THANK YOU, Oprah. I am sure I will have more to say over the coming weeks about…

THANK YOU, Oprah. I am sure I will have more to say over the coming weeks about…

THANK YOU, Oprah.

I am sure I will have more to say over the coming weeks about what it's been like to be on Oprah's Life You Want Tour. But tonight, before I crash out, I just want to say this: I am being presented on this tour as some of teacher, but at every turn I find myself taking notes (emotionally, spiritually and literally) in the guise of a student.

When I am not speaking (which is the whole weekend, except for 45 minutes) I am sitting in the front row with my heart and mind wide open, and I am LEARNING…from Mark Nepo, from Rob Bell, from Iyanla Vanzant, from Deepak Chopra, from the brave audience members who rise to speak, from everyone who is there to share and to grow.

But mostly I am learning from Oprah Winfrey, who gives so much of herself to the world, from a place of such sincere grace and kindness and power. She is extraordinary. It is not new information for me to say this, and it should not be news for anybody to hear it, but I do need to say it: She is extraordinary. The more I see of her in public, and the more I see her in private, the more extraordinary she becomes in my eyes. You cannot say this about every hero you meet. (Trust me.) But you can say this about her.

I am growing, growing, growing because of these gatherings.

I was thinking today about something my friend Rayya Elias told me once, about when she was a junkie, and she kept thinking she had hit rock bottom….but there was always another rock bottom below that rock bottom, "always another trap door." There are times in our lives when we feel like this — when we feel like we just keep tumbling down through defeat after defeat after defeat…and there is no end to it. I have been there, too. (As Rob Bell said in his talk today, "The definition of despair is the belief that tomorrow is going to be exactly like today.")

But I realized today that it works in the other direction, too. There are just as many endless levels up as there are down. There are moments when we feel like we are pretty happy, that things are going well, that we are lucky and blessed, that we have learned our important life lessons, that we have settled into ourselves. But we aren't done yet. There is always a higher plane to which we can ascend. There is always another staircase going up. There is always more goodness to learn, more darkness to shed. More truth to realize. More room to grow. More wonder to be grateful for.

Today, I just feel like I climbed a rope ladder in my soul to an entirely new level.

Oprah did that.

I am grateful.

See you tomorrow, friends.

Love,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

GREEN DRESS #2 OK, guys — I’m heading over to the arena at Auburn Hills, MI, fo…

GREEN DRESS #2 OK, guys — I’m heading over to the arena at Auburn Hills, MI, fo…

GREEN DRESS #2

OK, guys — I'm heading over to the arena at Auburn Hills, MI, for the second stop of Oprah's The Life You Want Tour….and today I will be wearing THIS little green dress.

Because a girl can never have too many green cocktail dresses. Especially green cocktail dresses with insane Frida Kahlo parrot details like this baby here.

As my sister always taught me: "You have to dress well, or else your future won't take you seriously."

(SOME DAYS THIS IS MORE TRUE THAN OTHERS! Today is one of those days.)

🙂

ONWARD!

Heart,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

FRIDAY HOUSEKEEPING! Dear Ones – We get a lot of new people joining this Faceb…

FRIDAY HOUSEKEEPING! Dear Ones – We get a lot of new people joining this Faceb…

FRIDAY HOUSEKEEPING!

Dear Ones –

We get a lot of new people joining this Facebook page every day (thank you for joining our little community, new folks!) so once a week, I try to give everyone all the information they might want, about other places on the Internet to find me.

So let’s run down the list:

My website is https://ift.tt/sUqSyM. There, you can find information on all my upcoming events, see videos, read my thoughts on the writing process, and download book club guides to my books!

I have an email newsletter (where I always reveal my big news first, and sometimes run contests, when I remember to.) You can join the newsletter by clicking the icon on the left of this page called "LizNews" and signing up. (You can also sign up for LizNews on the homepage of my website.)

You can follow me on Twitter, where I basically just goof off, at: @GilbertLiz

You can follow me on Instagram (which I just started because some 14-year-olds told me to) at: Elizabeth_Gilbert_Writer

You can follow me on Pinterest (that addictive crack house, whose vortex I try not to tumble down too often because it’s a gorgeous suckhole) at: lizgilbertpins

And if you EVER want to buy to buy signed copies of ANY of my books, you can buy them online through the shop, Two Buttons, that I run in New Jersey with my husband (otherwise known as “that Brazilian guy”.) The link is right here: https://ift.tt/1pfR7PX

That is all, my dears!

(And yes, in all these various social media forums, it is actually ME doing the posting, the chatting, the responding, the pinning, the time-wasting. I like it. It’s fun. I like hanging out with you guys. I’m glad you like hanging out with me. Also, I have no children and my husband cooks, so I have plenty of extra time on my hands…)

?

Thanks for everything!

ONWARD,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall