While watching an encore of The Best of the Oprah Show where Oprah is interviewing Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the phenom EAT PRAY LOVE, about her journey, I feel such a kindredness to her. Our journeys are geographically different but so spiritually similar.
I know what it's like to have an enviable life: the house, the husband, the life, yet be absolutely miserable. She talks about retiring to the bathroom and laying on her face, sobbing profusely and pouring out her soul. "Please help me," she said as she rocked back-and-forth engulfed in the discomfort of not being happy. She didn't want to be married anymore. She didn't want the house. She just wanted to run away; she just wanted out. Been there, soul sister. You don't know how to do it. You don't know anything except you just can't do it anymore. Hers was 6 months. Mine? I'm not so sure of the time frame. All I know is that I came to a point where I could no longer tolerate my life.
Prayer takes on many forms. Some see it as a conscious act of intellectual and articulate communication. Prayer becomes a soul's cry when you are overwhelmed and don't know how, what, where, when, and you feel ripped apart. All you can get out of your mouth is a "help me." It's an acknowledgement that life is too big. Stuff happens that hits you from left field and flat lines you. Sometimes prayer is a whimper, a holler, a moan, a sigh and God speaks fluent whimper, holler, moan and sigh.
Another thing I feel makes her my soul sister is she recognized that she had not allowed herself to enjoy pleasure. Everything was about right, wrong, responsible, obligatory and boundaries that were so stringent they were killing her life force. I understand that as I grew up in a very sheltered environment. I felt like I couldn't breathe else risk sinning.
I'm going to make a very bold statement and nobody has to agree with me. It's my observation. Strict, legalistic, even very religious backgrounds seem to perpetuate frustration that uses sex as an outlet. Whether it's pornography or some other hidden sexual exploit, most folks use it to cope with some dissatisfaction, some lack, some guilt. As a child, I was puzzled about the teenage girls that had to sit in the back of the church because there were pregnant. They had heard the same fire and brimstone messages as me. Yet, there they were. Have you ever wondered why that is?
"It's the pleasures of sin," the preacher and church community said. "That's why you need to stay in church." The devil was often blamed. Is that possibly a form a denial though? After all, you have no responsibility to do anything when you fall prey to the devil. Lord knows, I didn't want that to happen to me. I'd hear a guilt-heavy sermon and I'd collapse on the altar, begging God to stop the devil from running roughshod in my life. As I matured, I became aware of something. It wasn't the devil I was fighting. I was fighting ignorance. I was fighting the cry for attention due to neglect. I was fighting low self-esteem. My love tank was fractured and the things I did or the people I was attracted to were only evidence of that. Rules and condemnation only beat down further an already messed up concept of self, God and people. There aren't enough academic accolades, makeovers, designer clothes, money or career successes to fix you up when you are bleeding out.
This is a great segway into Love. Elizabeth Gilbert had given up on Love. She felt it was for somebody else. She didn't realize that in finding herself, she was finding Love. In reconnecting with pleasure, she was attracting intimacy. The real kind. Not the obligatory kind. Not the at-least-he-don't-beat me kind. Not the politically correct kind. Not the BORING kind. Can I say that again? Not the BORING kind where roles and ought's and should's undermine the connection. I don't care if when he gets up the Heavens part and a dove comes down and perches on his head, if he's not a loving, approachable, accessible, vulnerable, mindful, open and willing spirit, "til death us do part" is a prison life sentence.
I can't say I gave up on Love. I can say it was painful to want it but not know how to attract it. That made me not want to think about it. At night, however, when my soul would weep, I heard my inner self say, "this cannot be your Legacy. You cannot leave this Earthly realm having not known what it feels like. You just can't." Yes, God loves me and I was SO glad. Nevertheless, my heart found no consolation.
Like Elizabeth, while doing soul work, Love slipped up on me. And like her, I ran away from it for a time confused and scared. It's one thing to pray for, yearn for, wish for something. It's another thing when it actually shows up. I think that sends you into a kind of shock. But I'm grateful that Love never fails. Somehow, it all comes together. Every mistrusting part of you will come to the surface, but there's something in the interaction that finds a way to attend to it. That's when healing happens.
So when Elizabeth gushed about being in Love, I understood the sparkle, the broad smile and the Light in her face. Go head, soul Sister. You don't know my face, but you know my spirit.
