Elizabeth Gilbert: How To Stop Manifesting TOXIC Love & ATTRACT Healthy Relationships

Enjoy this enlightening conversation with the inspiring Liz Gilbert, bestselling author of "Eat, Pray, Love". Liz opens up about her journey through love addiction, codependency, and finding spiritual sobriety. She also shares profound insights on developing a relationship with unconditional love, setting healthy boundaries, and prioritizing emotional wellbeing. Liz also discusses her new project "Letters from Love" and how she's learning to rest and receive support. Her vulnerability and wisdom on topics like God, relationships, and self-care make this a must-listen episode for anyone on a path of personal growth. IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:How Liz overcame love addiction through 12-step recovery and developing a relationship with a higher powerWhy prioritizing your health and mission over romantic relationships can lead to more fulfilling partnershipsThe importance of having a community and not relying solely on a romantic partner for all your needsHow writing daily letters from unconditional love can be a powerful spiritual practiceWhy learning to rest and receive support is crucial for long-term wellbeing and creativityFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1681For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Rupi Kaur – https://link.chtbl.com/1678-podDr. Rahul Jandial – https://link.chtbl.com/1249-podMarisa Peer – https://link.chtbl.com/1563-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I've spoken very openly about identifying as a sex and love addict. I was trying to find what is the formula? Who do I have to connect with that this is gonna work? That this great echoing God-sized hole within me? This deep unsolvable problem of never feeling like there's enough love? Elizabeth Gilbert.

• 0:20Lewis Howes?

  She is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love.

• 0:25Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Author, seeker, and spiritual trailblazer Elizabeth Gilbert is here. And I'm a good manifester. You're a good manifester too. In the realm of romantic and intimate connection, I've gotten what I wanted. I've gotten who I wanted at times.

• 0:39Lewis Howes?

  And it didn't work.

• 0:40Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And it's almost killed me. What would unconditional love want you to know today? If it could speak to you? It's gotten me through the hardest things in my life. It's gotten me through two divorces. It's gotten me through an addiction crisis. It's gotten me through the death of the most important person in my life. This is who you are. You are this being who is loved. And that is it.

• 0:59Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:00Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I lost myself in that before she died. So I lost both of us. I lost me and I lost her.

• 1:07Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's like the death was almost an afterthought to the great loss of both of us to our own unhealed trala.

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So you're looking for people to be the solution.

• 1:18Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Always.

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  But it wasn't. What was the solution?

• 1:20Elizabeth Gilbert?

  The solution is...

• 1:26Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Liz Gilbert, who I feel like we've only hung out four times, maybe?

• 1:34Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:35Lewis Howes?

  I don't know, but for whatever reason, I feel very connected to you. I feel like you're like a sister, a bigger sister to me. I feel a sense of, maybe everyone says that about you because they're so connected to your message and your words and your content and your books. Probably everyone says that about you, like they feel like they know you very well. But I truly feel energetically that we have a great connection. And I hope that we can hang out more in the future because it's been almost seven years since I've seen you.

• 1:59Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I know, isn't that crazy?

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 2:01Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's so hard to believe. I feel the same way about you. And if I had the height and strength and capacity to pick you up the way you always picked me up, when you see me, I would pick you up as my baby brother. So I just want you to know that I'm doing that in my heart, even if I can't physically do it.

• 2:17Lewis Howes?

  You picked me up emotionally. You picked me over your heart. I love that. I love that. I'm so excited that we're doing this because the last time you on was what seven, eight years ago, I guess.

• 2:27Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, I think it was like eight years ago.

• 2:28Lewis Howes?

  A while ago. And a lot has happened in your life.

• 2:31Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 2:32Lewis Howes?

  I reference you a lot in different interviews because you, for a number of reasons, but the one reason that I remember you specifically saying, I can't remember if it was a TED Talk or if you said it on my show, but I remember you talking about after Eat, Pray, Love came out, you know, maybe it was a year or two later, you thinking and saying like, this may be my biggest hit ever. And being hard to like, how do you bounce back after a big success? So I reference that a lot because I think when people kind of make a big hit that seems like out of nowhere, I always say, go listen to what Liz talks about because she's an expert in this subject and how to really create an identity for yourself after a big success or a big hit and things like that. So I reference you a lot. But today,

• 3:17Lewis Howes?

  I want to talk about love, love addiction, overcoming love addiction, manifesting love, and all these things that you're an expert now, I guess, from the different ups and downs in love and relationships, challenges, beauties that you've been through. And it's been an interesting journey for you in the last seven years, or really 10 years, I guess.

• 3:40Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like 54 years.

• 3:42Lewis Howes?

  But in terms of like what you've learned about love, attracting love, uncoupling, you know, addiction, all these different things, which I don't think people thought you were, knew you as, but now you're starting to speak about more. You've got an amazing platform, these love letters that you've been putting out in the world for the last year as well. That's kind of like, I guess, your therapy of expressing some of these things and allowing people to express their definition of love and their life in love. Can you share first about that and what that is? And then I'd love for you to share. Afterwards, kind of your three big lessons about love and love addiction that you've learned about in the last few years.

• 4:27Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Great, let's go, let's go right into it. So let me start by talking about this project that I've been doing that you're going to be part of, that makes me so happy. And it's on Substack, which is a sort of social media blogging platform that a lot of writers are shifting to recently, as a way of getting away from the venomous poisonous snake that is social media that has infected all of our brains. A way to, it's almost like a reverse technology. It's like 1990s blogging. And I've been looking for ways to get off social media while at the same time being able to connect with people. And I've also been looking for ways to teach this practice that I've been doing for almost 20 years

• 5:09Elizabeth Gilbert?

  that is the foundational spiritual practice of my life. And that is, every morning, I write myself a letter from the spirit of unconditional love, starting with this prompt. And the prompt is, Dear Love, what would you have me know today? And then imagining, it starts as an act of imagination, but over time, it actually becomes an act of listening and sort of downloading. But let's say we start with imagination. What would unconditional love want you to know today if it could speak to you? And it's so extraordinarily healing. It's so the opposite of the perfectionistic, brutal, I call it the internal terrorist

• 5:53Elizabeth Gilbert?

  self-talk that most of us were raised to think is a perfectly normal way to talk to ourselves. And what tends to come out in those letters is this spirit of tremendous gentleness of, you're perfect just the way you are. I've got you, I'm with you. It's all the things that essentially I've always wished that somebody else would say to me.

• 6:15Lewis Howes?

  Like a mother or father would say to you.

• 6:16Elizabeth Gilbert?

  A mother, a father, a partner, a friend, you know, that somebody would just say like, I've got you, and I'm here with you, and I'm not going anywhere. And you actually don't need to improve, or change, or perfect yourself in order to earn this love. It can't be earned, it can't be lost, it's got nothing to do with performance. It's just your birthright. Like, I've, this is, this is who you are. You are this being who is loved, and that is it. And I can't hear it enough, you know? And it's gotten me through the hardest things in my life. It's gotten me through two divorces, it's gotten me through an addiction crisis, it's gotten me through the death of the most important person in my life.

• 7:00Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like, through all of this, one day at a time, there has been this voice that's accessible that's like, "It's all right, it's all right, it doesn't matter. I don't need you to succeed, I don't need you to not fail." So I started this Substack community called Letters From Love, where I'm teaching people how to do this practice, how to write themselves letters from unconditional love. And it is so astonishing. One of the things that I find incredible about it, we've got, it's been 13 months since I started it, we have almost 130,000 people doing this now. And they post their letters on this newsletter, so I can read the letters that unconditional love is writing to them. And here's the wild thing, they're hearing the same voice I'm hearing,

• 7:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  which makes me think like, "Oh, we're all tuning into the same radio station." Something is saying to all of us, "You're my child, you're my beloved, you can't do this wrong. I've got you, it doesn't matter, I'm right here." And, and it's so beautiful to see this messaging being echoed across all of these people who need it just as much as I need it, as much as we all need it.

• 8:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  Who do you think is saying this to you?

• 8:13Elizabeth Gilbert?

  The cosmos. You know, I, I think love is saying it.

• 8:19Lewis Howes?

  What is love?

• 8:20Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I think we know it when we hear it. I think there've been times when I've asked that voice, are you God? And it has said, no, I'm love. I'm included in God. And I've said to that voice sometimes, are you Rea, my partner who died seven years ago? And it says, no, I'm love. I was included in Rea. But I'm not Rea. God is bigger than that. God, I think, is more than just love. I think God is the great mystery that's beyond the beyond the beyond. But love is, is something else. And I think a lot of times I've tried to sort of game.

• 9:03Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I've tried to sort of game it by treating it like it is God and saying like when, especially when I'm in the midst of a terrible crisis or a horrible dilemma, saying to it, what's going to happen? How is this going to end? Like, what does the future hold?

• 9:16Lewis Howes?

  But love can't answer that.

• 9:18Elizabeth Gilbert?

  No, it's not. And love has said to me very directly, that's not my department.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  Right. I'm not God.

• 9:22Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's not my department. I don't know. I have no idea what the future holds, but I know that I'll be with you through it. Like you want whatever's coming, you won't go through it alone, even if everyone else leaves. Even if you end up living under a bridge, wearing a plastic bag and spitting at people who walk by, I'll be with you in that. Like, so whatever happens, like no matter how disastrous it'll be. And I remember one time in a moment of terrible crisis, saying to love on the page, when will this end and how will it end? And love was like, I don't have any more of an idea than you do, but I'm with you. And I remember in my anger saying, if you can't tell me how this is going to end, and

• 10:03Elizabeth Gilbert?

  you can't tell me when this is going to end, and you can't tell me what to do, what use are you? And love said, I am company and comfort in your darkest hour. So that you don't have to go through this alone. And I've learned so much about how to be present to people when they are in their darkest hour through the way that unconditional love speaks to me. I can now sit with somebody when they're in their deepest emergency and they're asking those questions. Why is this happening? When is this going to end? What am I supposed to do? And instead of leaping into my codependent advice giving, which is always driven by panic on my part, I can actually access that voice that says, I actually don't know. I don't know what's going to happen.

• 10:48Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I don't know when this is going to end, but I'm here with you.

• 10:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm here for you right now.

• 10:53Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I'm here with you.

• 10:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:54Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow. It's interesting, what's coming up for me is two things as you're saying all this. I grew up in a Christian religion that on the wall it just said, God is love. So every time I went to church, I just saw God is love, just right in front constantly. And, um, but what I'm hearing you say, God might be love, but love doesn't mean it's God, right? It's part of God.

• 11:15Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah. God is a lot of things.

• 11:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 11:18Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Including a big question mark.

• 11:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly, right?

• 11:21Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And love is a very specific thing.

• 11:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. And another thing that's coming up for me is about three and a half, four years ago, I started doing my own healing journey. I've been on a healing journey for 10 years really, but three and a half, four years ago, I went on a deeper journey to really heal the inner child inside of me. The parts of me that I thought I'd done the healing work because I started opening up about sexual abuse, you know, 10 years ago, and I thought I'd done the work, but I hadn't really done it. And weekly I was seeing a coach and therapist to support the journey for me to heal about three and a half, four years ago. And after about six months, um, she had me doing exercise where I was alone, you know,

• 12:05Lewis Howes?

  in my bed and I was reconnecting literally with the five-year-old in me, right in front of me. Like I put myself in a spiritual ceremony to see, you know, five-year-old Lewis and all the fears and insecurities and doubts and uncertainties that he had, therefore I had, have. And I created a new relationship with him to where I said, I've got you. I'm here for you. Even if we're alone in the side of a bridge spinning at people as an adult in this relationship, I am now here for you. I've got your back. Whereas I've been carrying this child inside of me and just he was still wounded and afraid,

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  but I didn't have his back. And I started to learn how to heal, mend, create meaning to where I was able to integrate him in me and love him fully. And I think most of my life I was angry at the past. And it doesn't mean I still don't like things that happened, but I've learned to love all the parts of me, which creates more peace inside of me. And that's just something that was coming up for me, those two things, as you were speaking about this, you know, even if we're alone, like, love is gonna be there. And I think, how have you learned to cultivate the love so that you can actually receive it and know that you are loved?

• 13:28Elizabeth Gilbert?

  The word I'm hearing right now, as I, and I love that you share this with people, especially for the men who follow you, it's so important. And the word I'm hearing is trust. And when I met my own inner wounded child and did a very similar kind of work and looked into her eyes, she had the stare of a, like, three tours of duty soldier.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow, very traumatized, PTSD.

• 14:00Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And worse, hopeless.

• 14:04Lewis Howes?

  Really? Where do you think that came from, that trauma?

• 14:07Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Constant re-abandonment. So every time I abandoned myself, I abandoned that kid. And the way that I've dealt with her pain and her trauma and her need and her insecurity and her desire to have somebody love her is to try to outsource it. Like, I gotta make somebody, I gotta find somebody who's gonna take care of this kid, you know, and I'll do whatever I need to do, you know, physically, sexually, emotionally, like, whatever you need me to perform so that you step in the role of the caregiver of that child. And so I'm constantly trying to find someone who will take that on, because for most of my life, I felt like she was too much for me, because she was too insecure, she was too frightened, she was too, you know, and I'm like,

• 14:50Elizabeth Gilbert?

  here you do, I'm constantly handing her off to people.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  Really? So the adult, you never took care of her?

• 14:56Elizabeth Gilbert?

  No, I kept trying to get other people to do it, you know, and then, and then re, and then recreating the abandonment wound, and then recreating the rage, who's got me, right? Because constantly being like, damn, I thought that person had me, and they don't. And and then getting really angry when people would say you have to learn how to love yourself because I was like, I want someone else to do this. Like, I've been taking care of this kid. I was told from very early childhood, you're on your own. Take care of yourself. Like, I don't want to hear that message again. You're on your own. Take care of yourself. I want you to take care of me. Like, I'm tired. You do it. And that's a very understandable thing to want. But the problem with that is that

• 15:39Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I keep setting that kid up to get abandoned again.

• 15:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And until I took full stewardship for her and said, okay, I've got you. Like, what you always needed was an adult for whom you were their first, second, last, and final priority. Right? So you are now my priority. And one of the things when I had a conversation with my inner child, one of the things she said to me was, I don't trust you because you constantly, you will always abandon me to make everyone in the family feel comfortable. You'll always abandon me to get approval from other people. You'll always abandon me to take care of others. And I was like, kid, you are absolutely right about that.

• 16:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:23Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I'm not asking you to trust me because you shouldn't. And I have done that again, and again, and again. But I'm asking you to watch me. Like, they say to children, like, don't tell them to trust you. Just let them see you do things that are trustworthy.

• 16:38Lewis Howes?

  Consistently, yeah.

• 16:39Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I was like, we're changing the rules around here.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:41Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And every time I set a boundary, every time I don't allow us to be in the room with a toxic or abusive person, every time I don't people please, every time I say no and prioritize our self-care, that kid is like, oh, wait, you really do have my back?

• 16:55Lewis Howes?

  I believe you more and more.

• 16:56Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like, you really are my mom?

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:59Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, I'm like, yeah.

• 17:00Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, we're in such a similar journey right now. When did this start, this breakthrough start for you? Like, when you started to say, okay, I have to start showing my inner child that I am trustworthy over time? When was that breakthrough?

• 17:13Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like four years ago, I started, I've been in 12-step recovery for a while, but I started going to ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families. And that's what ACA is all about. It's like all about reparenting. And it's really traumatizing work. Like, I've never seen anyone go through the ACA 12 steps and work the ACA program where they didn't unleash just everything they never wanted to feel again. All the places, the last place you want to look, the last thing you want to see, the last, it's like, no, I've spent my entire life building a Chernobyl bunker around this to make sure this stuff never, ever comes out. And in that program, it's like, well, we're gonna have all that come out.

• 17:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:56Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And then we're gonna teach you. It's almost like, I think of the ACA work as like, the way I see it, like, they talk about the inner child and the inner teenager. So I've got an inner child who I'm constantly re abandoning. And then I've got an inner teenager who's furious at me for constantly re abandoning the child.

• 18:13Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 18:13Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Who wants to act out in all sorts of teenager-y ways, who's like, well, I know how to feel better. You know, this substance, this person, this activity, you know, and like, so it's reestablishing. I'm learning how to parent a child and a teenager. And essentially, I'm like a deadbeat mom who's like bent off, you know, just like doing really dumb with like a bunch of very unsavory characters and leaving these kids alone.

• 18:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 18:37Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And now I've been reunited with my kids and I'm like, okay, we're all gonna learn how to be a family now? And it's like I'm going to the YMCA and taking parenting classes. That's what I feel like ACA is. And learning how to be responsible to myself rather than constantly wanting to outsource that responsibility to somebody else.

• 18:56Lewis Howes?

  Are you diving into a lot of Dick Schwartz's stuff with Internal Family Systems?

• 18:59Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Love, love, love, love him. Yeah, absolutely. And it's painful.

• 19:03Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 19:03Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And it's painful, like, it's painful to have these parts who don't trust me, although they do now. You know, and when I, when I do my old tricks of like, overworking, serving other people more than myself, self-abandoning, my teenager shows up and she's like, I can't believe you just said yes to these and you're not even taking care of us. And I'm like, you're right, you're right, I'm doing it again. Still learning how to be a parent. Let me cancel some stuff, you know, like.

• 19:33Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, man, this sounds so familiar for just what I've been going through because I think. It sounds like for you, it's been similar to me is

• 19:45Lewis Howes?

  when you feel not enough, or you feel like you've been abandoned, you really want people please and over people please and change who you are so that other people like you or love you or will be with you.

• 19:56Elizabeth Gilbert?

  What do I have to do to get the love?

• 19:58Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, I know, right?

• 19:59Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Anything, anything.

• 20:00Lewis Howes?

  It was, it was one of the most painful things that I've had to learn, which is to say no over the last four years. And it was, it kind of all came out. Once I realized this and started the healing journey, I was like, I am doing so many things I don't want to do, or that my inner child or teenager doesn't want to do. But I do them because of old patterns and old habits. And it was about a year and a half of me saying no and kind of like, oh, just the, the emotions of like, what are they going to think? And people aren't liking me and they're getting upset at me and all these things. And just being firm in that where I created my own boundary. And four years ago, I used to get like rashes on my body. It was almost like the inner child was screaming at me. And I remember being like, do I have some disease or something?

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  And I got every test, every allergy test I could do, blood work, sexual disease test. I did everything and I was clean and I go, what is wrong? Why am I have these rashes just coming out everywhere? And right when I started the boundary setting process, it went away. And my therapist was like, this is the child inside of you screaming, trying to get your attention.

• 21:04Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Crawling out of your skin.

• 21:05Lewis Howes?

  Crawling out of your skin for you to create boundaries for all of you. As weird as this might sound.

• 21:11Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Doesn't sound weird to me, Louis.

• 21:12Lewis Howes?

  I know, but for someone watching, but what are you talking about these people inside of you? But like the five year old, the eight year old, the 16 year old that's like screaming at me as an adult, like, help us. Take care of us, not everyone else.

• 21:24Elizabeth Gilbert?

  We need you.

• 21:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, don't go, please these people, please us first. And you might upset people or they may not like you or want to be your friends, but at least you're friends with all of you first. And I think that was one of the hardest lessons in the last four years is upsetting and disappointing so many people.

• 21:41Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's so hard.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  And shrinking my friend group to like five friends that I hang out with consistently, you know? And just being like, okay, if these people don't understand, I'm going to have a good intention and do the best I can, but I can't please everyone all the time. Sometimes I can and I'll show up in certain moments, but not yes, yes, yes, all day long.

• 21:59Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 21:59Lewis Howes?

  And it's been a beautiful, painful, but beautiful. And peaceful other side. And then the more I practice it, the better I feel. But it's still not easy.

• 22:09Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Can I ask you a question? Have you found that there are some people who, when you say, "Listen, I have to say no to this because I'm so overextended and I've been getting sick and I need to rest and I need to take care of myself," that they're like, "I'm so proud of you."

• 22:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 22:25Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, those are your friends.

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course, yeah. Don't take it personally.

• 22:27Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and the same thing for other people.

• 22:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Every time a friend that says no, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm so happy for you."

• 22:32Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Even like, here's a good example. You know, the letters of love, like, that's something I think I agreed to like, I don't know, six weeks ago. But I was like, "Oh, man, I've got my event, so I need to make sure that, can I get it done before the event?" And I was just like, "Okay, if I have to delay this and I'll do it after the event. And if Liz is upset, then she's upset, but I've got to take care of me." Even the little thing, you probably didn't even think about it, right? But it's like, we've got to make sure we're taking care of ourselves and, and really communicate yeses and nos and be okay if people are disappointed or not. And just be okay with them being upset.

• 23:07Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know why this becomes a community service? Because for anybody who's like, "That just sounds like a very self-absorbed way to live." I heard somebody say something recently in a 12-step meeting and I was like, "Whoa, that is so accurate." The greatest harm that I've ever done to other people was through me not knowing how to take care of myself. Because if I don't take care of myself, a few things are going to happen. I'm going to lose my mind. I'm going to become super needy, super clingy and super manipulative. Because I'm going to try to get my needs met through you. And that means I'm going to be objectifying you and using you as a parental replacement, a like,

• 23:55Elizabeth Gilbert?

  A sex toy.

• 23:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 23:57Elizabeth Gilbert?

  A sleeping pill, an unpaid therapist. You know, whatever the need, this huge yawning need in me, I will, parts of me will go out there and try to get that need met. You know, so either I can figure out how to get that need met, or like that teenager's going to figure out how to get that need met. And all the amends that I've ever had to make to anybody in my life for the grave harm that I brought to them were because I didn't know how to take care of myself.

• 24:22Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 24:23Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And, and so I had harmed them, blamed them, used them, manipulated them, you know, tried to force them to be something that they couldn't be, become infuriated and enraged when they couldn't do it.

• 24:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 24:38Elizabeth Gilbert?

  When they couldn't deliver, cheated on them because if they couldn't do it, I'm going to go find somebody else who can, you know, like all of it. And so where self-care becomes not so much a sort of new age catchword, but a, but a deeply humanitarian public service is Byron Katie said it so well, nobody is safe from me when I need them that much.

• 25:00Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 25:01Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Nobody is safe from me, right? So I actually want, as, as somebody who loves, genuinely loves humanity, I want to be somebody who people are safe around. And if I'm not taking care of myself, I am an unsafe human being for anybody to be in any relationship with, whether it's a momentary relationship or, or a romantic relationship.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I mean, you've talked publicly about kind of your, your love life and your relationships and books and, you know, talks and everything. Um, you said you were married and divorced twice?

• 25:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:31Lewis Howes?

  What did you learn after the first marriage into the second marriage?

• 25:36Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Nothing. No, that's not true. I was a much better second wife than I was a first wife.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 25:42Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Um, but, you know, I, I haven't really learned anything till recently.

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 25:48Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, and I-

• 25:49Lewis Howes?

  You're just repeating patterns.

• 25:50Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Hundred, hundred percent. So I've spoken very openly about identifying as a sex and love addict. And I go to a room for that. I go to a 12-step program for that. Um, it took me until I was 50 to find out that there was a room for that. And I spent decades, and I mean untold thousands of dollars, sitting in therapeutic situations with, you know, it wasn't like I wasn't trying to be different. You know what I mean? Like I was paying a lot of people to try to help me not be like the way I am. And no one ever said-

• 26:23Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You're a sex and love addict.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 26:25Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And there's a room for that. There's a 12 step room for that. And here's a phone number. Look this, you know, go get yourself some help. Because there's so much secrecy around it. Because I think especially for women, there's a tremendous amount of shame. But my acting out was nuts, Louis. I mean, you mentioned that I was divorced twice, but I actually recently had lunch with my old couples therapist, who's a wonderful, brilliant couples therapist. Who I, and I said to him, Mark, have you, did you ever have anyone else who was a patient of yours, who brought three different people to see you over the years? And he was like, nope. And I was like, and none of them were my husband. Like, none of them were the people I was married to. That was like between my marriages, that I was bringing, you know, and he was like,

• 27:10Elizabeth Gilbert?

  yeah, I don't think I have ever had anybody bring in three different relationships and say, please make this work for me. And he said, I have to hand it to you though, Liz, they were all so different, the people.

• 27:21Lewis Howes?

  You were the same.

• 27:23Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, he's like, I really admired the fact that like, and I was like, yeah, because I was trying to find what is the formula? Who do I have to connect with that this is gonna work? That this great echoing, God-sized hole within me, this deep unsolvable problem of never feeling like there's enough love. Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Do I need someone older? Do I need someone younger? Do I need a man? Do I need a woman? Do I need someone who loves me more than I love them? Do I need someone who I love more than, do I need two people? Do I need an open marriage? Do I, like, I wanna, and I say this with all love, I'm so proud of myself that I spent 35 uninterrupted years trying to solve that. Like, trying to solve that.

• 28:05Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And being like, why can't I make this work? Very similar to an alcoholic who's like, well, maybe if I just don't drink hard liquor, maybe if I just have wine, maybe if I just have beer, maybe if I just drink on the weekends, maybe if I, you know, it's like, I'm trying to figure out how to have this thing not do what it always does, which is blow up in my face and leave me like flat on the bathroom floor wrecked.

• 28:28Lewis Howes?

  Depressed and sad and lonely.

• 28:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Suicidal, if not homicidal, right? And so it wasn't until I-

• 28:35Lewis Howes?

  So you were looking for people to be the solution.

• 28:37Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Always.

• 28:38Lewis Howes?

  But it wasn't. What was the solution?

• 28:40Elizabeth Gilbert?

  The solution is-

• 28:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Befriending myself and finding a source, finding what I have always needed, which is a source of infinite, inexhaustible love. And that cannot come from another person. Because sometimes people have to get up and get a sandwich and go to work and like go to the DMV and like do other things besides pour love into me. You know what I mean? Like they have other things they need to be doing. They can't, even if they love me, they can't, like a person can't do that. Or they might die.

• 29:18Lewis Howes?

  Which happened.

• 29:18Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Which happened. Or they, or like they might change. Or they might have another crisis in their life that they have to attend to. Right? And then I'm howling on the outside like a seven year old. Like who's got me? Who's got me? Where did mommy go? Where did daddy go? Am I safe? Why am I on this tundra of loneliness again? Right? So for me, it's about finding, finding a source that can keep up with my need and pour infinitely into me.

• 29:47Lewis Howes?

  That seems impossible on another person.

• 29:49Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It is impossible on another person. And listen, I'll save you all the trouble. I did the research. Like I went out there and found a lot of people to try to get that from, you know?

• 29:59Lewis Howes?

  It didn't work.

• 30:00Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And it didn't, it works for a while, like all drugs.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  Six months or something.

• 30:04Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, it works till it doesn't. Like every other substance, every other drug, it works till it doesn't. And then you wake up on Tuesday morning and you're still you. You know, and you're still you and you're still lonely and you're still overwhelmed and you're still confused and you're still hungry. You know, because this thing can't be filled. So, and I also needed to find a community of people who understood me. And the first time, well, actually the second time, because I, I went to a Sex and Love Addicts room once because a friend 13th stepped me there, like sent me there, 12th stepped me there. Um, and, and was like, I think you need this. And I went in and I was like, yeah, these people are really sick and it's depressing and I feel bad for them and I'm going to be a spectator and then I'm going to leave.

• 30:47Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And then I went out and found another person to blow my life up with. And then I was like, maybe I, maybe I should go back.

• 30:53Lewis Howes?

  From the group?

• 30:53Elizabeth Gilbert?

  No, no, no, no. But it's just from the general population. And then, um, and then I went back humbled. And the first time I really showed up in that room and said, "Hi, my name is Lizzie. I'm a sex and love addict," was the beginning of the end of a 50-year attempt to find somebody, anybody, who would take that pain away.

• 31:17Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 31:18Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And to have a whole bunch of people in the room who don't look like me, who aren't my age, who aren't from my background, be like, "Yeah, we super get it." You know, and to hear my story being told again and again and again through other people's mouths. I remember hearing this woman say, "I took one look at that guy from across the bar, and I was like, I would follow that man to hell, and then I did." You know, and I was like, "Okay, I know that story. Like, I've been in that story. I've been in that story. I've been on all the sides of these stories." And so to find a community of people who are like, "We understand why you're like this." You know, "And we'll be your family as you move through this."

• 31:53Lewis Howes?

  What are the main symptoms of a sex addict or a love addict, then?

• 31:59Elizabeth Gilbert?

  There's different programs for sex addiction. There's different programs for love addiction. I identify as a sex and love addict. A lot of women don't want to use the word sex addict because it sounds gnarly and shameful, and it is gnarly, super gnarly. Because you're sort of pimping yourself out to get to trade whatever you have to trade physically to try to get that love connection, right? It's like, it's not pretty, but it's what I've done. It also means constantly objectifying yourself, objectifying other people. But if you just Google 12 Characteristics of Sex and Love Addicts, you know, when I heard those, I was like, "Oh, that's a 12 for 12. That's a hard identification with each and every one of these." Like, I've done every single one of these things on the regular.

• 32:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  But it essentially comes down to this idea that somebody else is going to be able to fix this on the inside of me. And returning to unhealthy relationships again and again, abandoning your care by attaching to people who are unavailable. There's a whole list of them.

• 33:06Lewis Howes?

  Sure. How do you then, let's say you go through, you accept that you're a love addict, right? And maybe someone watching or listening is like, "Maybe I have some of these tendencies," right?

• 33:18Lewis Howes?

  And I've heard you talk about in the beginning of this conversation about how, you know, there's this love that you're connecting with every single day and asking it, what would you want of me?

• 33:26Elizabeth Gilbert?

  What would you have me know today?

• 33:28Lewis Howes?

  Would you have me know today?

• 33:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 33:30Lewis Howes?

  And you have this new relationship with love. But a lot of people feel undeserving of receiving love.

• 33:38Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  So if you don't feel like you're deserving of having love or being loved or receiving it, how do you have a new relationship with it where you can let it into your life?

• 33:49Elizabeth Gilbert?

  For me, it's been about, in the same way that those inner children and inner teenagers that we spoke about, needed to gradually learn to trust me and needed to gradually learn to see that I do have them and I am prioritizing them and I'm not going to abandon them and I am here and I am going to say no and I am going to risk not pleasing people in order to make sure that they're okay. It's almost like I've had to develop, I'll just speak for myself because I think it's probably different for other people, but, and I now am going to introduce the word God.

• 34:24Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I've had to have that same relationship build very slowly with the God of my own understanding of believing that I am being loved and not judged, believing that I'm not in trouble.

• 34:42Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I've spent my entire life terrified of being in trouble. Like, what did I do wrong? I'm in trouble. I'm dead now. Believing that I haven't done anything that has caused God to not love me and believing that I can turn to that source and be fed and be held and be guided.

• 35:05Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I always say this, like, I always loved God, like, and I didn't even grow up in a religious family, maybe that's why, because I had my own independent feeling of a God presence when I was a kid that was very... Organic and natural, like I loved the word God. I loved the whole idea. I loved everything about it. I didn't really know what it meant, but I loved it. I've always believed in God. I've always loved God. I have never trusted God.

• 35:35Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 35:36Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Because that's a whole nother layer. It's like, wait, I have to trust you because I mean, like many of us, because of things that happened to us when we were kids, we don't trust anybody.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  You just see bad things in the world and you say, how can this be, if God is all love, how do these bad things happen? Right? You'll question that.

• 35:52Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right, exactly. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why did all these terrible things happen to me? Why is there injustice? I mean, we can get trapped forever in that. But I have found when I communicate with God, I've said this many times and I find it to be true, why is not a spiritual question and it does not bring a spiritual answer, ever. Like I can shout why into the cosmos and I'm never going to get an answer. No one is. But I can ask other questions like, what do you want me to do? And I will get an answer. Who do you want me to become? I will get an answer. Who do you want me to be around? Like who are the people who you want me to be around? What do you want me to do next? How do you want me to comport myself through this?

• 36:34Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I'll get answers to that if I ask God, but I won't get answers to why. I mean, I think that's just the general humility of knowing that my mind can't know. We're not allowed to know why. Sometimes you kind of get a glimpse later where you're like, oh, I see why. I see why that might have had. I see why we couldn't have gotten here without that. But I even try to stay away from that. I try to stay out of the why. I have surrendered the why.

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  That's funny. I still ask my mom why questions and she says she stopped answering why questions.

• 37:05Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  So I'm like, why'd you do this, mom? And she goes, I stopped answering your why questions.

• 37:10Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I'm not accepting your question.

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  Ask me a different question.

• 37:13Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah. Come back with a better question. Sometimes God will say that to me. Come back with a better question.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. What is the best thing you've heard from God over the last four years?

• 37:25Elizabeth Gilbert?

  There's a couple of things. One thing is, I love this. I hear this from God a lot. When I'm sort of unsure about what I'm supposed to do, because that's a thing that I can get really panicky about, like, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? I will often hear God say, "When I've got something for you to do, you'll be notified."

• 37:48Lewis Howes?

  Don't try to rush it or try to, no, right now.

• 37:51Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like, for instance, I had a couple of years there where I didn't have any ideas for a book or creativity or anything to write. And every day in my journal, I would say, "Am I supposed to be writing something right now? Am I supposed to be working on something?" And that universal cosmic voice would say, "When we've got something for you to do, you'll be notified." And then I would say, "Well, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?" And the answer would come, "Hang out."

• 38:12Lewis Howes?

  Just be.

• 38:13Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Hang out. And I'm like, "Well, that's extremely uncomfortable. I would rather that you gave me an assignment. I'm a border collie. I do better with an assignment." Yeah, like, and, but we'll let you know. That's one of my favorites. The other thing I've heard is actually very similar. When I've said to God, "Am I supposed to be dating anybody? Am I supposed to be, now that I've gotten well? Now that I've gotten emotional sobriety? Now that I've been in 12-step recovery for sex and love addiction? Now that I've learned how to take care of myself and been celibate for five years, which is the greatest gift I've ever given myself."

• 38:47Lewis Howes?

  Five years. Wow.

• 38:49Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And the first time since, like,

• 38:53Elizabeth Gilbert?

  way too young an age that somebody hasn't been like on me? You know, like, it's been so important for me to reclaim this body and just be like, "Mine, right? My body. This isn't like a tool for anyone else. This isn't a tool for manipulation. This is like ours." Like, to find that and to, and to learn how to self-comfort, to learn how to regulate my own nervous system. Like, so now that I've done all that, I'm like, "Am I supposed to be looking for somebody to be with?" And my favorite thing that God has ever said to me is the response to that, which is, "LOL, no."

• 39:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:33Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Hard no, absolutely not. Like, absolutely not. And, and I love that answer. And I trust that answer. And, and then God says, if I want, if I want you with somebody, I will let you know the idea won't be yours, it'll be mine. I will let you know, I will let you know who it is. You don't have to go hunting. You don't have to go searching. I don't want you chasing anything. Again, I mean, to me, so much of what all sobriety is, is the end of chasing. Like, you're not chasing a feeling anymore. You're not chasing a high. You're not chasing an escape. You're not chasing a person. You're not trying to replicate a way you felt once. Like, that's a big thing for sex and love addicts. Like, stop chasing a feeling.

• 40:15Lewis Howes?

  A feeling, right?

• 40:16Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's a feeling you want to have. And all that feeling, if I can get it, I can get it met, but it just leads to craving, because then I want more of it.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  And sadness and...

• 40:25Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And then I'm like, okay, now what do I have to do to get that? Right? So, so God has been really clear with me, like, I don't want you chasing anybody. I don't want you chasing anything. You're so good right now. What's the big hurry to? Like, why are you out there looking for ways to make your life unmanageable again?

• 40:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 40:41Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like, I can sleep through the night without medication. I don't need to be on antidepressants anymore. I'm not on anti-anxiety pills anymore. My body is healthier. My work, I've like, written three books in the last six years. My friendships have bloomed. All of my family relationships have changed due to these new radical boundaries. Like, I'm prospering. And God's like, what's the hurry to, to tip the apple cart over again?

• 41:08Lewis Howes?

  That's fascinating. I, you know, when I decided, because it was a choice to get into a relationship with Martha, my fiancee. And when we got into a relationship, I told her, like, kind of like a lot of these things that we're talking about, where I was just like, listen... I've never made good decisions in previous relationships. And then I didn't have the courage to get out of them because I was afraid and I didn't want to hurt someone. So I stayed in things that weren't good for me. And, you know, it was just never good. And it doesn't mean they were bad people. We just weren't the right people together. And so I told her, like, I want to take our time if we're going to do this. We're not going to sleep together, you know, which is not something I'd done in the past. It was like, kind of quick to rush to that. And that was one of the best things I did for like the kids in me.

• 41:52Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 41:53Lewis Howes?

  Was not sleeping with someone that I was dating. Like trying my best to get to know all the parts of her. Her family life, her when she's happy, her when she's going through a challenge. You know, traveling together, all these different things as opposed to rushing into chemical bonding.

• 42:10Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right, because once the internal pharmacy gets activated. It's like, it's like in Midsummer Night's Dream when they, when they put like, you know, magic powder on the person who then falls in love with a donkey. It's like those hormones will make me fall in love with like a kitchen cabinet.

• 42:27Lewis Howes?

  Anything.

• 42:27Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, like, and, and as somebody with a really dysregulated nervous system, you know, with it, with a process addiction, like, I mean, I experienced those hormones. It's estimated that people like us who have that experience those hormones at like 10 times the rate of other people. So like, someone else might feel pleasant experiences with romance and love and connection and sex. I get wasted, you know, I get wasted and I shouldn't be operating heavy machinery. I shouldn't be making decisions about my bank account. I shouldn't be moved like I'm, I go insane, right? So it's really important, like what you've done is a really gracious thing for both of you, actually.

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 43:05Elizabeth Gilbert?

  To slow that entire process down and try not to go chemical before you find intimacy.

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, and I remember like, you know, and listen, we're only three and a half years into this. So it's like, we've got a long time ahead with our relationship with, hopefully it's all good and it's all like smooth, but there's going to be challenges that we have to face. But I wanted to set myself up for the most harmony possible. Knowing that life is going to throw challenges at us individually and together. How can we create a relationship of harmony and peace where we both have nervous systems that are calm?

• 43:36Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 43:37Lewis Howes?

  Nervous systems that are okay, independent of each other and stronger together, hopefully. But I'm not reliant on her for my happiness, which I think I never had before.

• 43:47Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 43:48Lewis Howes?

  I was always reliant on the other people to like me or accept me and people pleasing them. And it feels so freeing to experience for the first time after 20 years of painful relationships.

• 44:01Lewis Howes?

  Peace and freedom in a relationship. Like I didn't even, I didn't think it was possible. I didn't know it was possible. And it feels amazing to, at least up in this point, have experienced this for a number of years. So I'm very grateful for that.

• 44:14Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I'm so happy for you, Liz.

• 44:15Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. But I remember thinking to myself, I don't need to be in a relationship. Like I'm, I'm not going to jump in a relationship until I feel that consistently from a dating phase without sexual intimacy.

• 44:27Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yep.

• 44:28Lewis Howes?

  And that was hard. I mean, I'm like, you know, my young guy, it's like, it's hard to say no to those things. But by creating that boundary for me, it's like I built respect for myself. And about trust within my nervous system and the parts of me. And it has allowed me to trust myself in the relationship more than ever before.

• 44:44Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Oh, it's wonderful.

• 44:45Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like, it sounds like that's what you've been doing the last five years is reclaiming trust.

• 44:50Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yep.

• 44:50Lewis Howes?

  Within yourself, that you're not going to abandon yourself. And when, when you do get into another relationship, you're not going to abandon or people please who you are. And it doesn't even mean you're going to be avoidant either. Like you're going to be securely, you know, connected to the person because you're securely connected to you. Is what it sounds like you're building.

• 45:09Elizabeth Gilbert?

  That's the thing. And, and also for me, as somebody who's now become God centered instead of self centered. You know, and my wants, my wants have driven me over cliffs many times. My wants, my needs, my desires, my ideas.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Your feelings, yeah, yeah.

• 45:25Elizabeth Gilbert?

  My big ideas. Like I get some big ideas and then it's like cut to six months later. My God, what did you just do to your life? You just drove into another brick wall. So for me, I think you mentioned the word manifesting very early in this conversation. And I'm a good manifester. You're a good manifester, too. Like, we, you know, we're like, we're disciplined, we're resolved. You know, we vision board our way into like, you know, we're like, I'm gonna get this. I'm gonna make this. I'm gonna get this many, you know, like, I'm less in the, in the, in the realm of romantic and intimate connection. I've manifested, like, I've gotten what I wanted. I've gotten who I wanted at times. And it's almost killed me.

• 46:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it didn't work.

• 46:04Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right? So it's not, I'm not that interested anymore in the question of what do I want? But I'm really interested in the question of like, what's God's will for my life?

• 46:15Lewis Howes?

  Man, I love this.

• 46:16Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And, and how can I live in alignment with that?

• 46:20Lewis Howes?

  I love this.

• 46:20Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And so I don't even worry about like, will I ever be with someone again? It's not up to me. I don't really care. Like, I trust when God says, you'll be notified if that's supposed to happen. Like, great, I don't have to think about it.

• 46:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow. When did you bring God in your life?

• 46:35Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Really, I mean, really seriously, when I came into 12-step recovery.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  Which was five?

• 46:41Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Five years ago, five and a half years ago.

• 46:43Lewis Howes?

  Is God in 12-step recovery? Or is it more?

• 46:46Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, higher power is. It's a spiritual program because addiction is a spiritual sickness. And, and it's a deep spiritual emptiness. And addicts like me are people who have such a profound emptiness that we will use anything or anybody to fill it.

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  And you don't have God in your life as like this, the faith?

• 47:10Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 47:11Lewis Howes?

  Or the trust or the, the knowingness of it? Then you find everything else to be your God, I guess, or to fill that void.

• 47:18Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I've heard addiction referred to as false worship. It's like, I'm gonna worship this thing. I'm gonna worship this substance. I'm gonna worship this person. I'm gonna worship money. I'm gonna worship success. I'm gonna worship food. I'm gonna worship cigarettes. You know, like, it's, it's, it's, there's this line in the, I mean, there's a line in the Bible about false idols, about not worshiping false idols. And it says that people who worship false idols, and they describe them as like, You know, wooden, like, kind of wooden creatures with lifeless eyes. It's like what sort of what an idol is. Like, you worship that, and then you become that. You become sort of wooden and lifeless. And, I mean, I'm not a fundamentalist Bible reader,

• 48:01Elizabeth Gilbert?

  but I think that's a really accurate description of what addicts become. You become sort of wooden and lifeless. And, and the God-sized hole is what it's referred to is, can only be filled with God.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Do you feel a lot more peace now with God in your life?

• 48:19Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, I mean, it's the, it is my life, you know? And, and I had this great experience in step three, which is, made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the God of our own understanding. The beautiful generous thing about that language is the God of your own understanding. You know, it doesn't necessarily mean the God that you were raised with or threatened with. And, and I had a sponsor who said to me, "Write down what you're looking for in a God." Nobody will ever surrender their life over to a God who was forced upon them. So, write down the qualities that a deity would have to have

• 49:01Elizabeth Gilbert?

  for you to surrender your life completely happily over to them. And I was like, "You, you get to do that?" And she's like, "Of course you get to do that, because why would a loving God not appear in whatever form you need?" Right? Like, of course. And, and it was such a fun assignment, because I was like, the very first thing was like, "My God has to have a sense of humor." "My God has to have a sense of humor and think that I'm adorable and funny, and that my failures are adorable and funny." Like, I can't have a judgmental God. I can't have a punishing God. I have to have an incredibly patient God. I have to have a God who doesn't have anywhere better to be than sitting with me in the middle of the night, present and comforting.

• 49:44Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like, I need a God who doesn't have office hours. I need a God who doesn't stand on ceremony and need me to prostrate in a certain, particular way. I don't want, I can't have an insecure God. Like, I can't have a God who's like, "If you don't, like, pray to me in this certain way, I'm not gonna feel right." You know, like, I, I need to have like, an abundant God, a generous God, a loving God who knows me. And who likes me, there's, I wish I could remember who said this, but somebody said that the true feeling of being one with God is relaxing completely in the presence of somebody who you know is deeply fond of you. And if people had been taught that

• 50:25Lewis Howes?

  That's nice.

• 50:26Elizabeth Gilbert?

  in childhood, that that's what God presence feels like, relaxing completely in the presence of somebody who you know is very fond of you.

• 50:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, not being afraid constantly.

• 50:34Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Oh my God, instead of what James Joyce called the hangman God, you know, the judge, the executioner, you know, this like, like, of course, I created you, I love you.

• 50:44Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:45Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, like, I made you the way you are.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating. How many, how many relationships do you feel like you've been in, in the past, like intimate relationships, whether it be like dating, or sexual, or?

• 50:57Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Oh, like forty?

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  Forty, okay.

• 51:00Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, like forty-five, maybe?

• 51:02Lewis Howes?

  Forty-five.

• 51:02Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I'm trying to remember, because I had to inventory it when I was, it's part of like, the Sex and Love Addict Recovery.

• 51:07Lewis Howes?

  That's good. So forty, forty-five, intimate, loving relationships, or sexual relationships?

• 51:12Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Forty-five deeply intimate relationships, Lewis.

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  How many? How many of these relationships?

• 51:23Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I love myself.

• 51:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, no judgment here.

• 51:26Elizabeth Gilbert?

  No, I don't feel it.

• 51:28Lewis Howes?

  How, how many of the relationships you've been in had God at the core of the center?

• 51:33Elizabeth Gilbert?

  None.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  How many, where are we going? In the future, do you feel like God will be in the relationship in some way?

• 51:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  If God's not in the relationship, it's not a relationship.

• 51:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:46Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, and, and I heard a prayer recently, in one of the 12-step rooms, and this is about every relationship, you know, not just sexual and intimate, but somebody said, "Dear God, please only bring me relationships where you can be first and I can be me."

• 52:06Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, that's good.

• 52:09Lewis Howes?

  Say that one more time, so again.

• 52:10Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Dear God, please only bring me relationships where you can be first and I can be me.

• 52:16Lewis Howes?

  Man, that gives me the chills.

• 52:17Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I know, isn't that beautiful?

• 52:18Lewis Howes?

  Imagine every relationship in your life like that.

• 52:20Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 52:20Lewis Howes?

  Friends, family, you know, intimate relationships.

• 52:24Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yep.

• 52:24Lewis Howes?

  That's, that's a beautiful life.

• 52:26Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Isn't it?

• 52:27Lewis Howes?

  With every relationship like that. Cause then you're not feeling judged or you don't have to people please, you don't have to impress. You know, obviously you gotta create boundaries and you have to communicate and you have to, you know, stand up for yourself, but you don't have to worry about what happens when God is at the center.

• 52:42Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 52:43Lewis Howes?

  God is gonna have your back no matter what.

• 52:45Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And their back.

• 52:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:47Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right? I mean, to know that they also have their own higher power.

• 52:49Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 52:50Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right? I mean, I got super high off of becoming other people's higher power. As much as I got super high off making somebody my higher power.

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 52:58Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right? It's like, oh, let me be the thing you worship. Right? Like, that's a, that's a rush.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  Big rush.

• 53:04Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right?

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  Until you crash.

• 53:06Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Until you get de-pedestalized and then you don't even wanna be in the room when that happens. I mean, like, that's, that's such a terrible crash for everybody, the terrible disappointment of that. Like, I, like, I say this to my sponsors a lot, like, if they idealize me at all, you know, I'm like, okay, I just wanna point out that, like, that language sounds a little bit idealizing. Please don't do that to me or you. Because when you inevitably discover that I am not this ideal, I don't even wanna be in the room when that statue comes crashing down. Right? Like, that's gonna be really bad for both of us. So, like, just don't, don't do that. Like, let's don't do that.

• 53:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow, this is fascinating. So, I mean, can you share what it was like being in a relationship with someone that then you're, you're so deeply in love with? Or you, or whatever you feel like is love at that time? I don't know if you look back and if you feel like that's real love or is love addiction? We can get into that later, but. You're deep in a relationship, you've poured your heart into someone, your life into someone, that then passes away. Can you share what that experience was like? Because I can't even imagine. But how did you navigate that? And what was the lesson that opened up for you? Once you got to reflect on it?

• 54:22Elizabeth Gilbert?

  So yeah, you, you knew Rea and so Rea was my best friend for many, many years while I was married to somebody else. And while I was married to somebody else, I fell in love with my best friend. And slowly, over many, many, many years. And I won't get into the reasons why. Actually, I will. I mean, the, the, the primary reason was, over time, she became the only person in the world who, when I was with her, I felt completely safe. And I had never felt safe in the world. And she was so good and strong at handling people and dealing like, I had this deep fear of people's insanity. And Rea could just handle it.

• 55:06Lewis Howes?

  She kind of protected you.

• 55:07Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, I kind of walked into every room behind her. Cause I was like, whatever goes down, like, she's got it. Like, she's got it. She's not afraid of anybody. She'll say the thing that needs to be said. She'll set the boundary that needs to be set. So, so I was like a little kid kind of behind her. And, and that feeling that she could provide for me of security was, was, was so beautiful. Then she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic and liver cancer and given six months to live. And at that point, it was no longer possible for me to continue to pretend that I wasn't in love with her. And I came to my then husband and said, I'm in love with Rea. And he was like, you've always been in love with Rea. I mean, he knew me so well. He was like, you've been in love with Rea for so long, honey.

• 55:52Lewis Howes?

  And how long were you guys married for?

• 55:53Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Twelve years.

• 55:54Lewis Howes?

  Twelve years, yeah.

• 55:54Elizabeth Gilbert?

  He was like, you, you need to go be with her. Like, it was.

• 55:58Lewis Howes?

  So he kind of gave you that, that blessing?

• 56:00Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 56:01Lewis Howes?

  He wasn't upset? He wasn't mad? He wasn't?

• 56:03Elizabeth Gilbert?

  She was very upset, you know, but like, and hurt, you know, but like.

• 56:06Lewis Howes?

  Not her, but not of you?

• 56:07Elizabeth Gilbert?

  No, and hurt, you know, but also, he's a, he was a wise soul. And, and, you know, he, he wasn't in an argument against reality. And, and it was true. I had to go and be with her.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  Was, were you not upset that he wasn't like fighting for you guys or saying like, this is not okay?

• 56:24Elizabeth Gilbert?

  No, I was deeply moved by.

• 56:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  His compassion and his courage.

• 56:32Lewis Howes?

  It's also hard if someone's like essentially saying, I don't love you this way anymore. I love this other person. It's hard for someone to be like, please love me. You know, he probably had some self-respect to say.

• 56:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  He had way too much self-respect.

• 56:44Lewis Howes?

  That's painful and hurtful.

• 56:46Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, he had way too much dignity to get in a begging contest.

• 56:49Lewis Howes?

  Beg you to love me back. That's not gonna work.

• 56:51Elizabeth Gilbert?

  No.

• 56:51Lewis Howes?

  So he was like, he let it go.

• 56:54Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, and I'm so grateful for that. And I have great respect for him. And, and then I went to go be with her and we had six months to be together.

• 57:06Lewis Howes?

  And she really only had six months.

• 57:08Elizabeth Gilbert?

  She ended up having a year and a half.

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  Okay, yeah.

• 57:10Elizabeth Gilbert?

  But they had told us she would have six months. And, and we both knew that our time together was gonna be very short. There was something incredibly intoxicating about that.

• 57:22Lewis Howes?

  Every day is a rush.

• 57:22Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I mean, if you live at the extreme levels of emotion that I've always lived, I mean, this is high. It's like, okay, there are no consequences. There are no tomorrows. Let's do whatever we want. Let's spend all our money. Let's, I always say, Rea was the one who'd been given six months to live, but I acted like I also had been given six months to live. I was like, I don't give a about anything that happens in the future. Like, ride or die, let's just like blaze out right to the end. There's no reason to hold back on anything. I mean, it was incredibly exciting in a way. And, and sort of thrilling, we're like, let's make art. Let's go on all these bucket, like bucket list trips. Let's eat everything we wanna eat. Let's blow off everybody we don't about.

• 58:06Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like, let's, you know, like, there was something that was really wild about it. And that wildness was pretty out of control and very exciting. And.

• 58:21Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And wasn't, how can I word this? Because I mean, it was perfect how it turned out because it had to go that way. But Rea was a recovered heroin and cocaine addict who had been in recovery for 12 years and then had decided, much to her own danger and detriment, that she wasn't an addict anymore and left the rooms of recovery. She was like, I'm cured. And we know that addiction can't be cured. Lifelong journey. And that addiction never ends. It only waits. Waits till you give in. It just waits. Give in. It just waits for its moment. It just waits. And so she just got kind of full of herself and was like, you know, I beat this thing.

• 59:05Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I'm going to start drinking again. I'm going to do other kinds of drugs. And like she, and then once she got really deep in the pain of the cancer and the fear of the cancer, she went fully back to being an opioid and cocaine addict. Oh, man, that's tough. And as one of her relatives said, I wish Rea was a nicer drug addict. Oh, man. She was not a particularly nice drug addict. Wow. She mean to you, too? Vicious. And then just the darkness arose. And so our sort of like, let's just ride or die into the sunset thing. Love story was not a. Turned into Sid and Nancy. And I mean, it was just ugly. It just got very ugly and very destructive.

• 59:48Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I was lost in my codependency and my love addiction and my people pleasing and like, here, I'll go take tens of thousands of dollars out of my bank account so you can buy all the cocaine you need because I love you. Like, just so degraded. Like, whatever love we had became very degraded. But what I want to make clear and what I learned from that, we did that together. Yeah. You know? And that's what codependency does. It's like, this isn't a story about how like, somebody did a bad thing to me. This is a story about how two people who were unhealed addicts came together and. Lost their minds.

• 1:00:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:00:28Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And God let her live long enough for that to happen. Because if she had died right away during the hot blazing, beautiful exotic erotic, like, let's like, burn out together in a, like a comet shooting through Earth, I'd be like, that was the greatest love story ever told. And God was like, I'm gonna let her live another year, and I'm gonna let you guys go on this other journey that you were not expecting.

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 1:00:51Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah. And so it was brutal. So, so to answer your question, what is it like to have the person you love the most in the world die? She, I lost her before she died. I lost her to drug addiction, which actually made cancer look like a day at the beach. You know, like, and I lost, I lost myself in that before she died. So I lost both of us. I lost me and I lost her.

• 1:01:21Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And so the, it's like the death was almost an afterthought to the great loss of both of us to our own unhealed trauma.

• 1:01:33Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest lesson you learned from that afterwards? Like, a year or two later, when you were able to reflect and have space?

• 1:01:38Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Took a little more than a year.

• 1:01:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Five, seven years later.

• 1:01:42Elizabeth Gilbert?

  A year later, I was like, let me find someone else to do this with, you know, like, because I was not...

• 1:01:45Lewis Howes?

  It was a rush.

• 1:01:46Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It was, you know, like, let me, who can I fill, who can I replace her with?

• 1:01:48Lewis Howes?

  I guess now, if you're looking back, if you could have a, you know, what's the biggest lesson now? And also, two, two questions, sorry.

• 1:01:55Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Lewis Howes?

  What, if you could give wisdom to yourself before choosing to get in a relationship, and just give yourself some wisdom to that younger you, what would you have said?

• 1:02:09Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Nothing she would have been able to hear.

• 1:02:11Lewis Howes?

  I understand, but if you...

• 1:02:12Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, so it's more how I would speak to myself now.

• 1:02:19Elizabeth Gilbert?

  So the way I felt at the end of that relationship was so far away from myself. And I had abandoned myself so completely into that story. And what that ends up doing only always is making you feel like you've been abandoned. So for a long time, the pain I had was an anger and a pain of like, she abandoned me. Like she chose cocaine and opioids over me. We had this very short period of time together and she chose to go back to her drug rather than being present to me. She took herself away from me and she left me in the cold. I don't see it that way now. That's good.

• 1:03:04Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I see somebody who was in excruciating existential and physical pain and who turned to the thing that had always taken their pain away. And the only thing that had ever taken her pain away at that level was opioids and cocaine. And it's like, that's what she needed to do. I mean, I remember Rea telling me back when she was sober, and I always think about this with addicts. She said, "I needed every gram of heroin I ever took or I would not have survived the world. I was in so much pain." Like, people who drink need every drop of alcohol they ever imbibe or they were not gonna make it. I needed every one of those 45 deeply intimate. Partners, yeah.

• 1:03:47Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Partners and relationships or I wasn't, I would not have made it. Like, I was in so much pain, I would not have made it, right? So I don't see somebody who abandoned me. I see somebody who is trying not to be in pain. And I also was trying not to be in pain. Of course. And I love something, I always refer to Byron Katie, I know you love her too. Yeah, she's great. But I love something she says, "Adults cannot be abandoned, only children can be abandoned. Adults can only abandon themselves." So anytime as an adult that I feel abandoned, I have abandoned myself. And, and so the lesson coming out of that, well, first of all, the lesson is...

• 1:04:28Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I'm a love addict and I need a program and I need a fellowship and I need a higher power and I need a sponsor and I need a sisterhood in my recovery program and I need a daily spiritual practice and I and I need that to be, they always say in other rooms of sobriety, anything you put before your sobriety, you'll lose. So I need staying emotionally sober to be the single most important thing in my life. Like, that's my job. Everything else, being a writer is a part-time job. Like, staying emotionally sober within a community and a fellowship of people who help keep me emotionally sober is my full-time job. And that's gonna be my full-time job for the rest of my life. That's my public service and it's my service to myself.

• 1:05:08Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting. I interviewed a brain surgeon who'd done a thousand brain surgeries and he also has a PhD in neuroscience. So he studies the mind and the matter and the brain. And I was like, what's the number one skill that every human being should learn to master that'll help them forever? He said emotional regulation. And it sounds like, you know, learning how to regulate emotions and and connect it to a higher power and making that the forefront of your life will help you in almost every situation, as opposed to reaching for substances or numbing addictions to help you fill a void that you might have inside of you. Do you feel like, did Rea have God in her life when she met you?

• 1:05:51Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, when I met her, she was like, deep in her recovery, but she and I and every other addict in the world have very powerful egos. And Rea had a particularly strong sense of her own amazingness. And it was extremely convincing because she actually was really amazing and she was really powerful and she was really charismatic and dynamic. And, you know, the first person we fool as addicts is ourselves. And so she had this front of like mightiness and she kind of was the alpha predator in every room she walked into. I mean, I loved that about her and she loved that about her. But that's a kind of fragile...

• 1:06:35Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Landscape upon which to build your home is your own awesomeness.

• 1:06:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, God will humble you pretty quickly.

• 1:06:42Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Pretty quick, pretty quick. And, um, and so she kind of replaced God with Rea. And I replaced God with Rea. And, um, and I needed a God in human form and I made Rea into my God. And she must have needed an acolyte because she took me on as her like worshiper. And for a while that worked. And we both got really high off it. And then it did what, what all, what all drugs do, stopped working.

• 1:07:11Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure you've had many, well, I don't want to assume, but I, I like to think that you probably had many writing sessions where you've reflected on her in your time with her.

• 1:07:22Lewis Howes?

  Maybe you've had conversations with her or not spiritually.

• 1:07:27Lewis Howes?

  But what, if you're willing to share, would you say to her now, if she's listening?

• 1:07:33Elizabeth Gilbert?

  We're so good, babe. We're so good. You know, like, man, we went for a ride together and, and we're so good. You know, like, that's the thing, like underneath all the dysfunction, there was this real friendship and this real love. And Martha Beck always says that true love always liberates the beloved. It's the only thing that true love wants is for the beloved to be free, for everybody to be free. Like, our souls unhindered by ego only want one thing for ourselves and each other, and that is liberation. It's the only thing we want, you know?

• 1:08:13Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And, and if I could be said to want anything for Rea, seven years after she's dead, because relationships don't end when people die. We've had a lot, we had a lot of healing to do after she died. Like, including some conversations where I was like, you don't get to just float off into the ether and like become music. We have some to work out.

• 1:08:32Lewis Howes?

  I'm still suffering here.

• 1:08:33Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, like, I'm still here, like, you know, like, we have some stuff to work out. And like, we've worked it out, like, we've worked it out in, in various ways. But if I could be said to want anything for Rea, it's that she be free. You know, that death actually be a liberation, that she be, that she be free, that she not have to stick around and take care of me, you know, and then, you know, something that I've heard her say to me recently, when I feel her, is like, I know you want me to say that I'm always here for you, but you actually don't need me, and that's great news, you know, like, I used to need you to need me, but she used to say to me, I'm not gonna die till I see you standing on your own feet in every situation in your life, and like, she wanted,

• 1:09:14Elizabeth Gilbert?

  like, her higher self really wanted that for me, as much as her codependent self wanted me to worship her, her, her higher self wanted, I just want you to be free.

• 1:09:27Lewis Howes?

  But the ego is loud.

• 1:09:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Very, deafening. I want you to be free, but I also want you to worship me.

• 1:09:33Lewis Howes?

  Love me.

• 1:09:33Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I want you to not replace me, and I want you to never let, you know, and it's all that kind of stuff.

• 1:09:37Lewis Howes?

  Never leave me, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:37Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right, but like, the true, the true unfettered, free soul only, only wants everybody to be free. What, what else could it want?

• 1:09:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:47Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know?

• 1:09:48Lewis Howes?

  What do you feel like is the biggest lesson you need to learn over the next decade of your life?

• 1:09:56Elizabeth Gilbert?

  How to not throw it all away.

• 1:10:00Lewis Howes?

  Throw what away?

• 1:10:01Elizabeth Gilbert?

  My life. I'm always looking, my addict, my inner addict is always looking for an opportunity to throw myself away. I wanna throw away my money to somebody, I wanna throw away my time, I wanna throw away my creativity, I wanna, I wanna put somebody else at the center of my life. You know, I've heard it said in, in the codependent recovery rooms, you know, codependency is like, the other person first, you second, God last.

• 1:10:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:10:30Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And recovery is God first, me second, the other person gets whatever's left over, right? It doesn't mean they're last, it just means, like, that whole paradigm of like, what we call romantic love, when we're obsessed and infatuated with somebody, and we wanna hear them say, you are the center of my life, you are my everything, right, is actually, turns out to not actually be that healthy.

• 1:10:59Lewis Howes?

  Toxic. You know, it's interesting, before I forget.

• 1:11:02Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Lewis Howes?

  Cause I'm glad you said that, because. When I entered my relationship with Martha, my fiance,

• 1:11:11Lewis Howes?

  after a few months of us dating and not being exclusively committed to each other, she asked me a question. I've shared this before on my show, but she asked me a question. It's the old, what are your priorities in life question? That every girl, I feel like, asks a boy at some point, like, what are your priorities in life? What do you really want, you know? And I remember thinking, this might be our last day hanging out. Because I'm gonna tell her the truth and she's not gonna like it. Because everyone I've talked to in the past didn't like it. They either screamed, or got sad, or cried, or emotional, and then I kind of like gave in. Because I wanted to people please.

• 1:11:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You're like, oh, never mind.

• 1:11:46Lewis Howes?

  And I said, are you sure you want me to tell you the truth?

• 1:11:49Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:11:50Lewis Howes?

  Because in the beginning of the relationship, when we first started hanging out, I made a promise to myself that I'm gonna tell the truth about everything. Like past, visions for the future, like every, all the parts of me want to tell you the truth. Things I'm working on, things I'm not proud of, things I'm ashamed of, all of it, right? And if you ask me the question, I'm gonna tell you the answer. And I'm not gonna sugarcoat anything, and you can either take it or leave it. You may not like it, but you get to either accept it or not. And so she said, what are your priorities in life? And I said, I don't know if we're gonna be, you know, hanging out together after this, but you sure you really want the truth? She said, yes. I go, okay. Because no one's been able to accept it, but I'm gonna tell you. And I said, you'll never be my number one priority. And it's just saying it, even now, it's like, I have a reaction to it, because I'm like,

• 1:12:36Lewis Howes?

  am I gonna mess, hurt someone when I say this? But I said, you're gonna be my number one priority. I can't even look a woman in the face and say, because I feel like, ah, but it screamed at.

• 1:12:47Lewis Howes?

  How dare you not put me first?

• 1:12:49Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And like, the gods of romantic comedies come and like, kill you.

• 1:12:52Lewis Howes?

  But I was like, you'll never be number one priority for me. And no woman wants to hear that from a man they're dating. They just don't want to hear that. Most women, I should say, right? They don't want to hear that. And she's like, okay. I go, but let me finish. And I go, you'll not be my number two priority.

• 1:13:10Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Gets worse.

• 1:13:11Lewis Howes?

  And I go number one was to be number one or number two. I said, um, I said, my number one priority in life is my health, my overall health. Cause if I'm not emotionally, spiritually, physically healthy, I'm not going to be good for my number two priority, which is my mission from God is what I feel called to do on this earth for this season of life or every season of life, whatever that is. And this season I feel called to impact a lot of people with my, with my message, with my content, with what I'm creating in the world. And if I'm not able to fully pursue my mission that I feel called by God to do, that's inside of me, speaking to me, I'm going to be very unhappy. I'm going to be resentful and frustrated and I'm not going to be a great partner.

• 1:13:52Lewis Howes?

  I'm just not. I'm going to be a shell of myself, limited and really pissed off at myself, at you, you know, God, whatever it is, the situation. And so number two needs to be my, my mission and my ability to serve. That means you've got to be respecting of my time when I need to go to the gym and take care of my health, or if I need to go to therapy, like whatever it is in my work, you gotta be respecting of that time. The third priority would be my relationship with you. You know, if we're together, it'd be my relationship. And then my marriage and my family, you know, relationships. And I tell you what though, if you fully accept that where my health is my priority,

• 1:14:33Lewis Howes?

  and I want this for you too, but my health is my priority, number one, spiritual, physical, emotional. My mission by God is number two. You're going to feel like number one priority, because I'm going to give you all of me. Like when I'm with you, I'm present. You know, I'm going to be thinking about you. I'm going to be speaking about you. I'm going to be building for us. And it's not like I'm going to neglect you and never be around. Like you're going to feel my presence, my energy, my love, because I'm going to have so much gratitude for you, so much appreciation. Every night I'm going to speak gratitude into your soul. And every night I tell her what I'm grateful for and it's her. And, and other things as well, but she feels those things.

• 1:15:12Lewis Howes?

  And if you ask her today, do you feel like you're a third priority? She's going to say, no, I feel like he puts me at the center. And I think, um, it took me a while to be able to say that confidently and not be worried about like losing someone, but really owning that truth. And it's not easy to say, like you would never say this in a rom com. And the funny thing is, she's, you know, done forty romantic comedies. She's a big actress in Mexico and, you know, very famous in Mexico. She was the queen of romantic comedies. So she had to unlearn this herself in her own life.

• 1:15:44Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:15:45Lewis Howes?

  But it's what's allowed for peace and harmony in the relationship. And, you know, again, I say this as a caveat, we're not married, we don't have kids yet. So everyone's always like, well, wait till you have kids and you're married. But I'm like,

• 1:15:56Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Why do people want to instantly knock you off?

• 1:15:58Lewis Howes?

  I don't know.

• 1:15:59Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Why do people want to say that it's gonna get worse?

• 1:16:01Lewis Howes?

  Because they're like, but I'm like, I'm building a foundation.

• 1:16:04Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You're building something that when you introduce the children, it'll be a beautiful home for them.

• 1:16:08Lewis Howes?

  Hopefully, yeah, that's the goal. And we started the relationship in therapy. Because I said, I don't want to enter a committed relationship.

• 1:16:14Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Just keep a therapist on, on, you know.

• 1:16:17Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent. And we, you know, not because there was something wrong, because I wanted to create agreements from the beginning.

• 1:16:22Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:22Lewis Howes?

  And I want to make sure we're aligned with our values. Although, because every relationship I had before ended in therapy.

• 1:16:28Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:16:29Lewis Howes?

  When there was too much stress.

• 1:16:30Elizabeth Gilbert?

  When it was already too, it was already too late.

• 1:16:31Lewis Howes?

  It was gone. And it was too much. I want to start it and then end it quickly if we're not meant for each other.

• 1:16:36Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:16:37Lewis Howes?

  And try to create alignment and agreements.

• 1:16:39Elizabeth Gilbert?

  That's wonderful.

• 1:16:40Lewis Howes?

  And so, again, it doesn't mean it's like this perfect thing, but I feel harmonious consistently.

• 1:16:44Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's a very good start and it's a very good foundation.

• 1:16:47Lewis Howes?

  Great foundation, yes. I'm very grateful for that.

• 1:16:48Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And you found, and it, you said it took years to be able to say that, but it also took you years to find the person who could hear it.

• 1:16:53Lewis Howes?

  Who could receive it.

• 1:16:54Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Lewis Howes?

  And not take offense to it.

• 1:16:56Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Lewis Howes?

  And this is a very.

• 1:16:57Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I think that would make me feel incredibly secure if somebody said that.

• 1:17:01Lewis Howes?

  Why? It's always, so I said, Liz, you're not gonna be my number one priority. And you're not gonna be number two.

• 1:17:06Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Well, if they just said that.

• 1:17:07Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. If they give you context.

• 1:17:09Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And if they were like, my car is my number one priority.

• 1:17:11Lewis Howes?

  No, but if they said, listen, I want to be the best version of me, my health, I want it to be as the center.

• 1:17:15Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:17:16Lewis Howes?

  Or if they said God first, you know.

• 1:17:17Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's the introduction of a higher power that would make me feel very secure. You know, I think, like, one of the questions that I've heard people say is a really good question, ask somebody when you're in relationship is like, what do you turn to when you're shattered? Like, what do you turn to?

• 1:17:36Lewis Howes?

  And before, it used to be what? People, or drugs, or alcohol, whatever it is.

• 1:17:39Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like, what do you do to, like, what do you do when you're, when you're broken? Where do you go? It's a really important question, because you're gonna get shattered.

• 1:17:47Lewis Howes?

  Great question.

• 1:17:47Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You're gonna get shattered. Like, life is gonna, life is in session, or school is happening. Like, the curriculum is hard, and there are gonna be things that happen. So like, I want to know. Is it me you're gonna turn to? Because then I'm probably gonna get shattered with you. Right? Are you gonna turn? Like, what do you, what do you turn to? Do you isolate? Do you go to rage? Do you, you know, do you go to God? Do you go inward? Do you try to work harder and achieve more and gather more stuff? Like, what is it?

• 1:18:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's really interesting. And I haven't asked Martha that, but I think innately, because I've seen her. The thing that makes me feel really safe with her in this relationship is something that she does really smart. Uh, I think, at least for my personality type. She doesn't bring every challenge or problem to me right away. She's got her mom, her sister, her girlfriends, her therapist. She's got a community of like women or her father.

• 1:18:45Lewis Howes?

  She's got a community of people that she'll also speak with and not put everything on me right away. Sometimes she'll come to me right away, but a lot of times if she's feeling something, she'll talk with her girlfriend first. And that, that usually like, okay, I feel good. Or she'll talk to her sister or her mom or her therapist. And then she'll bring it to me.

• 1:19:02Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's a good sign that she's a person who has a community.

• 1:19:04Lewis Howes?

  It's really nice.

• 1:19:05Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Because one of the things that, that love addicts get high on is meeting somebody who's got no one and becoming their everything.

• 1:19:12Lewis Howes?

  Or having them get rid of all their friends.

• 1:19:14Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, or isolating them away from all that. Like, I will become your world, right? It's a really wonderful thing. I, I also have heard it said, and this is a thing that I think is really good for women to hear. Everything that I ever thought I had to get from one man, I now know that I can only get from a community of women.

• 1:19:30Lewis Howes?

  You can't expect it with one person. It's what Esther Perel says. Like, we expect our romantic relationships to give us everything a community used to give us.

• 1:19:37Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:37Lewis Howes?

  It's impossible.

• 1:19:38Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Lewis Howes?

  How can you put that on someone? You know, or expect that from yourself, from that person? It's like, it's exhausting.

• 1:19:44Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:46Lewis Howes?

  Exhaust.

• 1:19:47Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Exhausting, and it's gonna leave you hungry and angry. Like angry, hangry. It's gonna make you hangry, emotionally hangry.

• 1:19:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:19:55Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:58Lewis Howes?

  This has been really beautiful. I'm gonna ask a few more questions and we'll wrap things up.

• 1:20:04Lewis Howes?

  What is love speaking to you right now?

• 1:20:08Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Take a break.

• 1:20:12Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Been working really hard. I mean, I, I know how to work hard and I've been working hard my whole life, but that's what I've been hearing is plan a really big break, like a big pause.

• 1:20:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I had a chest infection recently that lasted for almost eight weeks and every year recently I've been getting like a bad chest infection and a friend of mine who's a great healer was like, "Did you get quiet and ask your lungs what they need?" You know, and when I got quiet and asked my lungs what they need, they said, "We need you." Like, "We need you." Like, "You've been spreading yourself a little too thin." And, and so I've been learning how to ask for support and help in ways that I've never done before. Like, okay, this is such a dumb, this is such a dumb ACA thing to be proud of, but like, I have been crowingly proud for years that I don't have a

• 1:21:14Elizabeth Gilbert?

  personal assistant. Like, crowingly proud. You know, like, when people write to me and they're like, "Can your team get to us?" I'm like, "I am my team." You know, like, "I don't have a team, I don't need a team, I don't have a P, I don't have a PA." Like, I do, I do speaking events and they're like, "We'll give you two business class tickets for you and your assistant." I'm like, "I can carry my own suitcase, I can book my own hotel room, I don't need somebody to get me coffee, I don't need any help." Like, "I don't need any help." Like, this is the flip side of the codependency and the addiction to, "I need you to save me," is, "I don't need anybody."

• 1:21:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:21:49Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right? Like, "I don't need anybody."

• 1:21:50Lewis Howes?

  Extremes.

• 1:21:51Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Total extremes. Like, you know, and that comes from a way of being raised in a system where you better not need anybody. Like, because they're just gonna tell you, take care of yourself, right? So it's like, this huge pride that like, I don't need anybody. And just very recently, I was like, I'm 55. I think I've proven, like, I've proven that I don't need anybody. Now I think I need, I need some help. It would be nice, and like, I didn't even know how to use an assist. Like, I don't even know how to ask for that. But my friend, Saleka Jawad, who wrote Between Two Kingdoms, and is so extraordinary, actually helped me find somebody. And then she was like, I was like, I don't know how to have it.

• 1:22:34Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Like, I also, like, what do I, how do I? Like, I don't know, you know? And she was like, write down every single thing you have to do this week, and then ask her to do those things.

• 1:22:45Lewis Howes?

  And don't do it yourself.

• 1:22:46Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I was like, like, go to the, go to the post office? You can have somebody do that for you? So it's just been this new learning of, like, can you go pick this thing up for me? It's crazy. Like, I've never, I've never done that. And it's crazy for me to have been moving through the world at the level that I've been moving through the world and not have it. It's insane. But like, it's such a, it's such a prideful, like, I can do everything myself. I can carry it all on my own shoulders. It's ridiculous. So I'm looking for more places where I can ask other people to help me.

• 1:23:21Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:23:22Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Rather than proving that I'm an Olympian.

• 1:23:25Lewis Howes?

  How can I help you?

• 1:23:26Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Oh, Louis, come on Letters from Love.

• 1:23:30Lewis Howes?

  I'm going to, yes, it's happening. I'm excited.

• 1:23:32Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, come on Letters from Love. And the reason, and it's actually not just helping me. So I do this project with my beloved friend, Margaret Cordy, and we're not going to embarrass her by telling everybody that she's in the room. But she's in the room. And Margaret and I have been friends since college, and we created this whole Substack thing together. And

• 1:23:54Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, every week, we ask a special guest to come on and take the risk because it's an incredibly vulnerable thing for people to do to dare to take this like thought exercise, spiritual exercise, um, trauma exercise of asking unconditional love, what would you have me now? And it hasn't necessarily been easy to find men who will do it.

• 1:24:16Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I'm in.

• 1:24:17Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And like, that's why you're so great is because you actually, like, there's been a number of men who we've asked to do it and they're like, I don't feel safe or comfortable.

• 1:24:26Lewis Howes?

  They said no? Or they just said, I'm not ready for this or?

• 1:24:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  They said no. Um, and, and, and one that I found really interesting was he said something, I, I don't want to out him, he's somebody who I love so much, but he was like, I feel like I already know what unconditional love would say to me. Unconditional love would say to me, like, you're, you're lovable just the way you are and I don't want to hear that because I'm afraid it'll take away my motivation to be better. And, and, and I was like, who hurt you? Sweetie, why do you think that you can't be unconditionally loved and also still strive to be better?

• 1:25:06Lewis Howes?

  Pursue things.

• 1:25:07Elizabeth Gilbert?

  In fact, maybe knowing that you are loved is the, like, the soft landing place that you can live in and from there, like, you can, you can, it's a place you can go back to, to rest. Those letters that I write to myself from love are my home.

• 1:25:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:25:25Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, I go out there in the world and I strive and I try and I, you know, like, I work so hard on myself and I work so hard on my work and I, and I try to be a really good person and I try to serve the world and like, I, I work so hard. And then I come home to these letters where love says, like, my beloved, just come, come home and rest.

• 1:25:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:46Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know?

• 1:25:46Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting that that person said that to you because I think a lot of, a lot of people, not just men, but a lot of people can understand that feeling of like, well, if I love and accept myself. Do I just give up?

• 1:25:57Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Where's the fire in my belly?

• 1:25:58Lewis Howes?

  I'm not driven anymore, right? And I'm not, that's gonna take my edge off of me. I won't be as competitive or driven to succeed. And then I'll get complacent. And, and I can relate to that because for most of my life, I was driven to prove people wrong or to prove people that I wasn't, you know, what they thought I was when I was younger or something, to prove the bullies wrong or whatever it might be, right? And I'm gonna get bigger, faster, stronger, you know, more successful to prove you wrong. That did nothing good for me. Like, it helped me achieve, but it didn't make me feel better once I did. Maybe for a day, but then I was almost angrier. I was like, why am I not feeling better?

• 1:26:33Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:26:33Lewis Howes?

  I need a bigger goal to go conquer.

• 1:26:35Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:26:35Lewis Howes?

  It's like, I don't know if you can relate to that, but...

• 1:26:37Elizabeth Gilbert?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:26:39Lewis Howes?

  And I think, learning to, this has worked for me, learning to be on the healing journey and say, okay, I feel more peace than ever. And because I have energy, it's more sustainable. It's more renewable. It doesn't burn out as quickly when I'm driven by like anger and like pride and proving people wrong.

• 1:27:00Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:01Lewis Howes?

  I feel like I can serve at deeper levels. And I feel like I can, because I'm doing it out of love and collaboration, not competition, and proving God right versus proving others wrong.

• 1:27:15Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Proving God right? I love that.

• 1:27:17Lewis Howes?

  You know what I mean? As, it's like, okay, of course I have a mission to get up for today. And like, of course I'm gonna go the extra mile. Of course I'm gonna serve bigger and better however I can. Of course, of course I'm gonna endure what I need to endure in this season. And I'm gonna go home and rest. And I'm gonna listen to my chest when it's telling me, you need to take two weeks off or you need to take two years off or two months off, whatever it is. And you need to slow down. And I think it's, it's being able to listen at all times of what you need. It's like, is now the time to push or is now the time to like rest?

• 1:27:50Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:27:50Lewis Howes?

  And it sounds like you're in that season of listening and needing to rest or do something else.

• 1:27:55Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, a little less.

• 1:27:57Lewis Howes?

  What is that? How can I support you in, in staying accountable for whatever that looks like for you?

• 1:28:02Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Oh, God.

• 1:28:05Lewis Howes?

  What does that look like for you to rest or to do less?

• 1:28:08Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know what? I'm gonna send you, because you're my friend, I'm gonna send you the dates that I have already set aside.

• 1:28:16Lewis Howes?

  Perfect.

• 1:28:17Elizabeth Gilbert?

  In the year of our Lord 2025.

• 1:28:20Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:28:21Elizabeth Gilbert?

  When I'm going to take a six month sabbatical.

• 1:28:23Lewis Howes?

  Let's go.

• 1:28:24Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I'm not going to do any teaching. I'm not going to do any speaking events. I'll keep the letters from love going because that's actually my spiritual space. I'm not going to write, I'm going to start a new book. I'm going to stop.

• 1:28:37Lewis Howes?

  Perfect.

• 1:28:38Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I'm going to send you those dates.

• 1:28:40Lewis Howes?

  You promise?

• 1:28:41Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Absolutely.

• 1:28:41Lewis Howes?

  Okay, good. And I'm going to.

• 1:28:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I love that. That's such a great question. I love, I love asking like, how can I serve? How can I serve this aspiration?

• 1:28:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:50Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I'm going to take six months and I'm going to, I'm going to not produce, achieve, aspire.

• 1:28:57Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 1:28:58Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:58Lewis Howes?

  That's greatness for me in this season of your life. I'm so happy that you're doing that because I, I'm grateful you're doing this because I know when you feel kind of stretched thin and like committing to something like this last minute. I appreciate you coming on here. I think it's going to serve and help a lot of people. So hopefully this is energy giving.

• 1:29:15Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Lewis.

• 1:29:15Lewis Howes?

  And not stretching you.

• 1:29:17Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You are a banquet of a human being.

• 1:29:19Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 1:29:20Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I always come away from being with you feeling fed and nourished and seen. And this did not take energy. This gave energy.

• 1:29:27Lewis Howes?

  I'm glad, I'm glad. We're here, we're here to serve people together. So I'm grateful for you and, and I'll, I'll wrap it with this. I want to acknowledge you Liz for the journey you've been on because I think people have seen the side of you for a long time of like your success. Right? Of like Eat, Braid, Love and all the, you know, millions of copies of books and like master speaker and all the success of you. And I'm so grateful that you are starting to reveal the parts of you of what you've been struggling with at an even deeper level. You did this before, but you're doing it at a deeper level where I feel like it's feeding your soul. And you're not worried about what people think about you.

• 1:30:09Lewis Howes?

  Not that you did before, but I feel like this is what you're doing now and how you're serving with the letters that you're doing is just really valuable. And I'm grateful for you and I acknowledge you for. The gift that you've been giving yourself continually over these last five years to be of support and service to you, so that you can serve the way you need to at this season of your life and what God wants you to serve.

• 1:30:34Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Thanks, Lewis.

• 1:30:35Lewis Howes?

  So I'm really grateful that you're doing this journey. I'm grateful that you're allowing support in your life and you're allowing a team around you as opposed to doing it all yourself. I think that's amazing and I'm grateful because you get to rest and you also get to inspire and empower other people and provide opportunities for other people to be with you. So I think it's amazing. And how can we follow the letters? How can we be, sign up for it and be a part of it?

• 1:31:02Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah, so if you go to Substack, or if you just Google Elizabeth Gilbert Substack, or Elizabeth Gilbert Letters From Love, it'll take you there. And for some people, it's a new technology, but it's just like, it's just like, essentially, you're just signing up for a newsletter. And, and come and sign up and be part of this community. I also just want to say that that community, I have a friend named Dr. Stephanie Covington, who's an expert on women's addiction and recovery. She wrote A Woman's Guide Through the Twelve Steps. She's a very reputable expert in, in the psychological field. And she said, "That community is the kindest corner of the internet."

• 1:31:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:31:39Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And the support that the people in that community are giving to one another as they share this incredible, vulnerable work of daring to believe that something might love them and listening for that voice and downloading those messages and then letting it be seen. There's a tenderness, I mean, it's been 13 months, we haven't had one person bring any negativity into that space, which is astonishing in this age. You know, people are showing up with, with truly undefended hearts and, and we're reversing a terrible cultural paradigm of self-hatred, perfectionism, and scarcity.

• 1:32:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:19Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And turning it into self-friendliness and acceptance and community love.

• 1:32:23Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. So is there a specific website to, like, that directs it to them or just go to Substack and Google or search it?

• 1:32:29Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Substack.com/ElizabethGilbert. I don't even know, whatever. Well, maybe we can put a link on the, on the thing. But I don't, I don't even know.

• 1:32:39Lewis Howes?

  You don't know. People just find it.

• 1:32:41Elizabeth Gilbert?

  But if you just Google Elizabeth Gilbert Substack, it'll take you right to it.

• 1:32:45Lewis Howes?

  Two final, two final questions for you. This one, I think I asked you this, when's the last time you were on, like seven years ago, eight years ago?

• 1:32:51Elizabeth Gilbert?

  God, isn't that crazy?

• 1:32:52Lewis Howes?

  Crazy to me. Is that long ago? I think it was.

• 1:32:54Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Lewis Howes?

  I'm pretty sure I asked you this question last time, but it may be different now. Um, this is a hypothetical question I ask everyone at the end of a conversation. It's called the three truths.

• 1:33:05Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Okay.

• 1:33:05Lewis Howes?

  So imagine hypothetically, you get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day on this earth. And you get to, from this moment until then, you get to accomplish or live however you want, accomplish all your dreams, everything comes true that you want. And for whatever reason, on the last day, you have to take everything with you. All of your content, books, Substack, letters, this conversation, everything is gone, hypothetically. But, you know, you get to leave behind three truths. And this is all we have to remember you by, are these three lessons that you've learned from everything, everything you've learned. What would be those three truths for you?

• 1:33:43Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's a friendly universe. Transformation is possible. And this is earth school.

• 1:33:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's good. Okay, final question, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:34:03Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Trust. Trusting that, going back to this is a friendly universe. Trusting that we are not alone. That our lives are not accidents. That God doesn't make trash. And that you're here because you're wanted to be here. And you're wanted and loved and chosen. No matter what your family of origin might have said. No matter what your culture might have said, no matter what the people who left you might have said. No matter what your failures and your addictions might have said,

• 1:34:48Elizabeth Gilbert?

  you are wanted here. You are wanted here. We want you here. That's what I hear the universe say. We want you here. We love you here. And we want you to know that, that there is no deep cosmic silence. There's just 10,000 angels saying, we want you here. We love you here. It's important that you exist. And we want you to stay.

• 1:35:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You're amazing. Appreciate you. Love you. Thank you very much.

• 1:35:18Elizabeth Gilbert?

  I love you.

• 1:35:19Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:35:19Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Thank you.

• 1:35:21Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out

• 1:36:06Lewis Howes?

  there and do something great.