| The Spiritual Journey of Eat Pray Love | | Print | |
| Monday, 07 June 2010 01:01 |
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Finding the roots of oneself is a daunting task. Daunting, because we ourselves are the moving target … ever on the journey of change, ever with the need for balance.
Many of us have been called to self understanding, spiritual unfolding and to experience firsthand the diverse cultures of our amazing world. It seems that every season of our life offers us real challenges, challenges bigger than a positive outlook or friendly dragon can rescue us from. Like Elizabeth, when we reach deeply into our creative spark plugged minds – we sometimes find answers. I’m there today, with even more prayers mailed out and more courage necessary than yesterday. Julia Roberts will soon be portraying Elizabeth in the upcoming movie Eat Pray Love and perhaps, like her you were plunged into the rapids and came out surviving. Both the movie and the book provide us with the keys to bringing serenity in these times, as we fearlessly hold a faith in the natural flow. Divorce and its unfolding story carry a practice of letting go of who we thought we were and where we were going. The message is, with earnestness, we can awaken our true nature with profound transformational change possible. Life is full of mystery and unknown and it is in the unknown that we often find our healing. Elizabeth went, heading into the unknown and trusting the flow. She spoke to the idea that without pervasive spirituality in our lives, we block off experience, close down and become cynical. Opening ourselves up to a Higher Power is having the faith that there is a creative force in each of us that can see further than we can. The ultimate adventure is to get rid of the life that you have planned in order in have the life that’s waiting to be yours. What prevents us from taking action in a new direction? Answer: Every excuse under the sun. Elizabeth had the capacity for delight and was able to pay attention. If you want to see clearly the world you live in, remain open, keeping a sense of discovery. We can all be incorrigible learners. “Nothing is impossible for her-because she has let go.” Much of what Eat Pray Love is all about is what Carl Jung coined as the individuation process. Have we not all longed for the joy that comes from that kind of transcendent consciousness? One way to develop self awareness is to pay attention to the images that well up in the inner world through dreams and meditations. For example, our dreams can tell us things we need to be aware of or what we’ve been hiding from ourselves and even what we’re called to do. In the unconscious is creative energy and as we expand it, we become more alive and more complex. It is energy in the unconscious that shapes our journey and produces change. Beyond coincidence lies a world of deeper meaning that tries to speak to us in our dreams, visions, and synchronistic experiences. My most recent example of this has been one of Bee’s and the honeycomb reoccurring in all phases of my life. From several dreams, to receiving a bear dressed like a bee in the mail, to petting a bee, a bee being a chakra symbol, to meeting a bee at the grocery store, to being called Silver Bee. This is an active clustering of images, alive in the psyche that is magnetized with special meaning for me. Another way we experience the unconscious, is in the experience of synchronicity. We saw this in Elizabeth’s ever linking travel experiences in Italy, India and then Bali. Synchronicity is a relationship between events that are based on meaningful coincidence rather than cause and effect. Though you can’t make them happen, it seems these metaphysical experiences increase as one’s field of consciousness increases. When we see and respect these intuitive directives and synchronicities our perspective changes. “Synchronicity is God working autonomously.” So there is a correspondence of meaning between an inner thought, image, intuitive feeling and an outer event. The penetration of spiritual mysteries enlightens us as the boundary between self and environment vanishes. In fact, we’re surprised to see it was really a gift from deep inside ourselves. It’s easy to overlook the spiritual realities on our lives, but the psyche has the urge to connect and be made larger. Like a guiding light in a dark forest, if you’re awake to mystical experiences they can speak to you and in perspective offer you a depth of understanding and meaning. The mythological dimension of spiritual experience is often discounted as irrelevant or meaningless in our culture. The mystical experiences in Eat Pray Love were subjective to Elizabeth, but nevertheless impacted her as changes occurred in her inner life. You may have noticed in her journey, that the stronger her sense of self, the less frightening or confusing these experiences seemed. Great significance can be found in these symbolic spiritual experiences and adventures. Like Elizabeth, as we honor our callings, symbols and challenges, we honor our soul. An existential security develops when we have “spent journey time” in inner meditation and in the discovery of other cultures and other worlds. Like our real life heroine, we can take retreats to lighten our mind and voyages, allowing room for the unanticipated. Sterling Nelson is a global traveler, entrepreneur and psychotherapist. She is launching a transformational retreat for women in Bali, Indonesia. www.WakeUpinBali.com |
After reading Elizabeth Gilberts book Eat Pray Love, I felt like her sister, I guess I’d have to say her older sister, because her journey, the depression, the divorce and her devotion to knowing God is mine too. I‘ve even taken her suitcase journey to Italy, India and Bali, and as unique as each of our stories are, there are many women who have joined us on a path of tears, prayer and hope. What we love about Elizabeth’s Eat Pray Love is her lightness of being, her honest subtle humor and her adventurous spirit.