Outside Reading - Week 7, Post B

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

WOW, I never could have imagined how much I would appreciate this book, and enjoy reading it, especially for a school book!!! I could not put it down. Hearing the experiences of Elizabeth Gilbert in her year long journey to find herself kept me enthralled for so many pages! She showed so much discipline while at the ashram by getting up so early and sitting still for so long with few social relationships. It seemed like such a daunting task to be so regimented and disciplined, but it turned out to be good thinking time. At first, it was very hard for Liz to practice these meditations, but she figured out how to block her negative and wandering thoughts, which taught her two things. One: that she was capable of doing what seemed impossible, good for character building and identity finding; and Two: the clear head provided a canvas for Liz to think about herself and what truly made her happy; another way to find herself. In comparison, she then went to beautiful Bali, Indonesia, where everyone is friendly and beautiful and read to help. There are many opportunities for relationships in Bali; mentor, friendship, and romantic relationships. Liz took the time to find a medicine man that she once met in Bali, he remembered her, and put her to good fun work keeping him company and teaching him English. Liz also found a friend Wayann (a healer she met through the medicine man) and they too started to visit daily. Liz was able to help her out by buying her a house, showing Liz her own generosity. Lastly, Liz met a Brazilian man Felipe through a friend of Wayann who absolutely adores her and is completely devoted to her, supporting her self and self esteem. It was a beautiful way to end the memoir of struggles: with solutions. As a final thought, as I was reading Eat, Pray, Love, I wondered to myself how Liz could recount each of these events with such detail, and have enough material for such a novel. For one, she funded the trip by selling the rights to the book before traveling, so she knew to keep detailed notes. Secondly, she had a journal that she would write in everyday, to track her deepest personal thoughts, a way to get everything bad out and only keep the good in. It proved as an excellent reference for this excellent novel.