Book Club Fridays!! "Eat, Pray, Love" Book Review Journal Entry #1

I thought it would be fun to link up with Heather for Book Club Fridays!!

And the book I have chosen to review this week is "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert

"At 32 years old, Elizabeth Gilbert was educated, had a home, a husband, and a successful career as a writer. However, she was unhappy in her marriage and often spent the night sleeping on her bathroom floor. After separating from her husband and initiating a divorce, which he contested, she embarked on a rebound relationship which continued for some time but did not work out, leaving her devastated and alone.
Afterwards, while writing an article on yoga vacations in Bali, Gilbert met a ninth-generation medicine man who told her she would one day come back and study with him. After finalizing her difficult divorce, Gilbert spent the next year traveling around the world. The trip was paid for in advance with a book deal from the publisher.
She spent four months in Italy, eating and enjoying life ("Eat"). She spent three months in India, finding her spirituality ("Pray"). She ended the year in Bali, Indonesia, looking for "balance" of the two and found love ("Love") in the form of a dashing Brazilian factory owner." - via

I have got to admit this book kind of drove me crazy. It had some really, really amazing parts to it, seemingly mashed in with a lot of long descriptions of Italy or the various places she traveled to. But the amazing parts did make it worthwhile, and let me tell you I had high hopes for the movie being an abbreviated version of the book (as they wouldn't have to spend all kinds of time describing Italy, as it would be set in Italy), however, wrong again...

Here are some of the excerpts that I did love though, and some of my thoughts on how they reflect on my life, and what they meant to me:

"Oh, but it wasn't all bad, those few years.... Because God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies (or however the old adage goes), some wonderful things did happen to me in the shadow of all that sorrow." - page 45

I think that this excerpt is sooo very true, retrospection does tend to taint things, and looking back, new experiences often make previous bad experiences not seem so bad, and in some ways can even make them a good thing, and at the very least an opportunity to learn and grow. For Elizabeth, in the wake of a series of bad failed relationships, she really came into her own in the midst of her personal tragedy. Elizabeth grew into herself as they say. I've been through some pretty horrible stuff in my day, and all of that pales in comparison to the birth of my daughter, something truly amazing and beautiful. And while it was a struggle to get to have her she is a miracle, and a true gift. I had soo many demons to fight in the years leading up to her conception, and then birth (a whole new set of struggles), but the fight of my life has led me to her, and what a gift she is. She reminds me everyday as I pick myself up off the floor that it really is going to be okay in the end. And she finds a way to make light of something that she doesn't even know she's making easier for me. She just is.

"My sense of helplessness was overwhelming. What I wanted to do was pull some massive emergency brake on the universe, like the brakes I'd seen on the subways during our school trip to New York City. I wanted to call a time out, to demand that everybody just STOP until I could understand everything. I suppose this urge to force the universe to stop in its tracks until I could get a grip on myself might have been the beginning of what my dear friend Richard from Texas calls my 'control issues.' Of course, my efforts and worry were futile. The closer I watched time, the faster it spun, and the summer went by so quickly that it made my head hurt, and at the end of everyday I remember thinking, 'Another one gone,' and bursting into tears." page 255

That first part of the excerpt really spoke to me, as I was struggling adjusting through my life after the accident, I really did want to make time stop. It was as if the hits just kept coming, and I was floating along, seeking answers to questions I didn't understand why I was asking, and couldn't begin to comprehend what magnitude my injuries would have not only on me, but on the people around me that loved me and were watching me struggle, and try to come into my own, or get back up and fight. The trouble was I was fighting myself, and had been blindsided, and didn't know where the next hit was going to come from. The medical field, which I normally wouldn't subject myself to, but I was without a choice and literally at their mercy, was failing me big time and at that rate yet again. And then everyone's life seemed to go one without me, friends started families, jobs were filled, life kept moving for everyone but me, I was trying to claw my way back into my own old life, but didn't even have a shred of it to hold onto. I didn't understand how this could happen? why is it happening to me? why do I need this procedure? what do you mean you can't do anything? how was I to make decisions in the midst of all this? was I even capable of making a decision? I really needed one of those emergency brakes Elizabeth was desperately seeking. But eventually you get it, you get a grip, you become capable of holding more then one thing in your head at a time, it's almost like you acclimatize to your own new life.

"...She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you are in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments... I'm putting this happiness in a bank somewhere, not merely FDIC protected but guarded by my four spirit brothers, held there for insurance against future trials in life. This is a practice I've come to call 'Diligent Joy'. As I focus on Diligent Joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once - that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people. " - page 427-428

I LOVED this excerpt, and I think it is so very true, soo many people sit back and wait for happy to come to them, well they will be waiting a LONG LONG time. To be happy is work, and some of the work isn't easy, but the harder you work the sweeter the reward. You really get the feeling that it's paid off. And, in order to help preserve the happiness around you, it would be amazing if each person took responsibility for their own happiness, not relying on their partner or the universe to make them happy. It's unreasonable, and stealing someone elses happiness does nothing more then make two miserable people. Focus on the positive, and strive to see it in every day situations, and when it's not there create it. Invite it in, host it readily, and nurture it. Because the second you stop, poof it's gone. And finding it again is a real process.

Stay tuned for the second part of this review. What was your opinions of this book? or movie?

Have a great weekend!!

Amy