Liz Gilbert on Loving Without Losing Yourself  ## Metadata - Author: [[We Can Do Hard Things]] - Full Title: Liz Gilbert on Loving Without Losing Yourself - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/54f1638e-4d83-4a7f-9372-8d3a9776bac3 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Power Given Away Degrades You** - Liz Gilbert explains codependency as handing over your small but sacred margin of power to someone else. - That surrender degrades your sacredness and makes you serve another's will instead of your own. Transcript: Liz Gilbert Abdicate my power. So I want to talk about the word power. So one of the most beautiful things I ever heard anybody in recovery say was, I love this. She said, I am loved beyond measure by a God who has given me power over practically nothing. Let me say it again. I am loved beyond measure by a God who has given me power over practically nothing. But that tiny little margin of power, control, and will that I have been given, it's essential that I use it well and that I use it only in sacred and good ways. Not good in a moralistic way, but toward the creation of light, right? It's tiny, tiny, tiny little measure of control that I have, right? So what I do in my addiction is I take the teeny tiny, but incredibly sacred margin of power that I have over my life and I hand it to you. And I'm like, now you're in power over me. I'm giving you this. You have all the power over me now. So now my focus is entirely on you and whatever you want, I will serve. Whatever you say, I will do. Right. So I'm voluntarily, I mean, I remember the tremendous, strange, almost like, this is probably what heroin feels like feeling that I had when I left my marriage and I came to be with Raya And she was dying. And I was like, my purpose in life is so clear now. My only job is to serve her every need. Right. And this relief of like, I don't have to think, I don't have to feel, I don't have to make decisions. This incredibly powerful person is dying and I am her servant. And no one would begrudge me for giving her everything and doing everything for her because she has such a very, very, very, very short time to live. And God was like, we're not going to make it such a short time because I want you to see what happens when you do that, even for a short time. Because I was like, well, I can give all my power to somebody who's only got six months to live. And God's like, I'm going to let her live a little while longer so that you can see the same thing will happen as always happens. You will have a complete and utter degradation of your sacredness, right? So what I ([Time 0:03:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5971335e-af23-4e48-bdc8-9e212d7c5027)) - **Start With A Higher Voice** - Turn your life over to a higher voice first, then attend to yourself, and then others. - Anchor uncertainty by asking that higher voice what the right action is before acting. Transcript: Liz Gilbert So recovery looks like you turn that around, where it's like divinity is first, like God is first, honoring the sacred is first, turning your will and your life over to the care of a higher Power, finding that, listening to that, getting guidance from that, anchoring yourself in that, your day begins there. Every minute of uncertainty, you're like, you look above and within, like, what is the right action here? How can I be of service? What do you want me to do? ([Time 0:06:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/23b73108-c850-4b28-82e6-13c684dc0d48)) - **Practice Small Acts Of Self-Care** - Stop rescuing others and practice daily self-care tasks that restore your dignity. - Schedule small beneficial actions like a ten-minute walk to rebuild sovereignty. Transcript: Liz Gilbert We don't know how to take care of ourselves. Like that's why we're just constantly looking for a narcissistic kind of charismatic, sparkly person to pour ourselves into completely, you know? And so when I work with people in my program, it's like, we're going to make a list of things that you can do today that are beneficial for you. You know? And they're like, oh, I can't do, you know, like they're like, I don't have time. You know? But all these people I have to check on today. I don't want all these people I'm going to take care of. Like, I don't have time. It's like, you don't have time to go for a 10 minute walk in the sun by yourself. Speaker 3 You know? Liz Gilbert It's like this restoration of your own dignity, this restoration of your own sovereignty, Right. ([Time 0:08:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/17377827-68fc-47f7-b309-ad62567323e0)) - **Giving A Home Fueled The High** - Liz recounts offering her renovated church as a boundaryless home to Raya and watching Raya weep in gratitude. - That response fed Liz's addiction to being needed and validated by others. Transcript: Liz Gilbert I still want to do this. It's something that I still love the idea of. But what I did was I was like, you can come and stay here. But it was boundaryless. It was like, you can come and stay here forever. You can come and stay in my house for free. You can come and stay here forever. And I remember, and I write about it in the book, her coming out there that day. We didn't know each other that well. And she was standing in the middle of this beautiful old church weeping. And she was like, why are you giving this to me? Glennon Doyle She said that. Why would you give this? Liz Gilbert You barely know me. You don't even know me. Why are you giving this to me? And like, oh my God, I was so high on that. I'm watching her cry. I'm watching her gratitude. I'm watching her be overwhelmed with the world can be a place of kindness and not just a place of suffering. It's like, oh, this is so good. And I get to be the one who says, I am giving this to you because I'm such a good person. I mean, I didn't say that, but I was like, I'm giving this to you because you deserve it. And because you used to have this note, she was deserving of safety and love and home. ([Time 0:14:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7fdcd513-05f5-4969-992b-10db155b3238)) - **People Can Choose Their Own Lives** - Liz's sponsor reframed assumptions: people can take responsibility for their own lives even if they choose not to. - The key distinction is between can and will. Transcript: Liz Gilbert And I'm like, no, obviously not. I am their higher power. Do you believe that they have the resources to find their own solution in life? She was like, Liz, sit up, look at me. I need to ask you a question. And I, I really, she's just like laughing. She's like, I really need to know, just tell me the truth. Are you aware that people can take responsibility for their own lives? And I was like, no, I have no experience with seeing this. Are you therapist? Why do you have such a good business? This is what I said. And I was like, and I just said, on what basis are you saying this? Like, what evidence do you have to support this? I see no evidence of this. Right, right, right. And she said, I have years of evidence to see this. I have years of evidence of watching people decide to take full accountability for their own journey. ([Time 0:19:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/79bf0b5b-a5aa-4d66-b8b9-00443d395e68)) - **Use A Mantra To Empower Others** - Use a mantra to resist rescuing and to empower others: "I have complete faith in your ability to solve your own life." - Repeat it silently to hold boundaries and restore others' agency. Transcript: Liz Gilbert I have complete faith in your ability to solve your own life. I have complete faith in your ability to solve your own life. I have complete faith in your ability to solve your own life. It's a mantra that she has to keep saying. And not only does that keep her from leaping in to disempower someone by saving them. It does do that. It gives them back. What that mantra does, I have complete faith in your capacity. I have complete faith in your ability. I have complete faith. One of the things I'll say to my friends is like, I believe in your resourcefulness. You've lived this long, you know? Like, so if I got an email today saying somebody's struggling and they're in trouble and they need their friends, I've trained myself to be like, I would read that email now and I say, I have complete faith. Of all people, I would have complete faith in real Elias's resourcefulness to be able to find solutions for her own life. Right. Which might include asking for help or guidance. ([Time 0:30:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a8c67b12-44d4-4f03-802d-5f2fc30fb9cf)) - **The Unfillable Hole Seeks The Infinite** - The "God-sized hole" is an endless source of belonging that finite people and things cannot fill. - Seeking a living, nonexhaustible source restores freedom and ends ravenous searching. Transcript: Liz Gilbert It's the everything it's the what the yogis would call the atman it's the dao it's the way. It's the universal, eternal. It's the thing that cannot be extinguished. It's the thing that cannot be, that will never run out, right? You run out of drugs. You run out of energy to work. You run out, like I exhaust people, Glennon. Everyone I've ever been with in a romantic relationship is like, I am exhausted from trying to get you to believe that you are lovable. It's exhausting for people, right? I need to go to a source that does not run dry. And that is not me and that is not you, but it is in us and we are of it, right? So the way I describe the hole, the empty, vast, what we call in the rooms, the God-sized hole, like I've got this vacancy in me that I keep trying to fill with other things, people, places, And things. It works for sort of a minute. It's like a little snack, but it's ravenous. Yes. The hole is ravenous. No one can fill it. But then there's something in the universe that doesn't end, that is never tired of me, that I can't bore to death, that doesn't get exasperated with me, that delights in communion with Me. ([Time 0:36:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/327ce068-faf3-4ba0-82dc-b9425b2a3b87)) - **Offer Your Fixation Willingly** - Try everything life offers but come to the infinite willingly when you're done experimenting. - Offer your old fixations to that higher intelligence without asking for them back. Transcript: Liz Gilbert Because when you come to me, I want you to come to me without a thought in your mind that's like there might have been something else I could have tried. Like make sure, go try it. Go see. And have all those experiences. And when you've had enough and you're still exhausted and hungry and empty and lonely, come to me and let me show you what I have for you. But come to me willingly. Willingly. Yeah. ([Time 0:42:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/108d78c4-5895-438a-8c73-54749820b90e))