Liz Gilbert on Oprah - Our Favorite Quotes
From her Oct 5, 2007 appearance on Oprah:
WHAT ULTIMATELY LEAD HER TO MAKING THE LEAP
I felt like a squirrel in a box. That's what I'd come to feel like. You know? Just like, sort of clawing at the walls of my life...I never got the memo that said, you're not allowed to become the hero of your own life's journey, you know? I was never taught that you are not allowed to do that. And somehow I had lost that path along the way. And I just increasingly began to feel like, this is your life, and you are the only person who can be the hero of it.
GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO "NOT KNOW"
And I never knew at that age, in my 20s, that "I don't know" is actually a legitimate answer that you're allowed to say. You're allowed to say, I don't know, and you're allowed to ask for as much time as you need until you do know. And if somebody doesn't wanna give you that time, they're allowed to leave. But you're allowed to sit with your I don't know. And I never sat with it because it was uncomfortable. Nobody likes that place. And so I always said yes. Oh, sure. Let's move in together, let's get married, let's buy a house, let's do all this stuff that I was sort of half yes, half no.
WHY SHE STARTED HER "INTERIOR VOICE" JOURNAL
as I was trying to build myself back up, I thought, okay, I'm not doing this now. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get a journal and I'm gonna ask myself for help as though I was a friend, a dear loved one, and I'm gonna write back to myself everything I've always wanted somebody to say to me when I'm in my deepest despair. There's nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I'm here. I'll always be here. And we know how to do that for other people.
I mean, who amongst us has not done that for a dear friend who calls in the middle of the night and you say, I'm here. I love you. You're great. We're going to pull through this. But we don't know how to turn that around and direct it towards the self.
THE IMPORTANCE OF STILLNESS
None of this works without stillness. One of the great, you know, teachings that I learned in India.
