"YOU DON"T GET WHAT YOU WISH FOR; YOU GET WHAT YOU BELIEVE."
Here's a photo from Oprah's The Life You Want Tour yesterday in Newark. THANK YOU with all my heart to everyone who showed up to my "hometown" event in New Jersey…oh my heavens, it was a crowd of angels in that arena!
And I wanted to share this quote, which Oprah said during her speech on Friday night: "You don't get what you wish for; you get what you believe." She followed that line with the observation, "A lot of people out there are just wishing…"
She spoke about her own journey out of 1950s aparteid-era Mississippi. She said she never believed anything that her external circumstances said about her life. She never believed that she was poor, that she had no value, that there was no place in the world or the media for someone who looked like her…she never believed anything except that she was a child of God, with a calling and a mission, and that her world was hers to create.
What do you believe about yourself, as opposed to what you simply wish for?
I was thinking about this yesterday — thinking about the years when I was an unpublished writer and a diner waitress in Philadelphia. Nobody would have envied my existence then, but I loved those years, because I was on fire with excitement about my own life. I believed in my own path, my own vocation, my own work. (Nobody else did, mind you, but I didn't much care.)
I believed back then that I was a writer, despite having absolutely no external corroboration to back it up. This is not to say that I thought I was a GREAT writer, but I knew I was a writer. And I knew I would never stop walking that path. In fact, I was walking my path ALREADY, because I wrote every single day, and with passion. The fact that I had to work 8 shifts a week bringing people their eggs and hashbrowns was just incidental, just what you gotta do to pay the bills. I was already a writer. This was what I believed, despite my pile of rejection letters, despite coming home from work smelling like kitchen grease every day. I believed it with all my soul, so I never quit.
Years later, I ran into a woman who had once been a customer of mine at the diner. She said, "I can't believe you were my diner waitress and now you're this serious writer!"
All I could do was smile. Because I knew what she could never have known — that I had ALWAYS been "this serious writer." All she had ever seen was some random chick in an apron, refiling people's coffee. But I had seen something else. I had believed something else. Always.
I became what I believed.
"Be careful what you wish for," people say — and maybe they are correct, because the wishing isn't enough, and the wishing can distract you from the BEING.
Lay your wishes aside for a spell, and look deep into what you believe about yourself. Make sure your beliefs about your own life are anchored in greatness, in holiness, in worth, in grace, in joy, in excitement —in internal certainties rather than external circumstances. Because that belief? That's where you're heading, no matter what it may look like on the outside.
ONWARD,
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
I nominate this for one of the most beautiful photos of THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS YET. Here it is (the UK edition) in Korea. Lovely!
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
After travelling around Turkey. Alma is finally in South Korea:) Lovely book for a lovely island in Korea. — at Namiseom.
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
Blue Blossom Dress…ready to go!
On my way over to the Prudential Center in Newark for the next stop on Oprah's The Life You Want Tour….and I'll be wearing this baby on stage!
Hometown crowd today in Jersey, you guys. Gotta bring the power.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
"IF PEOPLE LOVE YOU, THEY WANT YOU TO GROW."
Dear Ones —
I'm setting off for the next stop on Oprah's The Life You Want Tour — Newark! Practically my own hometown! I can almost walk to the arena!
JERSEY IN THE HOUSE!
(A photo of my Newark dress is coming tomorrow morning, by the way, dear ones…wait for it, it's gonna be sweet!)
I can't wait to see what I learn this weekend. When I'm not having my moment on stage, I'll be right down there in the front row again, notebook in hand, writing down all that the wisdom I can from these great teachers and from this passionate audience.
And I'm not the only speaker at this event who leans in hard to listen to the others, and who views these weekends as a chance to learn and to grow. Here's a photo I snapped last week of my fellow Trailblazer, the Pastor Rob Bell, in rapt attention as Oprah was talking about her life's journey.
Look at the focus in his face. That's how you conduct yourself as a student at the feet of a master. ("I never get tired of it," he told me later. Yup. Me, neither.)
I also wanted to share with you something Rob said last weekend, in answer to a question a woman asked him, about how to handle her friends and family who are resistant to her spiritual and emotional evolution in life. Rob said (and do lean in, everyone):
"If people love you, they want you to grow. If people don't want you to grow, then you can call the feelings that they have for you by many names. But you can't call it love."
ONWARD,
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
"YOUR FEAR IS THE MOST BORING THING ABOUT YOU"
…yikes!
Dear Ones –
Here's a short clip from Oprah's The Life You Want Tour in Washington DC last weekend. (OK, forget about the message for one shallow moment and enjoy the Cherry Blossom Dress in action! Hooray, Cherry Blossom Dress! OK, shallow moment over. Back to the message.)
It was (ironically) scary to make this statement to an arena of 10,000 people. It can be seen an uncharacteristically blunt statement from somebody like me, when I try to be as loving and gentle as I can, as often as I can. But when I accuse your fears of being boring, it is only because I know that mine are, too. I am confessing here to the utter boringness of my fears — which I have studied closely over the years — which I know are the same as yours.
We think our fears are precious and special, but they aren't.
WE are precious and special, but our fears are not.
I want us all liberated from the path of fear, for many reasons — but mostly because it makes for such a damn boring life.
Fear only ever tells you one thing: STOP.
Whereas creativity, courage and inspiration only ever want you to GO.
GO = motion = change = fascination = possibility = growth = LIFE.
STOP = well, nothing.
And nothing is always more boring than something.
So…go do something.
Is what I'm saying.
I say it with love.
LG
https://bit.ly/ZeQIo2
The One and Only Way to Move Past Fear
www.oprah.com
Does fear control you? Best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert knows that our hidden anxieties sometimes seem much more important than they really are. Watch to find out her surprising and inspiring advice on how to break free from an emotional prison.
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
