Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It (11 page)

—

Theressa Real

E
at Pray Love
has been changing lives and rocking worlds for ten years now, but I came to it relatively late, a Liz Gilbert newbie in September 2013.

As the product of a fairly liberal, transient upbringing, I never thought I'd find myself living in the South. But after an apartment fire left me homeless in 2005, I hopped on a bus and followed my mother to a small town in Tennessee. I was young, barely nineteen, and pregnant with my first child. The first person I met after stepping off the bus was the man who would become my husband. He lived across the hall from my mother and me, and you could attribute our friendship and subsequent relationship both to our physical proximity and the general lack of entertainment in town. We passed the time with each other, sharing music, poetry and ideologies.

By 2008, we were married, and my life consisted of working long hours and tending to my husband, our children and
various members of his family who lived with us from time to time. For as long as I had known him, my husband had had a dark outlook on life. He was distrustful of any new friendships I made, whether online or through my eighty-hour workweeks. Books became my escape from a painfully isolated reality, but I never quite felt like I deserved to dream of something more than a life spent caring for my family in this little, backward town.

That same year, my husband enlisted with the Army Reserves. He would be gone for six months for basic training, and I remember breathing a sigh of relief at the prospect of being away from him for any length of time. When he returned, he seemed even more controlling than he'd been before. I had recently been laid off, and though I was receiving unemployment benefits, it was nowhere near enough money to support a household. For the first time in our relationship, my husband had complete control of the finances, the house and me.

There had to be more to my life than this, I thought. While my husband was away, I had discovered positive psychology and the power of your own thoughts. I started reading Thich Naht Hahn and Rhonda Byrne, authors who offered a lit path out of my own dark forest. I realized that I
did
deserve to dream of something more. That I wanted a life full of friendships and experiences. In fact, like my husband, I wanted to join the military! I felt it would give me purpose and direction, and would show my daughters that women could do anything they wanted to do.

Of course, my husband couldn't stand the idea of me having any sort of freedom outside the home, and I had to fight tooth and nail to be able to enlist. Eventually, I won that battle, but I was tired of the fighting.

My husband wasn't my only obstacle—my weight was
another. I had been overweight all my life, and having recently had a baby meant I was even more out of shape. It took the better part of a year to get fit, but I ultimately enlisted in March 2011 and left for basic training four months later. Meanwhile, the fighting and mistrust between my husband and me continued, made even more pronounced by the distance that is part and parcel of military life. In November of that year, I asked for a divorce.

I thought escaping my husband would help me find myself—that I would become centered and start living the life
I
wanted to live. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. I'd been on my own (with custody of my rug rats) for almost two years, and I still didn't feel like I knew who I was, what I was doing or that I belonged anywhere in the world. I was a newly divorced full-time mom of three, trying to figure out my military career while still being a devoted parent, sister, daughter and friend. I wasted so much time comparing myself to everyone around me, trying to prove to myself that I was
good enough
or just
enough
. My chaplain told me I needed to be kinder to myself—something that was easier said than done.

Still, it was with the chaplain's words in mind that I noticed Julia Roberts's face jumping out at me one afternoon in the grocery store, amidst the other five-dollar movies in the overflowing movie bin. I grabbed
Eat Pray Love
, a bag of Twizzlers and a pizza. Mama was going to have herself some me time.

At that point, I knew nothing about
Eat Pray Love
other than that it revolved around three things I love: yoga, food and words. I wasn't prepared for how much Liz's desperation in her marriage, her listlessness with life and her inability to keep herself from jumping into another doomed relationship would speak to
me. When she described herself as being a “permeable membrane”—disappearing into the person she loves, giving them everything and keeping nothing for herself—it was like preaching to the choir.

I bought the book not long after watching the movie, and I've since read it more times than I care to admit. On the nights when I've felt so alone and consumed by the dark that the idea there would ever be any happiness again seems like just a willful fantasy, Liz's mantras are what get me through. Just as she reminded herself that she had never really been alone—that that was impossible, because she had herself, and she loved herself—I do the same. I need that reminder—and not from a man, either. Not through being in a relationship. I need to hear it from myself.

My journey still isn't over. Learning to love yourself the right way takes more than just a few therapy sessions, more than a dozen yoga classes. It means more than accepting the first man who comes along willing to share your bed. I remind myself every day that within me there is a Goddess who deserves love, compassion and respect because She gives all of those things so freely.

—

Crystal Gasser

I
first read
Eat Pray Love
when I was seventeen. I was going through a breakup and needed some inspiration to get me through the zombie days. The book helped me realize that for as long as I could remember, I had been using relationships with boys to fill a void. Somewhere down the road I had learned that I was somehow lacking, and the only way I knew to validate my worth was in an endless succession of troublesome boyfriends. But it was suddenly evident to me that those boys just weren't doing the trick.

I began to travel, in the only way I could afford at the time: inward. I started writing more. I started making vision boards. I visualized that travel—real travel—would be a big part of my life. I imagined that my free spirit self would take me around the globe, dipping my toe into the religions and spiritual practices of other cultures, no strings attached. It didn't occur to me that I
was still just a teenage girl romanticizing another relationship—this time, a relationship with the divine.

At eighteen, in my senior year of high school, I became a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The divine relationship I'd been looking for seemed to have literally come knocking on my door, in the form of two missionaries on bikes. The LDS church found me when I was vulnerable and hurting and needing something more. It didn't matter to me that it was unpopular, and in some ways oppressive and extreme. I was willing to surrender to it for the sake of experiencing love.

•   •   •

I
started dating a handsome boy named Daniel who'd been born and raised a Mormon and had just finished serving his mission in Brazil. Within a few short months, we were engaged. Walking in my graduation processional, I hid my ring from my best friend of fifteen years, because on some level I knew I had no idea what I was doing, and I knew she knew it, too. Yet I dove into that faith, just as I'd dived into Daniel's arms. Both of them made me feel safe and comfortable.

The hard part wasn't giving up coffee or abstaining from sex. It wasn't devoting every Sunday to worship or preparing for a wedding I wasn't ready for. It wasn't the tithing or the testimonials. Those things were easy. But I was repressing a powerful force within myself—a force that wanted to move, create, dream and travel. It was as if I'd swallowed a large pill that had lodged in my throat, keeping me from speaking and living out my truth. I knew that marriage in this community almost certainly meant children—lots of children, and soon—and that would mean putting all of my dreams on the back burner. Gradually I
realized that I did not want to wake up one day like Liz (and millions of other women), with a man I didn't know with 100 percent certainty I could love till “eternity,” in a faith to which I did not entirely seem to belong. I had too many doubts and questions, and my questions were seen as Satan's temptations rather than my own intuition, the voice I'd always depended on. The little voice that had once been my salvation was, in the eyes of the church, a sin.

One summer evening as I was riding in my best friend's car, we drove past our former high school. I spotted the window of the classroom where I'd taken a world religions course, the class that had inspired me to become a seeker of divine truth. Had I found it? I didn't think so. I realized that I longed to be honest with myself again about what it was that I truly wanted. I wanted freedom. I wanted to travel. I wanted God but not religion. I wanted to go to college. I wanted self-love. I wanted courage.

That evening, I called Daniel. My hand was sweating as I gripped the telephone and peered at the notes I'd jotted down to remind me how to say it, pressing so hard that the red pen had made holes in my notepad. “I have something I want to talk to you about,” I stuttered. He came to pick me up so that we could speak in person, and before I knew it I had handed him back the ring—and the religion, though I retained a strong love for the community I'd been part of for that brief time. I walked away from that chapter with sadness and relief.

Five years later, I'm at a B & B in Napoli, a fourth-floor walk-up where I've arrived four hours early. The window is open, and I can hear old women yelling from their balconies. Some American song is playing in the street. Here in Italy I've had the most exquisite pizza. I've traveled for real now. I have swum in
the Mediterranean and dipped my toes in the Adriatic. I have lounged in Paris parks and explored the concept of death in an old castle in Belgium. This past year I've even had the opportunity to travel to Thailand to practice yoga.

Daniel is married now, with three children, and I am incredibly happy for him and his family. As for me, I am just beginning. I don't know where I would be had I not read
Eat Pray Love
, but I imagine it wouldn't be here, on a balcony in Napoli, looking outward and inward with nothing but love.

—

Lisann Valentin

I
have to quit my job.
I have to quit my job.

That thought played on repeat as I walked out of my Wall Street office on a sunny Thursday afternoon, tears streaming down my face.

I headed down the block, dodging a crowd of tourists. I needed to get some air, to stop crying and collect myself. Even with the crush of people around me, it was as if I was totally alone. No one cared what I was doing. So I started to pray out loud, asking God, “Is this the right thing to do?”

The very next moment, an answer came down from the heavens (or the windowsill of a swanky office building) in the form of pigeon poop. And through my tears, I burst out laughing. I had my answer.

Lawyers don't just quit their jobs. We're taught to be responsible. We have commitments we can't walk away from—or so I believed. But after years of living a life that did not fulfill me, it
was time to make a decision. I could feel it in my heart. I could also feel it on my shoulder.

Growing up, I believed that success was achieved only by following a straight and narrow road. In Latino culture, being the eldest child means you have a duty to pick up where your parents left off when it comes to providing for your family. And that means becoming a responsible—and successful—adult. It means receiving a good education, establishing a stable career, finding a suitable spouse and eventually having children of your own. It does not mean pursuing an artistic career, especially if your parents happen to be city employees who view their creative endeavors as hobbies, not career paths.

So of course, I fell in love with acting—it just took a very long time for me to realize it.

As a child I thought I was destined to be a lawyer. I was inspired by Mrs. Huxtable on
The Cosby Show
. This bilingual sitcom mom was arguing in court by day and running a house full of kids by night. She was a strong, independent woman just like my mom, and she seemed to have it all.
That
was what I wanted. At the time, I didn't see the actress behind the role, and when I acted out scenes from the show, I thought of it as playing, nothing more.

As I got older, people in my life tried to show me that maybe I wasn't just “playing.” I never listened. My mother worked her ass off so that I could get a quality education, and I wasn't going to waste that on
the arts
. Instead, I did just as I planned. I majored in English in college—less because I loved to write, though I did, and more because a nun had come to my high school on career day and told us it was the best route for future attorneys.
Perfect
, I thought. Then, at long last, it was on to law school—
where I struggled every single day not to quit. A Puerto Rican girl from Brooklyn, I felt completely out of place among my peers. Still, I refused to give up. I prayed to God every day to help me on my road to “success,” happiness be damned. Somehow it didn't occur to me that my misery would follow me after graduation. I thought it was law school that had made me unhappy, not the entire legal profession.

Out in the real world, once again I was determined to make things work. While working as a litigator at a personal injury defense law firm, I networked with other lawyers who seemed to actually enjoy their jobs; I even looked into other areas of law, but every interview revealed I didn't have the experience or connections necessary to make a transition. I was stuck.

Desperate, I made a list in my journal of what might alleviate the unhappiness I was feeling—everything short of making a career change. I wrote, “I want a great apartment, a brand-new car and a loving relationship.” I checked off each item within a matter of months. From the outside, I was doing fantastically well! But—surprise, surprise—I still wasn't happy.

I threw up a corkboard in my bedroom and began a vision board. I cut out motivational words from magazines and images of people who inspired me. I thought this might help me discover what I really wanted, what gave me joy. Practicing law clearly wasn't it, and yet I didn't feel ready to give it all up. I had fought so hard to get where I was, and as a reward, I had a great lifestyle. Not a life, mind you, but a lifestyle. I had money to spend on designer bags, impromptu vacations and nights out on the town. I had the respect that comes with being called Counselor. I had the honor my family bestowed upon me for having “made it.” How could I say, “This just doesn't fit me anymore?”

Ashamed of what I perceived as my ungratefulness to God—after all, I had begged Him to get me through law school—I stopped praying. I shrugged off the blanket of His love from my shoulders and wrapped myself in my own shabby guilt. I was completely miserable, and I still couldn't figure out what I wanted.

So I started a blog where I chronicled my search for bliss, the writing of which became cathartic, and I began a small book group, thinking it could be another way to find some insight. Our first pick was
Eat Pray Love.
The moment I read these words of Elizabeth's, I was hooked: “I had actively participated in every moment of the creation of this life—so why did I feel like none of it resembled me? Why did I feel so overwhelmed with duty . . .”

Duty
. Oh. My. God. That was
me
. Someone else in the world understood what I was going through! I closed the book and held it close to my heart. Even though I wasn't talking to God at the moment, He knew what I needed and found a way to get Elizabeth's story to me.

Despite being raised Catholic, I've always been more spiritual than religious. Ever since an experience I had as a teenager at a Christian retreat, meditation—and the pulse of pure love and peace that came with it—has appealed to me. Elizabeth's experience in the ashram reminded me of this. Maybe meditative prayer could help me find my purpose. And it turns out, the more I meditated, the more I was able to listen to my inner voice. I began to realize that my actual “duty” should be to live a life that fulfills me, no matter what that looks like.

Throughout my journey of self-discovery, watching movies had become a welcome distraction, a way to quiet my mind for a
few hours and not obsess over the fact that I didn't know what I wanted. One day, while lying on the couch watching a riveting teen vampire flick, I got lost in thought. I began repeating the lines of the female protagonist out loud, feeling each word as it escaped my lips. Embarrassed, I snapped out of it and laughed at myself. Then, I suddenly remembered I had done this as a child—in fact, had done this for my entire life. One time my boyfriend had even seen me doing it and broke me out of my little trance by saying, “You want to be an actor, don't you?”

At the time I had denied this ridiculous observation. But now I wouldn't. I said out loud, “I think I
do
want to be an actor!”

Then I sat up and asked myself very seriously, “Do you
really
?”

And my inner voice, now stronger than ever, replied with a calm but resounding, “Yes.”

Holy crap.

I bolted from the couch into my bedroom and looked at the vision board on my wall. For the first time I saw how all the words, images and phrases I had chosen over the years—words like
film festival
,
writer
and
balance
; photos of actresses I loved—were all physical expressions of my desire to explore and develop my creative side. All this time, some part of me had clearly known what I wanted; I just hadn't been attuned enough to myself to realize it.

To my surprise, my mother was incredibly supportive of my realization, as was my sister, who insisted “she always knew,” and my told-you-so boyfriend. I had been wrong. My parents' life, as much as I respected it and the example they had set, didn't have
to be my own. I could be a success in a different way. The road, it turns out, wasn't straight and narrow at all. There were forks—if I was brave enough to take them.

I started slowly, just dipping a toe into the pool of professional acting. With each class I took, and every role I booked, I felt a growing sense of peace. Yet I still couldn't bring myself to completely walk away from my legal career.

•   •   •

T
here were advantages to still practicing law—it meant I brought greater insight and depth to my acting roles. And my life as an actor was making me a better litigator, since I now had a source of joy that powered me through my long days in court. But I was just going through the motions, literally and figuratively. I knew dividing my time this way wasn't going to be possible forever.

Finally, after about three years, I felt ready to stop testing the water. I wanted to swim.

Once I found the courage to ask God for guidance on that random Thursday afternoon, I was ready for the answer that followed. The same week I handed in my resignation letter, I booked the lead role in an off-Broadway play. Soon after, a short film I wrote, directed and starred in was accepted into a film festival. I was offered roles now without even having to audition! And even more important, I was moving people in the way I had dreamed. Audience members actually took the time to tell me how my film resonated with them, how my performance onstage moved them, how they could see I was glowing with happiness.

One year has passed since I said
adios
to the frenzy of Wall
Street (and that cheeky pigeon). Acting and directing, living a creative life that truly fulfills me—that's become my work.
Eat Pray Love
started me down a new path—this time, one of my own making—where I found the courage to follow my heart and not just my head. Thanks, Elizabeth.