.880 --> 0:55:09.000 to leave until I see you standing on your own 0:55:09.040 --> 0:55:12.760 two feet in every circumstance of your life is left. 0:55:13.040 --> 0:55:14.759 I must be standing on my own two feet in 0:55:14.800 --> 0:55:17.320 every circumstance of my life. That's so nice. 0:55:17.560 --> 0:55:18.840 She'd be really proud of yourself. 0:55:18.920 --> 0:55:19.719 I think so too. 0:55:19.840 --> 0:55:20.960 That's a nice realization. 0:55:21.800 --> 0:55:27.920 Yeah, because it is really beautiful. 0:55:29.920 --> 0:55:31.920 But you recently have gone through a bit of a 0:55:32.000 --> 0:55:36.200 life change. You've shaved your head, You've given up the fellers, 0:55:36.239 --> 0:55:39.160 the injectables, the botox, You're going to Costa Rica for 0:55:39.160 --> 0:55:39.920 a couple of months. 0:55:40.040 --> 0:55:40.760 What's that about? 0:55:40.760 --> 0:55:42.200 What has changed in your life to get you to 0:55:42.200 --> 0:55:42.760 this point. 0:55:43.160 --> 0:55:46.799 I've been wanting to shave my head for decades. It's 0:55:46.840 --> 0:55:49.760 a fantasy that I've had for such a long time, 0:55:49.880 --> 0:55:52.000 and I always think about it. I also just want 0:55:52.000 --> 0:55:55.040 to make really clear, like I like didn't have the 0:55:55.120 --> 0:55:59.160 greatest hair, Like honestly, I'm vain enough that had I 0:55:59.400 --> 0:56:02.480 been gifted with the hair that I felt I deserved 0:56:02.560 --> 0:56:04.719 in life, that had I been given a forgeous main 0:56:04.760 --> 0:56:07.200 no hair. I doubt that I would have been quite 0:56:07.239 --> 0:56:10.040 so like fuck it, you know, I'm just going to 0:56:10.080 --> 0:56:12.880 shave it. So it's I always had difficult hair and 0:56:12.920 --> 0:56:14.960 problematic hair, so so part of it is just the 0:56:14.960 --> 0:56:17.200 relief of not wanting to deal with that anymore. But 0:56:17.600 --> 0:56:21.240 tons of stuff in my face there for about ten years, 0:56:21.280 --> 0:56:24.279 I did like really good, you know, pretty good. One 0:56:24.360 --> 0:56:26.480 bad case of botox, but for the most part, like 0:56:27.040 --> 0:56:28.799 you know, I was. I was doing it well enough 0:56:28.800 --> 0:56:30.400 that I looked good and I looked pretty, and it 0:56:30.400 --> 0:56:32.640 seemed to be very important that I look pretty, and 0:56:32.680 --> 0:56:35.120 it seemed to be very important that I stay looking pretty. 0:56:35.160 --> 0:56:37.520 And I remember when my last book came out with 0:56:37.600 --> 0:56:39.799 The New York Times did a profile of me, and 0:56:39.239 --> 0:56:42.839 the woman said, like, you know, Gilbert is whatever age 0:56:42.840 --> 0:56:44.520 I was forty eight, she's forty eight, but she looks 0:56:44.520 --> 0:56:46.920 ten years younger than she is. And I remember feeling 0:56:46.960 --> 0:56:49.160 that to be like a trophy victory, you know, It's 0:56:49.200 --> 0:56:51.359 like I want to meddle. The New York Times said 0:56:51.400 --> 0:56:53.560 I looked ten years younger than I am, and that 0:56:53.640 --> 0:56:57.680 seemed to be extremely important. And also as a public figure, 0:56:57.719 --> 0:56:59.120 I was like, I'm going to be people are going 0:56:59.160 --> 0:57:01.720 to be looking at me. I'm on TV a lot 0:57:02.040 --> 0:57:06.160 like I can't have these lines. Though that all seemed 0:57:06.760 --> 0:57:10.320 that all seemed very, very very true, and it also 0:57:10.800 --> 0:57:13.640 felt very true that I felt better when I looked better, 0:57:14.239 --> 0:57:16.360 and so it felt like it was an act of 0:57:16.400 --> 0:57:19.400 self care. So I don't want to demean anybody who's 0:57:19.440 --> 0:57:22.000 doing those things or for whom those things feel true. 0:57:22.560 --> 0:57:26.400 But something shifted in the last couple of years where 0:57:26.440 --> 0:57:30.200 that just doesn't seem true anymore. All of those things 0:57:30.280 --> 0:57:33.960 just don't feel true. And part of it was that 0:57:34.040 --> 0:57:39.400 I spent a week traveling actually across Costa Rica with 0:57:39.480 --> 0:57:42.600 a woman in her eighties who is a great hero 0:57:42.720 --> 0:57:45.800 of mine. And actually I took a road trip with 0:57:45.840 --> 0:57:48.280 three eighty year olds and it was amazing. I was like, 0:57:48.320 --> 0:57:50.080 I'll be your tour guide in Costa Rica. I'll be 0:57:50.120 --> 0:57:53.160 your driver. I've got the jeep, you know, like, let's go. 0:57:53.600 --> 0:57:56.960 And they're all amazing people. And none of them have 0:57:57.040 --> 0:58:00.240 done any work on themselves physically, I mean what we 0:58:00.320 --> 0:58:03.200 define is like cosmetic work. And they were all so 0:58:03.240 --> 0:58:05.680 gorgeous and I was walking The wild thing is I 0:58:05.720 --> 0:58:08.320 was walking down the street in Nosara, Costa Rica with 0:58:08.400 --> 0:58:12.480 these two women, one Argentinian, this eighty four year old 0:58:12.560 --> 0:58:16.400 and this eighty three year old, both incredibly spiritual beings, 0:58:16.440 --> 0:58:21.360 incredibly creative beings with passionate, beautiful, amazing women. And we 0:58:21.400 --> 0:58:23.960 were walking side by side, and the man walked by 0:58:24.000 --> 0:58:27.800 us and said, are you sisters? And I was fifty 0:58:28.000 --> 0:58:30.800 fifty four and they were eighty four, and I said yes, 0:58:32.800 --> 0:58:36.120 and I was never did I feel so honored that 0:58:36.360 --> 0:58:38.960 somebody thought that they were my sisters. And they have white, 0:58:39.160 --> 0:58:43.240 like full on white hair covered with wrinkles, and being 0:58:43.280 --> 0:58:46.000 in their presence was an awakening where I just thought, like, 0:58:46.280 --> 0:58:48.720 it's a funny thing to be afraid of getting older 0:58:48.840 --> 0:58:52.120 or looking old. That's a funny thing to be afraid of. 0:58:52.400 --> 0:58:56.120 It suddenly became like no, like literally, why is that scary? 0:58:56.200 --> 0:58:57.880 Why is it scary to look at your face and 0:58:57.920 --> 0:59:00.400 see line? Like why did I experience is that for 0:59:00.440 --> 0:59:03.680 so many years as frightful? Like that seems like a 0:59:03.720 --> 0:59:08.120 weird thing to be frightened up? And I just lost 0:59:08.280 --> 0:59:12.880 my fear, Like I lost my fear, and you know, 0:59:12.920 --> 0:59:15.120 like I look when I shaved my head and stopped 0:59:15.160 --> 0:59:17.640 doing bowtops, I instantly looked I looked ten years older 0:59:17.680 --> 0:59:20.520 than I looked three years ago. But I find that 0:59:20.600 --> 0:59:24.680 I don't care, and I actually find that not to 0:59:24.680 --> 0:59:28.040 get like Tou wou. But my higher power, what I 0:59:28.120 --> 0:59:31.360 choose to call God, has said to me, it's extremely 0:59:31.440 --> 0:59:34.640 important that you don't do those things. Like I've heard 0:59:34.640 --> 0:59:37.680 this in meditation now, it's extremely important that you don't 0:59:37.680 --> 0:59:40.640 do those things. And it's extremely important that you go 0:59:40.760 --> 0:59:46.120 out in public on TV with no makeup and lines 0:59:46.160 --> 0:59:49.120 in your face and no hair. We really need you 0:59:49.200 --> 0:59:52.040 to do that. And it's extremely important for you that 0:59:52.080 --> 0:59:53.680 you look in the mirror and look at what you 0:59:53.720 --> 0:59:57.120 look like, and that you that this is what fifty 0:59:57.160 --> 1:00:00.400 five looks like. And I accept and believe. But that's 1:00:00.440 --> 1:00:04.240 extremely important. So that's my that's my vibe. 1:00:05.200 --> 1:00:09.040 Well, we've even seen, like even just recently, the level 1:00:09.040 --> 1:00:12.800 of media attention that Pamela Anderson has received just because 1:00:12.840 --> 1:00:16.840 she decided to stop wearing makeup so brave. It's insanity 1:00:16.960 --> 1:00:19.840 the fact that we as a society are so shocked 1:00:19.880 --> 1:00:22.720 to see a woman turn up as her natural self 1:00:22.720 --> 1:00:24.440 with no makeup and no botox. 1:00:24.600 --> 1:00:27.400 It takes so much work to unpick those values. It's 1:00:27.400 --> 1:00:31.880 a lifetime of values that we have been conditioned to 1:00:32.000 --> 1:00:35.160 believe that. And I know it's a sliding scale, like 1:00:35.240 --> 1:00:37.280 some people place more value on it than others. But 1:00:37.840 --> 1:00:40.280 I think all of us as women have this feeling 1:00:40.320 --> 1:00:42.680 of like, well, we will be more liked, we will 1:00:42.680 --> 1:00:45.680 be more loved, we will be more pleasant, we will 1:00:45.720 --> 1:00:49.800 be more accepted successful the better we look, you know. 1:00:49.920 --> 1:00:51.280 And it's and that condition. 1:00:51.480 --> 1:00:52.240 You are not wrong. 1:00:52.800 --> 1:00:55.520 Unpicking it is yeah, I mean you know it shouldn't 1:00:55.560 --> 1:00:57.680 be something that you're like, Wow, you should be so 1:00:57.720 --> 1:01:00.880 proud of yourself, but really you should. People don't get 1:01:00.880 --> 1:01:03.960 to that place of being able to unpick those society values. 1:01:04.600 --> 1:01:06.920 Yeah, you're not wrong. All of those things that you 1:01:07.000 --> 1:01:12.800 said are true. Like the prettier you are and the 1:01:12.960 --> 1:01:16.920 lighter your hair color is and the smoother your skin is, 1:01:17.360 --> 1:01:21.600 the more you will be approved of. It is true. 1:01:21.880 --> 1:01:29.560 And I don't get a shit. You are the best, Okay, 1:01:29.560 --> 1:01:33.280 I don't care. I deeply approve of myself these days. 1:01:35.680 --> 1:01:39.560 Liz, you have incredible perspective in life and I have 1:01:40.440 --> 1:01:43.520 loved so deeply speaking to you. For everybody who's listening 1:01:43.560 --> 1:01:45.240 to this, who is based in here in Australia, most 1:01:45.280 --> 1:01:47.440 about listeners are you're coming out here soon? 1:01:47.880 --> 1:01:49.120 What does that look like for you? 1:01:49.200 --> 1:01:51.440 How can people hear more, read more. 1:01:51.520 --> 1:01:54.120 And get as much Liz as they could possibly have? 1:01:54.760 --> 1:01:57.120 Oh that's so sweet. If you go to my website, 1:01:57.600 --> 1:02:00.360 you can see my tourist schedule for coming to Australia 1:02:00.400 --> 1:02:03.680 and New Zealand in February and so making a bunch 1:02:03.720 --> 1:02:05.400 of stops and a bunch of cities I actually have. 1:02:05.560 --> 1:02:07.440 I used to go to Australia all the time, like 1:02:07.520 --> 1:02:10.480 every year for a really long time because my ex 1:02:10.560 --> 1:02:13.439 husband's kids lived there, still live there, and I've spent 1:02:13.640 --> 1:02:17.000 a ton of time in Australia. But the last time 1:02:17.040 --> 1:02:20.120 I was in Australia was right before the pandemic. And 1:02:20.200 --> 1:02:22.840 I mean right before the pandemic. I mean I was. 1:02:23.560 --> 1:02:26.960 I was on Bondi Beach in an Airbnb and I 1:02:27.040 --> 1:02:28.919 jumped in a cab and went to the airport without 1:02:28.960 --> 1:02:30.760 even a plane ticket and was like, I got to 1:02:30.800 --> 1:02:33.680 get home because the President said they're closing the borders 1:02:33.880 --> 1:02:36.640 right before the pandemic. So I'm excited to come back 1:02:36.640 --> 1:02:39.280 in a slightly less frantic way. But the really cool 1:02:39.320 --> 1:02:41.320 thing is I'm going to be teaching. There's a creativity 1:02:41.360 --> 1:02:43.560 workshop that I teach that I've taught for years all 1:02:43.560 --> 1:02:47.000 over the world. And don't be frightened of the word creativity. 1:02:47.040 --> 1:02:49.560 It's not. You don't have to be a quote unquote 1:02:49.560 --> 1:02:52.880 creative person to come. It's really about teaching everything that 1:02:52.920 --> 1:02:55.560 I've learned about what I call creative living, which is 1:02:56.440 --> 1:02:58.640 not so much about what you produce, but about how 1:02:58.680 --> 1:03:01.600 you live and a style of living that is based 1:03:01.640 --> 1:03:04.200 more on curiosity than fear. Anyway, I'm going to be 1:03:04.240 --> 1:03:07.000 teaching my creativity workshop in Sydney. It's the I've never 1:03:07.080 --> 1:03:10.240 taught it in Australia or New Zealand before, so that's exciting. 1:03:10.400 --> 1:03:12.280 So come to that. But then I'll also be giving 1:03:12.480 --> 1:03:15.360 talks where we tell stories and I take Q and 1:03:15.400 --> 1:03:17.760 A from the audience, and it's going to be lovely. 1:03:17.800 --> 1:03:20.880 It's always it's always lovely, and it's always better if 1:03:20.920 --> 1:03:21.320 you're there. 1:03:21.600 --> 1:03:23.920 So come, say, go and spend all your money and 1:03:23.960 --> 1:03:25.200 make sure that you go and see it. 1:03:25.240 --> 1:03:26.760 Well, I think we'll spend our money and come and 1:03:26.760 --> 1:03:29.240 see you as well. Thanks so much, Lias, Thank you 1:03:29.240 --> 1:03:33.840 for thank you. Yes, well we leave in Bondai, so 1:03:33.880 --> 1:03:35.520 if you want to ride back, we'll have a coffee 1:03:35.520 --> 1:03:35.960 in Budai. 1:03:36.120 --> 1:03:38.120 We will have it. It'll be really nice to catch up. 1:03:38.760 --> 1:03:43.200 You are both really lovely and brilliant and delightful to 1:03:43.240 --> 1:03:46.080 talk to, and this time has passed so swiftly and 1:03:46.120 --> 1:03:49.160 easily being with you. So thank you for just being 1:03:49.600 --> 1:04:03.040 as great as you are. Kaberam kamaboo.