Fill Your Heart With Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Eat, Pray, Love'

This past Valentine’s Day, a couple of my girlfriends and I found ourselves with no dates. Depressed about the situation, I decided that I would have them over for a little get together. I had a fantastic bottle of wine, homemade spaghetti sauce with noodles, rich chocolate cake, and a little table for the three of us to sit and chat. We started eating and drinking at 6:30pm and by 1 AM we were shocked at the time. It seemed as though we’d been talking for just five minutes. During the course of our very long conversation about women, men, love, and sex (doesn’t it always come down to that?), my friend Melissa asked me if I had ever read a book called Eat Pray Love. She started going on about how this had made such an impact on her, so much in fact that she highlighted parts of the book, as well as made notes in the margins. Ironically, I had just been to Borders the night before and I picked up Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, not knowing anything about the book. I thought it was destiny that I read it immediately. By the way, it turned out to be one of the best Valentine’s Days I’ve ever had!

Elizabeth Gilbert’s world comes crashing down around her, and one morning at about 3am she finds herself in her bathroom, with her head on the floor, crying deeply. She has the perfect life on the surface. She is a successful writer, she has a faithful husband and a wonderful home in New York. The problem is, she wants a divorce from her husband. She can’t live her life anymore, it feels like a lie. The tumultuous feelings are ripping her apart, and she needs to do something before she literally goes insane.

When she splits from her husband she acquires a new boyfriend with whom she has an even more rocky relationship with. The divorce is so hard, and she loses pretty much everything to her ex husband. However, her world is about to change when she decides to make a difference in her life. She asks for help from God by prayer. Now, before I get any more involved in describing the book, I want to make it known that you don’t have to believe in God to believe in the power of prayer. If you decide that you don’t want to read this book because you are Atheist or against anything about ‘God,’ please think again. I do not believe in a Christian God but I found prayer, peace, love and a higher power through Gilbert’s experiences.

Gilbert decides that she has, through the course of years and decision making, lost herself somewhere. She wants to discover who she is again, and so she decides to take a year and travel to three places: Italy, India and Indonesia. She is fortunate enough to get an advance for the book that she would write while traveling, so she can afford to go even though the divorce takes so much from her.

Gilbert takes us on her journey through these countries and lets us experience what she does and meet the friends she makes. In Italy Gilbert stays in a little apartment and makes it her goal to learn to speak Italian. She meets various friends and starts to understand the Italian culture. She learns where the most magnificent places to eat are, and she pampers herself with wonderful pastries, pizza and pasta. She grants herself the permission to be emotional and learn from others, and she finds so much about herself in Italy. She is ready to go to India to spend most of her time praying.

When she arrives in India she stays with a group of people who meditate, at a sort of school-for-meditation. This part of her journey inspired me the most. Gilbert concentrates on mediation, and learns how it can lead her to be one with ‘God.’ Although it’s difficult for her to sit still at first, and sometimes the meditation drives her crazy, she manages to figure out how to find peace, love and higher power through meditation achievement. Her stay in India is truly inspirational.

When Gilbert goes to Indonesia, she meets up with a medicine man she has met before. They spend a lot of time together, and while he teaches her wisdom, she teaches his grammar and English. She meets several friends in Bali and even helps one of them with charitable donations from all of her friends in America. She learns to give of herself and take as well, and she discovers so much about the person she always was. It is in Indonesia that she finds balance.

Eat Pray Love is an exceptional woman’s story of self discovery. It shows the reader that it’s ok to be multi-faceted and to occasionally do something for the self, and not the ‘greater good.’ Gilbert relates to her readers in so many ways. She was unhappy for no apparent reason, she went through a divorce, she took anti-depressants for a period of time. She learned to love herself through friends and prayer, and she is truly an inspiration.

One of the cool things about Eat Pray Love is the way Gilbert discovers the cultures of the three countries. We learn as she learns. For example, it’s interesting that people in Bali basically have only one of four names. Each child is named after the Balinese words for First Child, Second Child, Third Child and Fourth Child, so they make up nicknames to tell one another apart. In Italy we learn that different regions have different foods and different ways of life. We learn how endearing a person’s village is, and how important the mother/son relationship is. In India we learn so many precious lessons that bring us closer to happiness. Gilbert will make her readers very curious about the art of meditation!

Personally, I really enjoyed Eat Pray Love. There were so many instances where I thought ‘Oh my, I’ve felt exactly like that, or ‘That’s happened to me before.’ I think that women around the world would appreciate this book and absolutely relate to it, and I highly recommend it.

5 stars