The Beauty of Eat, Pray, Love

I don’t know about you but I love nothing more than to get engrossed in a good book.    I am always on the look out for stories that help me to piece together the enigma that is the “pursuit of pure beauty”.  Eat, Pray, Love took me seven giant steps closer to the truth and here’s why.

The book outlines the sometimes painful, sometimes comedic journey of Elizabeth Gilbert as she goes through a divorce and the torrent of mental turmoil that follows her decision to walk out on her marriage. It  is so open and honest that you feel like you are peering over the shoulder of her private diary with every page that turns.  It is so raw that you cry and laugh with her as she unpeeled the layers of heartache, despair and disillusionment that led to this dark corner in her life.  Yet the book is not depressing, not down-beat and not man-hating. It is not anti-marriage,  not advocating the “flee everything” quick fix or a ‘seek revenge’ mentality. It is as balanced and karmic as a Yogi standing on one leg on a high wire drinking a cup of tea.

I am lucky to have not (yet or hopefully ever (fingers crossed)) been through such a marriage crisis but I, like many other women have had those days when the brain is a fuzzy messed up ball of goo that won’t even function for long enough to find the kids socks, butter the bread or turn off the rice before it sticks.  Not to mention the times when work deadlines loom ominously close while the pen-hand, in an act of shear rebellion refuses to meet the paper with any civility.   I would not go so far as to label this malaise  ‘depression’  but I would heartily agree that it is all too easy to get over-committed, off-kilter and thoroughly exhausted in this 24-7,  “look how successful I am” kind of world. This book shows us all that we are not alone and for that reason I am in love with it!

What have I learned from Eat, Pray, Love?

• Smile all the way into your liver – no idea how to do this but I like the sound of it.
• Everyone has a ‘monkey mind’ when trying to meditate / pray.  Practice can tame these monkeys.
• We should not try to change our character to please ‘God’ (God being whomever you believe it to be). We must instead use our energy to perfect what we have got.
• Good food can’t cure everything but it is a start.
• I should have been born in India ( that one is personal, it’s my favourite place in the world).
• Friendship is golden. Say thank you graciously and give with all of your heart.
• Beauty starts and ends in the mind, the rest is just an interesting distraction.

I hope that you enjoy reading this book as much as I did, let me know what you think!