A soulmate

"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything

Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

Eat, Pray, Love vertelt het autobiografische verhaal van schrijfster Elizabeth Gilbert

Als 32 jarige vrouw heeft ze alles wat haar hartje begeert, een succesvolle carrière, een echtgenoot en een mooi huis. Maar toch voelt ze zich ongelukkig en na een pijnlijke scheiding besluit Elizabeth Gilbert alles achter zich te laten. gaat ze op wereldreis om zichzelf te herontdekken. Wanneer ze in Bali een medicijnenman, Ketut, gaat bezoeken die vertelt dat ze zal scheiden en naar zichzelf op zoek zal gaan. Uiteindelijk verlaat ze haar echtgenoot en stort zich in een kortdurende affaire met een jongere man. Wanneer dat ook stroef loopt wilt ze zichzelf gaan ontdekken, door een jaar op reis te gaan. Eerst in Rome, daarna in een meditatie kamp in India en eindigend in het prachtige Bali, waar ze de oude Ketut weer gaat opzoeken. En de weg in haar eigen hoofd en hart vindt. Het evenwicht in haar leven. Uiteindelijk vind ze haar ware liefde.

Lees het boek, herlees het als je het al gelezen hebt.

Drie fragmenten uit haar boek Eat, Pray, Love:

Mending my soul

It was in a bathtub back in New York, reading Italian words aloud from a dictionary, that I first started mending my soul. My life had gone to bits and I was so unrecognizable to myself that I probably couldn't have picked me out of a police lineup. But I felt a glimmer of happiness when I started studying Italian, and when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is noy selfishness, but obligation. You were given a life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.

About happiness

I keep remembering one one of my Guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining of it. If you don’t like it, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.

Elizabeth Gilbert



"Do not look at the world through your head;
look at it through your heart."

Ketut

"So the holy truth of the whole adventure here in India,
is in one line:

"God dwells within you ... as you." God's not interested in watching a performance of how a spiritual person looks and behaves. The quiet girl who glides silently through the place with a gentle, ethereal smile ... who is that person? It's Ingrid Bergman in "The Bells of St. Mary's" – not me. God dwells within me ... as me."

Liz

So be lonely

"When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely ...

Learn your way around loneliness.

Make a map of it.

Sit with it, for once in your life.

Welcome to the human experience ...

But never again use another person’s body or emotions

as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings."

Elizabeth Gilbert

Eat, Pray, Love