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THOUGHT OF THE DAY: “Have the courage to do what you need to do before you are F…

Sep 14, 2014

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: "Have the courage to do what you need to do before you are FORCED to do it."

Dear Ones –

Iyanla Vanzant was incredible yesterday at Oprah's The Life You Want Tour. Like: ON FIRE. She's a speaker of the truth, and I love it. So much of what she has to teach is about ultimate self-accountablity, and as she spoke I had more than a few moments of electric self-recognition about things I have done in the past (or am still doing!) that invite mess and dysfunction into my life.

Let me quote one particularly resonant passage of her speech:

"Have the courage to do what you need to do before you are FORCED to do it. And when you are forced to do it, don't get mad at the people who forced you to do it."

Does this make as much sense to anyone else out there as it does to me? Does it remind you of yourself as much as it reminded me of me?

I don't like conflict. I aim for appeasement. I often dodge the chance to directly address problems early on, because I hope the problems will go away. I deny and I duck and I put my hands over my ears and say, "La-la-la-la-la." And then, guess what? Sometimes those problems don't away. In fact, they blow up in my face — often through another person's reflexive or angry action. And then I think, "God, what a mess that person has made in my life!" When in fact that person was just acting out in a dysfunctional manner because of a completely screwed up scenario that I had allowed to continue for far too long — because I didn't have the courage to address it earlier. It is not their fault that things got messy; it is my fault that I didn't clean up my own house sooner.

I started to learn a long time ago that if we don't take action in our lives, action will be foisted upon us — and you might not like how it plays out. You may stay passive as much as you like, but destiny will not rest. If you sit there long enough and do nothing, shit will go down, anyhow. So you can either change bad situations yourself, or you can wait for them to detonate upon you (on someone else's terms)…but it's probably better if you take it in your own hands sooner.

I am still learning this. I can see messy things that happened in my life this very year, because I didn't want to cope with problems sooner. I'm not beating myself up here about it. (Nor should you.) It's over. (As Iyanla says: "If it's in the past…you passed.") But I took note of this idea yesterday, and told myself, "Liz, stay alert. Heads up. Start speaking your truth sooner. You've been put on watch."

And this is how we learn and grow.

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

ONWARD,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

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

Sep 13, 2014

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…

Sep 13, 2014

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