271. Overcoming our purpose anxiety ft. Elizabeth Gilbert

In this episode I had the rare and wonderful opportunity to interview a personal hero of mine, the author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love, writer, true creative and teacher, Elizabeth Gilbert. We discuss why the idea of 'purpose' is incorrect and making us confused and anxious, how to identify your calling, the difference between a career, hobby, job and calling, and how she managed setbacks and failure. We also discuss the creative process, her wisdom for imposter syndrome and how to let go of your worry and anxiety and have an authentic, true human experience. Listen now! Find Liz here: https://www.elizabethgilbert.com/ PREORDER MY BOOK: https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/general-clean https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/755841/person-in-progress-by-jemma-sbeg/ Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en# Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast https://www.instagram.com/thatpsychologypodcast/?hl=en# For business: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:57Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:41Jemma Sbeg?

  New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course, break down the psychology of our twenties. If you have been a long time listener of the podcast, you will know that there is one TED Talk I reference probably three to four times a year, and it's titled "Your Elusive Creative Genius" by Elizabeth Gilbert. This TED Talk entirely changed how I thought about success, how I thought about inspiration, failure, and on a deeper level, what it really meant to be human. When Elizabeth, or Liz, as she is more commonly known as, released her book,

• 3:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Big Magic, it once again changed my life, and it is firmly one of my favorite, probably most read, books of all time. When I was first really getting listeners with the podcast back in 2021, someone asked me who my dream guest would be, and I said, Liz. Because of that book, because of how incredible her mind is, because of all the books that she has since written, and all the wisdom that she really has to share. And it was a huge dream back in 2021, one that I really never thought was going to happen. Uh, but now in 2025, it's somehow finally come true. And I couldn't be more excited to have Liz on the podcast to discuss how to find our purpose,

• 4:09Jemma Sbeg?

  how to keep making and creating things, dealing with failure, managing success, and the best advice she has for people in her twenties. This episode is so very special to me and will forever have a place in my heart. But I also just hope you all enjoy it and you learn something. All right, without further ado, I want to welcome on Liz Gilbert to the show, to the psychology of your twenties. Liz, can you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your work?

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yes, first of all, I'm so happy to be here and honored to be here talking to you. My name is Liz Gilbert. I'm known, I guess professionally as Elizabeth Gilbert, but that feels weird to introduce myself that way. Um, I'm the author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic and The Signature of All Things and City of Girls and a bunch of other books. Um, and I also have, um, I'm a, I'm a fiction and nonfiction author, but I also spend a lot of time teaching. Um, and I don't teach writing because I don't know how, but I teach a sort of general spirit of creativity, what I call creative living, um, a way of living where, uh, I simply define it this way,

• 5:23Speaker 02

  where you make your decisions based on your curiosity rather than your fear. And, um, and that ends up becoming a very creative life. So, uh, I'm sort of known also for that as being a teacher of creativity and kind of spirituality.

• 5:38Jemma Sbeg?

  That would be an amazing job title to have, a teacher.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Teacher of creativity and spirituality.

• 5:43Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, I'm like, all right, so new career path unlocked. That sounds amazing.

• 5:50Jemma Sbeg?

  Great, let's change the vision board up. I think I said this in my introduction, but most people know you for Big Magic, not for Big Magic, for Eat, Pray, Love, probably. I think I was a little bit too young to really understand Eat, Pray, Love, but I did really understand Big Magic and it was just such a beautiful book that I continue to reference to this day. Do you remember, you know, in the, in the interest of understanding purpose, do you remember when you kind of realized like, oh, I'm gonna be a writer? I'm gonna be this creative, curious person. This is my calling.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I'm really glad you used the word calling.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Because I would love to just launch in with some thoughts that I have about the word purpose and how, how much anxiety that word causes. Can we, can we just start with that?

• 6:45Jemma Sbeg?

  Absolutely, because it's something, obviously, a lot of people listening to this like in their twenties. And the amount of them that email me being like, I don't know what my purpose is.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Oh, God. Okay, let's get into it. Let's get into it. My honeys, my sweeties, you have been so terribly misinformed.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  This is my opinion. Everything I'm saying is my own opinion. Take what you like and leave the rest, but I will throw out into the void and it will land on whoever it needs to land on. That there is this thing called purpose anxiety. And I scarcely know anybody who doesn't suffer from it. And I know some of the people who appear to be at the very, very, very top of a purpose-driven life and have apparently achieved it. And they also still suffer from purpose anxiety. And the reason that everybody suffers from purpose anxiety is because everyone in Western contemporary culture has been told this same theology. And it really is a theology.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  And you've been told variants of this from the time you were born. And you've heard it in every graduation and commencement speech and in every self-help book. And no one has ever questioned whether it even makes sense or whether it is even true. But here's the theology. Everyone is born with a unique purpose. That is completely their own and totally unrelated to anybody else. It's one thing that only you can do. Nobody but you can do it. So already that creates anxiety in me because there's eight billion people on the planet. And so what? I'm supposed to find something in me that is that no one else can do? Like that doesn't, the maths don't even add up on that, right? And you should, you should know it from the time that you're born.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  And, and you should always know what it is. It should be extremely clear what it is. And then your job is to devote your entire life to that one thing. And to, and if you miss the boat and it's too late and you haven't gotten on that, you should be extremely anxious and ashamed of yourself that you don't know what it is. I mean, this is what people are taught. And then you must become the master of that thing. You must devote an enormous amount of time, attention and money to mastering whatever that thing is, that unique spark that nobody else has. And then you must monetize it. Because if you make your money doing anything other than the thing that is your unique spark, spark and purpose, then you are a failure. And it's not enough that you must monetize it. You must become the best at it and you must also create opportunity for others.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  And you must then change the world through your purpose. This is what literally everybody is told. And no wonder, everybody is full of anxiety about it. And I mean, if we can just break it down for a minute, it's first of all, it comes from a place of enormous hubris and arrogance to pretend, to believe, like to think that you can know what you are here for, when we don't even know what this is. This planet, consciousness, this experience, like we don't even know, we literally have no idea what's going on. And like why your soul was dropped into your particular body and born into your body. Like, we can't know. And anybody who pretends that they know, I should, you should be very suspicious of them.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  So there's an enormous arrogance. Also, can you hear how self-centered it is? Purpose theology comes from Western men.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  And so it's all about, I have to be incredibly important. I actually have to be the most important and I have to change the world in my own image. And this whole idea even that you have to change the world, there's a tremendous arrogance in that too. Because I think at this point, if you look around the planet, the world is pretty clearly saying like, I wish you people would stop changing me.

• 10:37Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, it's saying like, you guys can take a break. Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, you've done enough and the people have led the most purpose driven lives are the people who have perhaps done the most damage to the planet and to other people. Um, so everything about it is so distorted and, and, and it's, and all it does is cause people to suffer. And I've met, and I've met the people who are living at the top of that game and they are not relaxed. They are not at peace and they never know whether they've done enough. Have they changed the world enough? Have they made a big enough impact? Oh, and if you're thinking, great, I can't wait to die because then this will, this whole purpose anxiety thing will be over. You're also supposed to leave a legacy, right? So it like never ends, the, the, the self centeredness, the arrogance and the anxiety of purpose theology never end.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  So what I am gently here to offer as a counterpoint to a purpose driven life is a life of presence. Um, because the other thing about a purpose driven life is that it constantly has you in the future. Um, you can't live a purpose driven, anxiety driven theology without always being locked in the future of like, who am I going to become? What am I going to do? What is my impact going to be? Who am I going to affect? And you completely miss life. You completely miss life. I mean, my, my favorite spiritual teacher, Byron Katie says, if you want to suffer, get a future. So this obsession with the future will bring you nothing but pain.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  So the, the contrary position to take is a life of, of presence, which is simply being a witness to the extraordinary, unknowable miraculous strangeness of being a human being on this planet and observing it and being like, this is so, I mean, because it is objectively interesting. It's, it's not safe, this planet. It never has been for people, but it's a really interesting experience.

• 12:39Jemma Sbeg?

  It definitely is.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  It's a really interesting experience to be who you are. In your culture that you were dropped in at this moment of history, and I think that experience itself would like a few people to relax and observe it. And actually be like, this is wild, like this is absolutely wild and I don't know what I am. And I don't know who I am and I don't know where I'm going and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. But it is very interesting to be here. And if you start from that perspective and you begin to follow the track of your curiosity of what's most interesting. You will have an interesting life.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  You may not have a life that certain kinds of people would look at and say is successful, but I'm not interested in those kinds of people.

• 13:34Jemma Sbeg?

  They're not part of the conversation.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Like I have a friend who says, everybody's got a brother in law named Phil. Who's like, yeah, but what are you doing? Like, what are you doing for your job? Like, what's your plan? Like, must be nice to take, you know, must be nice to, you know, like, just everyone's got that in their life. And Phil must be ignored.

• 13:53Jemma Sbeg?

  Phil must be ignored. It's so funny. Like I see this on social media all the time. Where it's like often some young woman or young man like exploring some creative side of them, making art, posting just for fun, whatever it is, writing just for fun. And there's always someone in the comments being like, must be nice not to have work a full time job. Like, must be nice to take a break. And I'm like, well, yeah, it is really nice. I'm sure it is really nice for them to do that.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  In fact, it is. Thank you. It's lovely.

• 14:23Jemma Sbeg?

  In fact, it's lovely. Like I get it all the time with people like people will come across like the podcast and come across like my online presence and will be like, wow, you call that work? You call that whatever, like, and get really upset with me. And I'm like, Honestly, all I'm hearing there is a desire to have what I have. Like, you think that your reality of needing to prove yourself and work hard and never take a day off and always be like thinking about your family and thinking about everyone else, like, that doesn't actually sound particularly desirable. So I often like, that's how I try and treat it. I'm like, I just feel kind of bad for those people who were raised, again, with the theology

• 15:02Jemma Sbeg?

  that you have one purpose and if you haven't found it, bad luck, time to be miserable and just work the nine to five.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  You have wasted your life.

• 15:12Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  It also treats life rather than being a miraculous, mysterious, unknowable gift. It treats it as something that must be earned, that you must earn your place, you must earn your right to be here. And whatever created you doesn't seem to think so, because it just dropped you here. It didn't seem to think you had to earn your right to be here. And, you know, I also, I would love to just take a moment and talk about these four different things that people often amalgamate into one thing, and that also causes anxiety. And the four things are hobby, job, career, and calling. So I just want to take a moment and distinguish between these four things. Okay, so a hobby is something that you do because it's fun and you like it.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  And that's the thing that you post on social media and people are like, must be nice to take a pottery class. Yeah, it is nice. I, you know, and hobbies actually bring an end to anxiety. Like puttering about, making things for no reason, doing something simply because it's a pleasure. Until very recently, everyone had hobbies. And most of life was just people doing stuff because they liked doing it and it was fun. And it doesn't have to be monetized, you don't have to be the best at it, you don't have to become famous at it. My biggest suggestion to people who are in purpose anxieties to get a hobby that has absolutely no connection to anything productive and enjoy it. Because life is also meant to be enjoyed. So that's a hobby. A job.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  A job is a thing that unless you are a trust fund baby or landed gentry, you have to have. But here's the thing, you don't have to like it. Like I've had so many jobs in my life that I didn't like. You don't have to like it. It doesn't have to be your purpose. You don't have to be great at it. You don't have to come. It doesn't have to consume your entire life. It's just a thing you have to do to make some money so that you can go home and have hobbies. Right, like.

• 17:07Jemma Sbeg?

  I love that way of thinking about it.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  Get a job, you know, just get a job. It doesn't like, like, and you, it's like, don't give your heart to it. Deliver thirty percent at work, you know, like they'll never know. Like a job is a place where you can go and just phone it in and they'll never know.

• 17:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, I always say to people, I'm always like, just act, act your wage, like act your wage, like if you're getting paid.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 17:33Jemma Sbeg?

  If you're getting paid minimum wage, minimum work.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  And this goes a totally against capitalism, purpose anxiety to say that in theology, but just just show up, do the least you can do to get your, to keep your job and then have your life be outside of your job. With the things that you're curious about, the things that you enjoy, the people that you like being with. So that's a job. It's not the same as a hobby. The next thing is a career. So a career is a job that you're passionate about. Right? That's all a career is. Don't act like your job is your career if you're not passionate about it. Like, don't try to make a job into a career if you're just like, this is just my job, you know? But if you are passionate about it and you feel like this is what I'm here to do and I'm here to serve humanity in this way.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Then you pour yourself into your job. So a career is a job that you pour yourself into because it brings you so much love and satisfaction. And it doesn't even matter how much they pay you. You would want to do it anyway. And like you, you really do show up for a career, but you don't have to have a career. Like you do have to have a job, but you don't have to have a career. Right? And if you are in a career and you don't love it, you should quit and get a job.

• 18:49Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Like if your career is destroying your life, just go get a job. There's lots of jobs. Just go get a job and then have hobbies and then have friends. And then the final thing is a calling and a calling is something that you feel you are compelled to do. Because it's a spiritual fulfillment.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  And and not everybody has one and not everybody needs to have one. And if you have one, you'll know because you already have it. And if you don't have one, you don't have to go out there searching for it because don't worry about it. It's something you can't create. You can't create a calling. You either like higher power gave you one or didn't. And maybe one will come later or maybe it won't. So you can just relax about it. And if you've got a calling, then you devote yourself to it. And it's got absolutely nothing to do with whether you're being paid or not. And no one can ever take it away from you. I can lose my career. So my calling is to be a writer and I knew that ever since I was nine years old. But it wasn't my career until I was thirty. Um, but through that entire time before it became my career, it was my calling.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  So I did it while I had jobs. I did my calling. Nobody wanted me to do it. Nobody paid me to do it. Nobody was interested in me doing it. And then over time, it became my career. My career can be destroyed. AI can take my career away. People can fire me. The world can decide it doesn't want to read Elizabeth Gilbert books anymore. Like, there are so many ways I can lose my career. I'm not in control of that and I'm aware of that. And if I ever lose my career, I'll just go get a job. Like, and go back to having hobbies, but nobody can take my calling away. Nobody could stop me from writing when I wanted to write, even though they weren't paying me to. And nobody can stop me from writing now if my career folds.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  So that's the difference between a hobby, a job, a calling and a career. Um, and it's so important to know the difference because we live in a culture that has pushed them all together and said that you should, you should have one thing that's all of that.

• 20:52Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  And it isn't, it isn't true. So I just want to just clarify that for everybody.

• 20:59Jemma Sbeg?

  I can honestly feel the anxiety fading from people right now because that is probably the biggest serious slash dilemma of questions that I get, which is, how do I know what I'm meant to do? How do I choose between these two jobs that one I'm more passionate about, one I'm less passionate about? How do I, you know, get the spark back for life? And honestly, I I think a lot of the questions come back to that distinction between these four very distinct, when you think about it, um, categories of of being and categories of existing. I actually, when I first started the podcast, it was very similar. Like it was this weird thing where I just knew that this is what I was meant to do. It was a calling and I genuinely had no listeners. I recorded it in the back of my car.

• 21:45Jemma Sbeg?

  And I always tell the story of like, in the first episodes, you can literally hear like trucks going by. You can hear birds in the background because I'm recording it on my phone. And it really didn't matter who listened. I just felt like I had to do it. There's an analogy that you have in your book, uh, and also in your TED talk about how an idea will sometimes just be dropped in your in your lap. And you kind of have to make a contract with it and it kind of appears out of nowhere, right? And it's just like, oh, oh my God, I've just had this brilliant idea. Some spirit has given it to me. The wind has shifted and brought it to me. And I just love how you say it's like, whatever it is, is trying to find the person who's going to make it reality. Like it's going to try and find the best conduit for it to be real.

• 22:29Jemma Sbeg?

  And I honestly felt that about the psychology of your twenties. It was like, people ask me how I came up with the idea. And I'm like, I genuinely have no idea. Like I have no idea. It just came to me and I just knew I had to do it. But I do think that my relationship with it changed when I started making money. And when it did become the thing that paid my bills, that allowed me, uh, you know, it became a job, a hobby, a career and a calling all at once. And I'm sure that was probably the case with writing for you as well.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 23:02Jemma Sbeg?

  What what happened when that, when that shifted, when the dynamic shifted entirely?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, when money is introduced, it changes everything. And it's not that I'm anti-money. I'm very delighted that I can make my living doing this. Um, I, I, I think the really important thing that that I have, that I've had to remember. And I've had to carry this through my entire career, um, is that.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, it doesn't matter what your career is. This, I'm just thinking, this is actually the truth, no matter what you're doing, whether you're a civil engineer or a painter. Like, it doesn't, you know, nothing is promised. You know, nothing is promised and nothing is owed. No, nowhere was there some sort of contract, either a social contract or a spiritual contract that said, you're assured this, you get to, you know, like, this will continue, or you're allowed to have this, like, you know, we're seeing that as societies are breaking down and unions are breaking down. Like, none of this is promised. And you can get angry about that, or you can just be a Taoist about it

• 24:14Speaker 02

  and sort of just go with the flow of energy, of reality. And there's a beautiful line that I quote to myself all the time that's from the Bhagavad Gita, which is this ancient Indian Hindu spiritual text. And there's a line in there where one of the gods says to one of the heroes, "You are entitled to the labor, but you are not entitled to the fruit of the labor." And that is something that is hard to land on modern ears because we have a lot of sense of entitlement. And it's like, well, I worked really hard, I should, I worked really hard, I therefore should. That's the calculus of capitalism.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  You know, like, I worked hard and therefore I should have this. And the actual reality of life on earth is, nobody told you that that's true. I mean, some people told you that who don't know how the world works. The way the world actually works is like, it shrugs. It's like the world, you know, the universe is a little bit indifferent. You know, the universe is a little bit like, oh, maybe you'll have it, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have it for a while, maybe you won't. You know, like, I love that about, like, the sort of classical Indian theology and ideas of God is like, God is much less a sort of... Reasonable reigning judge than a kind of baddie old lady who lives on the top of a hill

• 25:39Speaker 02

  and has money and gives it to some people who don't deserve it and gives it to other people who do, you know, and like, and like makes promises and doesn't keep them and is a little bit senile. And it's like, that's the actual reality of life, you know. And so I'm not entitled, I'm, I'm not entitled. I've had books canceled, you know, like I, I had a book canceled two years ago, right before it was published, you know, and it was like, wow, I could freak out about this and be like, I worked for four years on this. This is a tragedy for me, that this book isn't being published, or I can live in accordance with reality and be like, oh, that's interesting. That is objectively interesting that that

• 26:20Speaker 02

  happened. That is not what I expected. I think so much of life is just, that is not what I expected. That's interesting. And the difference between living a life of anxiety and living a life of creativity. And my friend Martha Beck just recently wrote a book about how the, the antidote for anxiety, the opposite of anxiety is not relaxation, it's creativity.

• 26:41Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  It's creativity is the only way out of anxiety. And the only way into creativity is to live from a spirit of, that's interesting, rather than a spirit of like, what a nightmare. It's also a drama free life to live from a place of like, that's interesting. Oh, somebody broke up with me who I thought I was gonna marry. That is interesting. Wow, I, I really wanted kids and I can't have them. That is really interesting.

• 27:11Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  The person I love the most in the world died, who I thought was gonna be like my anchor forever. That's interesting. You know, that is so interesting. What am I gonna do now? So on the video game of life, like, what is my next move? And the next move, if you want to have a life without a lot of anxiety is what would be the most interesting thing I could do now?

• 27:34Jemma Sbeg?

  I also love a very equal quote, which is the opposite of anxiety is trust. And I think that also comes into play here, where you can be thrown like the most awful, terrible circumstances, but if you trust that you are going to make it through, and if you trust that you are capable of finding a route out of finding your way back to a life that you really love and that you want, you will make it through most of the time. Like self-trust is just such like, I don't know, it's just such an antidote to so much. It's an antidote to imposter syndrome. It's an antidote to a lot of anxiety. And I really want to link back to what you were saying before of, you know,

• 28:18Jemma Sbeg?

  God, the universe is somebody or lady like living on the top of a hill, just giving out money. Because I see this a lot with people in their twenties where it's like, if I work X amount of hard, I will receive Y amount of reward. And I always think about it in the context of people studying for exams, right? Very common thing that you do during this decade. Someone could study the exact same amount of hours of you as you have the exact same content and get a completely different grade, could understand it completely differently. And sometimes like

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Somebody can study a lot less than you and get a much better grade.

• 28:52Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's like, okay, so we all think that it's just hard work. And it was actually something I had to really accept where I was like, it's okay for a bit of this to be luck. Like, it's actually okay. Yeah. And I kept worrying, I'd be like, well, luck isn't, luck isn't promised. So if my life has been given to me by luck, like as soon as the tables turn, I could not have my life anymore. So I'm going to use hard work as an insurance. And eventually you have to kind of let that go because it makes you feel like every single thing that you do is tied to how much you want it and how many hours you're willing to put into it. Um, which is not true. It's just simply not true.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  It's all based on the devastating wish that life would be fair and sensible. And there's very little evidence that I have seen to support that it is either of those things. But it is, once again, interesting. The baddie old lady who lives on the top of the hill, who's half senile and holds all sorts of power and forgets your name, like promises you an inheritance and then forgets your name.

• 29:54Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, it's like I've already gave it to that person.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Did I? Sorry, give it to the gardener. Like, I thought, you know, like, wait, but I'm your grandchild. Well, are you? You know, like, it's, it's so, and this is why I think that the manifestation theology is a bit dangerous. This idea, you, you made a sort of joke about vision boards and, and vision boards can be really sweet. And there is something about that. There is a, it's not that you're helpless. There is a, there's a push and a pull. There's a part that you have control over and there's a part that you don't. And the way I describe it in Eat, Pray, Love, it's like a circus, trained circus acrobat riding on two horses at the same time. You know, like one foot on two horses around a ring. And, and the play that I feel in my own life between my own will

• 30:38Speaker 02

  and what, what can only be called destiny or fate is I've only got a foot on one of those horses. You know, um, and the other one, it looks like it's running right alongside me, but at any moment, anything could happen, you know, like anything could happen that changes the game. And, and how do we hold our equanimity? And, and they're both running at full speed, by the way, you know? And, and the really good acrobats are the ones who are just like, and they're sparkling, and they're sparkling leotard with a big smile, like, and a plume of like, here we are, we're on the ride, you know? So it's, yeah, but there's, there is no promised outcome. The outcome is not promised. You're entitled to the labor, but you're not entitled to the fruit of the labor.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  And, and if, gosh, if there's one thing that, that could make you happier than anything else, it would be to release any sense of entitlement to anything. Because the most depressed, outraged and anxious that I have been in my life has been when I didn't get what I wanted. And, and I had to suffer through some sort of a tantrum about it for however amount of time, until I surrendered.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  To you're not, you ain't getting it. Don't matter how much you want it. You ain't, you cannot make that person love you. You cannot make that person love you. You cannot change the past. You cannot change people's opinions of you can't. Um, and so the, the, I think the reason I'm a lot more serene in my fifties than I was in my twenties was because in my twenties, I was still pretty sure I could get what I wanted. Um, if I tried hard enough and worked hard enough or manipulated enough. Um, and I couldn't.

• 32:22Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, that's a lesson. That's a lesson that we all learn eventually. And I always think about it as, have you seen the Harry Potter films?

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Yep, of course.

• 32:31Jemma Sbeg?

  Of course.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Do I not have eyes?

• 32:33Jemma Sbeg?

  I know. Sometimes you've got to ask because there'll be people who are like, what? No. Um, I always think about this scene, it must be in the first movie where they're going to find the philosopher's stone and they fall into this pit of vines that like choke them and like uh, just tightening and every time they like struggle against it and they move, it just gets tighter and tighter and tighter. And it must be like, Hermione or someone realizes like, if I just relax, they'll let me go. They'll let me go and I will just fall straight through. And it is such a hard thing to do because naturally you want a good life and you want to be happy and you want to find love and you want to feel like you are here for a reason. Obviously, like you can't know what that is.

• 33:18Jemma Sbeg?

  So sometimes you do just have to do the opposite of what every single instinct in your body is telling you to do. And that is to just relax. And I think that there is a difference between like survivor, like survival instincts and an instinct for living. And I think our living instinct and our life instinct is to relax and is to just have a little bit more fun. But we're confusing that with our survival instincts, which are like, no, run, produce, like hit, scream. Somewhere along the way, like those have gotten crossed. And so now we just feel a lot more panicked about everything and we think that small things are going to cost us our life, you know, not having a job that we love, not having people like us, like all these things are a lot more, going to be a lot more costly than they actually are.

• 34:03Jemma Sbeg?

  Um, that's just how I see it. And when I relaxed into that, it felt a lot better.

• 34:11Jemma Sbeg?

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• 34:53Jemma Sbeg?

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• 35:35Jemma Sbeg?

  Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 35:48Jemma Sbeg?

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• 36:33Jemma Sbeg?

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• 37:17Jemma Sbeg?

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• 37:58Jemma Sbeg?

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• 38:23Jemma Sbeg?

  I want to ask you about a bit of a turning point in your career and in your life. And it was the success of Eat, Pray, Love.

• 38:32Jemma Sbeg?

  Julia Roberts starred you in a movie. That's probably something that only three or four people can say. But what happened afterwards? You know, you wrote this book. It was, it's beautiful. It became incredibly popular. How did you manage or deal with the expectations that you maybe experienced for your next book? Or for after that, the initial fame and maybe past?

• 38:58Speaker 02

  Oh, what a great question. So do you know, I mean, I'm talking like I know anything about mathematics, but do you know the principle of absolute value?

• 39:07Jemma Sbeg?

  I'm not, no, I'm not even going to claim to pretend to.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  I am going to just throw it out there and explain it, but like, imagine that you're looking at a number line. And there's a zero in the middle and then the positive numbers go out in one direction, positive one through 10. And then the negative numbers go out in the other direction, negative one through 10, right? So pick a number three, right? So there's a positive number three and there's a negative number three, right, on that line. But they share the same absolute value. So the absolute value means the distance from zero. So there's a, there's a zero in our emotional life, which I would, I would describe as just sort of like our,

• 39:48Speaker 02

  like stability, constancy, a sense of belonging, a sense of like balance. That's zero, that's point zero, right? And then there are these horrible things that happen on the negative side of the scale. And there's wonderful things that happen on the positive side of the scale. Here's where things can get really confusing sometimes. It makes sense that when a horrible thing happens, a divorce, or an illness, or a death, or a terrible breakup, or massive disappointment, or, or a natural disaster. It makes sense that you would be really shook by it. But it doesn't make sense that you would be equally shook

• 40:30Speaker 02

  when a wonderful thing happens, because we're trained to think that the wonderful things are great. But to your nervous system.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  There's an absolute value of distance from zero. If zero is what I'm used to, what I'm accustomed to and what I am normal to, and a really big swing in the positive direction, a number 10, so Eat, Pray, Love's a number 10 on that. It's like you just wrote,

• 40:56Speaker 02

  I heard the other day that it's like the second bestselling memoir of all time. You know, it's like, Yeah, so famous. Like, yeah, Julia Roberts, you're a millionaire now. Julia Roberts is playing you in a movie. You're famous. You never have to get a job again, you know, like, all this stuff has happened. This is a 10, this is a plus 10. The absolute value is it's 10 steps from zero, which has the same impact on my nervous system as if there was an earthquake or a death in the family, because it has taken me so far away from what I thought was normal. Right? So it's really important to understand and to expect in life that really good news things can also shake you to the core,

• 41:41Speaker 02

  because it's a long, long way away from normal. So what happened was I had to get back to neutral. I had to get back to zero. And the only way that I could do that was that I took a year off, almost a year off from doing anything in public. And I started a garden. I literally had to get back, I had to get on my knees in the ground, because I felt so ungrounded. People were telling me all sorts of things about who I was and what I was and what my cultural importance was. And so I just had to get down to the level of the earth. And I gardened for a year. I didn't do any speaking events. I didn't teach, I didn't write anything. And I grew vegetables.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  That's how I got over it. And after a year in the garden, I remember it was like wintertime and I was raking up the leaves and composting things. You know, calloused hands and and like just dirty clothes is what did it? And and I was and then I heard in my head the first line to the next book. It was like it it's like the leaves were falling and like a leaf fell into my mind. And it was the first line to the next book. And I was like, OK, I think I'm ready to write again. So so you have to, whether you've had a hugely positive, massively fantastic, big, new, crazy thing happen in your life, or hugely negative, massively horrible, big, new, crazy thing in your life,

• 43:09Speaker 02

  you've got to learn how to ground. And it's very hard to do in this day and age, especially with the constant distractions of of everything that's on your phone. But you've got to kind of get like low to the earth and like go to the beach and go in the ocean. Like it's you have to get kind of animal. You know, it's like I've got to get with elemental back down to the waters, like fire and water and earth. Because and you have to remember the sort of element of yourself rather than all the kind of crazy information that people are telling you about you.

• 43:46Jemma Sbeg?

  I remember when the psychology of your twenties was becoming really, really popular and it was going viral. And it was just thousands of people listening to it all the time. I remember never being more miserable and like crying constantly. I would call my partner Tom and I would call my mom and my dad and just be like, this is going to get taken away from me. How do I adjust to this? And I remember exactly the moment when I was like, I'm gonna be OK. And I went back to where I grew up, which is Corumbin in Queensland. It's paradise on earth. And I went on this hike and I found a mango tree that had dropped all these.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 44:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Exactly. And I it's so funny you were saying that because I literally remember picking up a mango and like I didn't have a knife or fork. And I just like ripped it open with my hands and like was eating it. And I was like, oh, my God, I'll always have this. Like, I can come and find this mango tree if anything terrible happens.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:42Jemma Sbeg?

  It's so.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  You're of the earth. Yeah, exactly. You belong. What is Mary Oliver has a poem, um, your your part in the belonging of things.

• 44:53Jemma Sbeg?

  Yes.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  You know, and great, great success and great failure can lose your sense of belonging. But the, but if you get close to nature, you'll remember that you belong here. I love that story.

• 45:03Jemma Sbeg?

  It was amazing. I still remember the taste of that mango. Uh, like it's very vivid, but, and I went back actually recently and the mango tree wasn't there. So I guess it just appeared when I needed it. It's actually, uh, something you may not know is that to celebrity name drop in here. Taylor Swift actually referred one of your TED Talks. Do you, do you know this?

• 45:24Speaker 02

  I did hear that.

• 45:26Jemma Sbeg?

  You do, you do know this. Okay. And I feel like what was so interesting was she was saying, referencing you and her creative process and being like, the drive to keep creating even when people hate what I've done, even when I've failed, even when I've, you know, not had the success that I wanted, I just have to create. And I always liked that analogy as well, like not to, not that anyone's theory about how they should live their life requires proof. But, you know, seeing that her creative process has continued to evolve and allowed her great success. I feel like she's kind of on to something and that means, you know, that's came from you. So I think when it comes to like imposter syndrome and feeling like we're going to fail because we've had some success

• 46:09Jemma Sbeg?

  or feeling like we need to now do things for other people. True creatives really understand that, again, it's not just a job. It's not a profession. It's a calling. And whether you have zero readers, zero listeners, zero viewers or a million, hopefully like what you're creating, um, will be the same. But within that journey, how have you dealt with failure? I know you talked about, you had a book canceled. Um, I don't even know what that means, to be completely honest.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Neither did I till it happened. No, I wrote, I wrote a book that was set in Russia and a novel that was set in Russia. And when I announced it, there was an enormous outcry from Ukrainians, um, saying like, you know, how could you be doing this right now and pulling the world's attention to Russia? When we're being killed and murdered. And actually I, I'm.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  It made a lot of sense to me when I heard. So when I say that it was cancelled, that's a dramatic way to say, I like drama, I'm an artist, but it's a dramatic way to say, I mean, it was quite dramatic because it was like trending on Twitter and, you know,

• 47:15Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, when thousands of people hate you.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Thousands of people are hating me and telling me that I work for Putin and that I'm awful and going on Goodreads and putting one star reviews for a book that wasn't even published yet. So there were thousands of one star reviews saying like, this is the worst book in the world. We hate this book, you know, I mean, it was, you know, it was a dramatic moment, but I grounded myself. I have practices that I do and spiritual practices that I've learned over the years to ground myself so that I could actually listen to what they were saying rather than feeling that I was being persecuted. And when I listened to what they were saying, it made a lot of sense to me. And I was like, you know what, I get it. I'm going to postpone this book. So it just, we just decided not to publish it. Someday, maybe it'll be published, but it became very simple.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Once you're grounded, the decisions become very simple. When you're in anxiety or fight, flight, or trauma, you don't have access to your reasonable mind and everything feels like it's on fire. So that's why it's so important to learn how to ground. But I was going to say one other thing about the creativity. I think part of the thing is that I know how creativity works through my nervous system and through my mind. And I know that my fear center is the oldest part of my conscious mind. So before we had anything else, when we were evolving into these humanoid forms, we were given this incredible capacity for fear and alarm. My friend Martha calls it fifteen puppies and a snake. So, or fifteen puppies and a cobra, which means if

• 48:46Speaker 02

  you're in a room and there's fifteen puppies and a cobra, your attention is going to be on the cobra, you know, like. If it isn't, you're not gonna live long. If you're the kind of person who's like, oh, there's about the puppies, you know, like you, you, your mind will be, and until that cobra is taken care of, you will not see those puppies. You know, like, that's reality of survival. That's the survival gene that you were talking about. We all have that. We're only here because our ancestors paid attention to the cobras. Right? So this is deeply embedded in my brain that I'm looking for things all the time that are gonna kill me. I'm looking for things that are gonna go wrong. It's, it's, it's wired in. My creative mind only came in online about a hundred thousand years ago.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  Our shared creative mind, but based on what anthropologists and, and scientists believe. So it's new. The other one is billions of years old. The fear center is billions of years old. It's just been evolving and evolving and evolving. Even tadpoles have it, you know? But so whenever I create something, the creative impulse comes and says, I want to make something that's new. My fear center, its number one job is to never let me do anything new.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  Because it has to assume for my survival that anything new has the potential to kill me. So my fear only wants me to do what it does every, what I do every day. Because my fear is like, it's safe if you do this. I mean, no one has died yet from you doing this. So you're, so when I introduce into my mind, I'm gonna do this new thing, my fear freaks out. And it's like, you cannot do that. That will kill us. We don't know. My fear is not allowed. My fear's job is to not let me do anything where it doesn't know what the outcome is.

• 50:29Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  And creativity is nothing but doing things where you don't know what the outcome is. That's all it is. And, and that never changes. I mean, I've written 10 books now, and I still don't know what the outcome is gonna be when I start writing a book. And I still have my fear saying, you can't do it. I've gotta shut it down. You're gonna die. And so I, the fact that I know that that's what's happening from an evolutionary standpoint, makes it easier for me to be like, oh, this is a natural process that my fear is, is saying these things. But my more evolved, more recent part of my brain. The Liz four point O actually would really like to try to do this thing. And I need to tell my fear that it's unlikely. No one has yet died from my books. So it's unlikely that somebody will die.

• 51:13Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, no, maybe a severe paper cut, but.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's about it.

• 51:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Think we're all right.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  It fell on someone's head off a bookshelf, but I think that's about the worst damage that it's done.

• 51:23Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah. I want to talk about now that we're on the theme of writing books. You literally like three days ago announced All the Way to the River. And I watched the video that you put out explaining it. Sammy cried about it, not to like make myself seem like too much of a fan. But can you explain the premise of this book for people who may not know what went into making it?

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Oh, so this is a memoir and it's about my relationship with my best friend in the entire world ever, whose name was Rea Elias. We were friends for, gosh, we're friends for sixteen years, fifteen or sixteen years. And then we very gradually, over the course of that friendship, we fell in love with each other. And I was married to somebody who I loved very much. I was married to a man. She was gay. I wasn't or whatever. I don't even know what that means. I don't even care. And she was then diagnosed with terminal cancer. And at the time of her diagnosis, I was no longer able to.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Knowing that she had six months to live, I was no longer able to continue just pretending that this was my best friend.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  And I was, I needed to find my voice to her and to my now ex-husband that I need to go be with this person in a different way. And she started to call her death, the river. And she said, I want you to walk with me all the way to the river. And.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  And I did, and that may sound to people who are listening to it who don't know the story like a very romantic story. And there were aspects of it that were very romantic. It was also an insane journey. She was a drug addict in recovery who went back into active drug addiction before her death in a way that just ripped the rug floor and ground out from under both of us. I fell into a state of totally toxic codependency and love addiction with her. It was a hell of a time and it was a hell of a story and it's taken me seven years to write it because it took me this long to heal from it and to

• 53:45Speaker 02

  find my grounding again after that and to even understand what had happened. And in many ways, it's a book about how lost we can get from ourselves. Rea got very lost from her grounded center during that time. I got very lost from my grounded center during that time. And it's a book about recovery and resilience and finding your way back to, back to your center after having been through a time of such drama and trauma.

• 54:13Jemma Sbeg?

  When you were writing it, did it feel most like cathartic? Like, do you feel like you wrote it more for yourself than for an audience? Or is there something you're kind of hoping that people are gonna get out of it?

• 54:24Speaker 02

  I always feel, I mean, I write, I write things in order to understand my life and I, I write my way into understanding. So it was, it was absolutely cathartic. That said, it's the book I didn't want to write, you know, because there are parts of that story that I was like, I just still want that to not have happened that way. Like, I still want, and I know we all have this in our lives, like chapters of our life where it's like, listen, I've reconciled with it and I've moved on, but like, don't think I still don't wish it went a different way, you know, that I had gotten a different outcome or that it had gone a different way. But it is a lot, a lot of the books about surrender as well and surrendering into reality. So yeah, I wrote it for myself, but I also,

• 55:08Speaker 02

  I think that it's part of my destiny to, to be a person who has things happen to her.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  They are really hard and then interprets and translates those things and puts them out in public to say like, here, has this ever happened to you? If so, here's some thoughts I have on this, you know, here's some things I've learned from this. And, and I think that's part of what I'm, I think that's part of what I'm meant to do. So even as I was writing the book and exposing these absolutely horrific aspects of her and me, or it's like, this is exactly the stuff I don't want people to know about me. This is exactly like, this is counter to image management is to write a book like this. And my friend Glennon Doyle, the writer Glennon Doyle, read it when it was a manuscript and said, this is the most, what did she say?

• 56:04Speaker 02

  The most self accountable thing I've ever read. Like this is a masterclass in self accountability, but that's also what I feel, I really want to be a very self accountable person. I don't want to, because the opposite of being self accountable is being a victim. And, you know, it's a, that book was a forensic effort for me to try to, is a forensic effort for me for, to try to be like, what was my part in this? You know, like, how did I? I do feel that at multiple points in our lives, we will find ourselves saying, how did I end up here? Like, how did I end up in this? How did I end up in this toxic thing? How did I end up in this dysfunctional relationship? How did I end up in this abuse?

• 56:46Speaker 02

  How did I end up in this self abnegation and self betrayal? Like, how is that me? You know? And it's very easy to end up in those sorts of fields of confusion and not so easy to find serenity and clarity again, but it's findable. So I hope that the book helps people. Rea always wanted me to tell the story and, and said it'll help some people. And so I'm hoping that it will.

• 57:15Jemma Sbeg?

  And when does it come out? That's probably the first thing I should have asked.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  September ninth of uh of twenty twenty five. So it's it's it's coming.

• 57:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Right around the corner. It's gonna be an amazing, but but maybe very dark and deep Christmas present for someone.

• 57:31Jemma Sbeg?

  But I like it. A nice morning.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  I have been told by those who have read it, a friend just texted me yesterday and I gave him a copy and he said, I've been with your book all day and I'm, he's like, I just keep going back and forth from laughing my head off to crying my eyes out. And I'm like, well, that feels about right. That's exactly what that time felt like to me. So.

• 57:47Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah. Sounds like life. It's gonna go. Well, I want to thank you so much. Now I want to ask you one final question. It's the question I ask all of my guests. And I want to see what your answer is gonna be. So what is your biggest piece of advice for people in their twenties or the thing you wish you knew when you were in your twenties? I know. It's a it is a big one. I'm I'm sorry.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Okay, for me, I I'll I'll give two because they're separate. Um, my biggest piece of advice is, again, I'm going back to the Bhagavad Gita. It is such a, I mean,

• 58:20Speaker 02

  wisdom texts, ancient wisdom texts are so handy. Because they are the distillation of millennia of human experience and wisdom. So it's not an accident that I keep reaching for this seven thousand year old text um and quoting from it. Um, but one of the lines in there is, it is better to live your own life imperfectly than to live a perfect imitation of somebody else's life. And that sounds like it could be a meme on Instagram right now. Um, but it is, that is deep, deep wisdom. It is better to live your own life imperfectly than to live a perfect imitation of somebody else's life.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Um, I did a pretty good imitation in my twenties of a lot of lives that I had seen modeled for myself and they it almost killed me. Um, and for me personally, it would have, what I wish I had known is to avoid romantic enmeshment at such a young age. Um, even though it was the thing I wanted more than anything and longed for more than anything and hunted more than anything, it actually took me the farthest away from myself, um, especially as a woman.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  It made me be in a constant state of response, especially to men. Where from the minute I woke up in the morning till the, I always lived with somebody. The minute I woke up in the morning till the minute I went to bed at night, I was aware of him. I was responding to him. I was shape shifting around him. I was trying to deliver. I was trying to deliver some version of myself that would be pleasing. And, and it was a part time job. I mean, maybe a full time job in order to get from him, whoever the him was, fill in the blank him. In order to get from him, love, validation, acceptance and affection. I turned myself into all sorts of people. And I gave all this time and energy that I wish I could have every single minute of that time back.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Every single minute of time that I spent trying to get somebody to love me the way I wanted them to love me. I would like every single minute of that time back. And do you know what I would do at that time? Nothing.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  I would just sit around looking at things like reading books, walking around, eating mangoes off the tree. Smelling pine cones, jumping in water. I would do nothing of any value if I had every minute of that time left. But the amends that I'm making to myself is that for the next half of my life. I'm keeping it all. I'm keeping all that time for myself and to do nothing with.

• 1:01:01Jemma Sbeg?

  I think that's an amazing philosophy, an amazing philosophy to have. Decenter romantic partners in your twenties. Honestly, it's a great tip. So I want to just thank you one more time for coming on the podcast and for sharing all of your wisdom. I honestly feel like I've just done an hour of therapy, free therapy. So thank you.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 1:01:22Jemma Sbeg?

  Give me the gift. Yeah.

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  It works both ways. You are the light and I am, I hope it's not patronizing for me to say this to you, like sister to sister, woman to woman. I am so fucking proud of you.

• 1:01:35Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh my goodness.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  I am so proud of you for creating what you created out of your own imagination. And out of your own creativity. And I will, I will tell you something, what you have and what you are, nobody can take away. Nobody can take away what you have and what you are. You did this and I am so, so proud of you for it.

• 1:01:59Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. That genuinely probably made my year. What a, what a highlight. I appreciate it so much. And you also have, um, sorry, I just need to gain my words back. Um, you have, you're in Australia at the moment for some amazing live shows and a workshop in Sydney, I believe.

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:19Jemma Sbeg?

  I'll make sure I leave tickets for that. But what cities are you visiting while you're, while you're down under?

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  I'm going to, um, Sydney, Melbourne, sorry, Sydney, Melms, Brizzy.

• 1:02:30Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, she's a local. Oh my goodness.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Uh, and Hobart, which is the one that I demanded to go to. Um, I'm so sorry, Perth, don't at me. I really, really, really wanted to come to Perth, but they didn't have a venue available that would have been the right size for what we needed. So I wasn't able to do it. But, um, I have a fascination with Tasmania and I also make it a point whenever I do these tours to try to go to places people don't normally go. And so if you're in, if you're in Tassie, um, come because it's gonna be great. Um, and Adelaide as well. So, and Adelaide, and if anybody's listening to this in New Zealand, I'm going to Auckland as well.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  Not to say that I'm lumping you together with Australia, New Zealand. I fully recognize your, your absolute beautiful autonomy and separateness. But well, while I'm in the neighborhood, I'm also going to Auckland. Um, so, uh, so please come and, and if you've never, I feel like I'm on the tourism board for Tasmania right now, but if you've never been to Tasmania, like I came there 10 years ago and I'm obsessed with it. And I, I'm going back to the Museum of Sex and Death because it's the most incredible place like I've ever been to. I feel like it's the most wild thing I've ever seen a human create is that entire, like the whole city is beautiful. So come, um, there's still tickets left there. There's still tickets left in Adelaide. Um, I think there's a few tickets left in Brizzy.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  But, um, but, uh, come and, come and join us. It's gonna be more like this.

• 1:03:58Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, which we love. Um, tidbit, I was literally in Hobart like for three days ago because my best friend lives there. Yeah, and I got her a ticket to your show. So hopefully she loves it. It's honestly magical. I saw a white, I saw an albino stag. I picked like fresh blackberries off of the trees, like just like only a kilometer out of the city. Um, it's beautiful. Go to Preachers, the bar. It's the best.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  And thank you sweetheart for sharing me with your audience and um, and everybody out there, listen, it's uh, it's all gonna be all right. Just um, just, just relax and just relax as you're being tormented and tossed about in wild seas.

• 1:04:45Jemma Sbeg?

  I feel like that summarizes it. Just surrender. So surrender was the theme of this episode and I want to thank everyone for listening. If you've made it this far. What's our emoji for the, for the day? Let's choose the earth. You can, if you've made it to this part of the show, drop an earth emoji in the comments so that we can talk and chat about your thoughts, feelings, maybe your questions, your qualms about this episode. Make sure that you're following along on Instagram at that psychology podcast. And until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself and we will talk very, very soon.

• 1:05:21Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:05:58Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:06:41Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:07:25Jemma Sbeg?

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• 1:07:38Speaker 03

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• 1:08:14Speaker 00

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