Let Yourself Go
Ketut, palm reading: You are a world traveler.
You will live a long time.
Have many friends, many experiences.
You will have 2 marriages. One long, one short.
Liz: Am I in the long one or the short one?
Ketut: Can't tell.
Also, you will lose all your money. I think in next 6 to 10 months.
Don't worry, you will get it all back again.
And you will come back to Bali and live here for 3 or 4 months and teach me English.
Keep grounded, so it's like you have 4 legs.
That way, you can stay in this world.
Also, no looking at world through your head.
Look through your heart, instead.
That way, you will know God.
~Ketut Liyer
Liz, having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face.
You knid of wanna be fully committed.
~Delia Shiraz
Hello, God. Nice to finally meet you.
I am sorry I've never spoken directly to you before,
but I hope I've expressed my ample gratitude for all the blessings you've given to me in my life.
I'm in serious trouble.
I don't know what to do.
I need an answer.
Please, tell me waht to do.
Oh, God, help me please.
Tell me what to do and I'll do it.
~Liz, praying
Stephen: You have screwed up my life.
But what I wanna know is why couldn't you find yourself in our marriage?
Why didn't you say what you were thinking?
Liz: I did. You never listened to me.
Stephen: No!
You never said, 'Hey, you know what? You suck! I'm deeply unhappy!'
You just took off!
You never gave me a chance to address those problems!
That's not fair! That's just quitting!
I took vows. Till death. And I take them seriously.
I believe this is just a phase and I'm willing to wait it out.
Liz: You are always waiting, Stephen.
Waiting for me to come home, to wanna have kids, to make you some great dinner.
I don't know why we can't accept that we don't wanna live in unhappiness anymore?
Stephen: I accept the fact that I am ocassionally unreliable and I often get side tracked,
but I thought you like that about me.
I thought it was okay that I had hopes and dreams.
Liz: Have a dram, Stephen, great, fine! Do that!
Just pick one!
Stephen: Okay, I pick one. I pick you!
Liz: Do you know what I felt when I woke up, Delia?
Nothing!
No passion, no spark, no faith, no heat, absolutely nothing!
I've gotten past the point where I can be calling this a bad moment.
And it just terrifies me.
Jesus, this is like worse than death to me,
the idea that this is the person I'm gonna be from now on?
Delia: This happens to people.
They fall in love in their 20's, get married,
do the granite counter, white-picket fence in their 30's,
and somewhere they realize 'this is not for me'.
So they fail and they fall down, they hurt like hell,
they straighten up and march their asses to the shrink's office.
They can't just check out.
Liz: I am not checking out!
I need to change.
Delia: You have a support system here, Liz.
You have friends and family who love you.
Liz: And do you feel my love? For you?
My support for you?
No! There's like nothing!
I have no pulse!
You wanna know how to be here?
Stop constantly waiting for something.
~David
There is a wonderful old Italian joke
about a poor man who goes to church every day and pray before the statue of a great saint,
begging: "Dear Saint, please please please, let me win the lottery."
Finally, the exasperated statue comes to life and looks down at the begging man and says,
"My son, please please please buy a ticket"
~Liz Gilbert
No strange man spending the night.
You American girls when you come to Italy all you want is pasta and sausage.
~Landlady
He says, you can't learn Italian like this.
You don't speak the language just with your mouth.
Speak it with your hands.
~Giovanni, translating the barber
Sofi: So, what's your word, Liz? I'm curious. I can't figure it out.
Liz: It might be...
It started as 'daughter', I was good at that.
And then 'wife', not so good.
'Girlfriend', not so good.
My word's... writer.
Giulio: Yeah, but that's what you do.
That isn't who you are, no?
Sofi: Maybe you're a woman in search of her word.
Ruin is a gift.
Ruin is a road to transformation.
~Liz Gilbert
Richard: Why'd you come here?
Liz: I just want some peace.
Richard: Peace?
You wanna get to the castle, Groceries, you got to swim the moat.
Richard: You have to learn to select your thoughts the way you select your clothes every day.
That's a power you can cultivate.
You wanna come here and control your life so bad, work on the mind.
That's the only thing you should control.
If you can't master your thoughts, you're in trouble.
Liz: I am trying.
Richard: Yeah, hello, that's the damn problem. Stop trying!
Surrender...
Go out into the garden and just sit there and still your mind and you watch what happens.
Why don't you just let it be?
If you could clear out all that space in your mind that you're using to obsess over this guy and your failed marriage, you'd have a vacuum with a doorway.
And you know what the universe would do with that doorway?
Boom! Rush in! God would rush in!
Fill you with more love that you ever dreamed of, Groceries.
I think you have the capacity someday to love the whole world.
~Richard
Richard: You're gonna stay here till you forgave yourself, you hear me?
Everything else will take care of itself.
Liz: Is this where you forgave yourself?
Richard: I'm trying, Elizabeth, I am trying.
Liz: I did love you, Stephen.
Stephen: I know. But I still love you.
Liz: So love me.
Stephen: But I miss you.
Liz: So miss me.
Send me love and light every time you think of me, then drop it.
It won't last forever.
Nothing does.
Believe in love again.
~Richard
People in Bali understand,
in order to stay happy, must always know where you are every moment.
Right here is perfect balance.
Right at meeting of heaven and earth.
Not too much God, not too much selfish.
Otherwise, life too crazy.
You lose balance, you lose power.
~Ketut Liyer
Smile with face.
Smile with mind.
Even smile in liver.
~Ketut Liyer
Ketut, palm reading: You are a world traveler.
Liz: He says that to everyone.
Ketut: Already make your money.
You don't have young-man ambition.
Felipe, glance to Liz: He's good.
Ketut: You have 3 children.
Felipe: Two. That's a callous. [everyone's laughing]
Ketut: And you have divorce. Very difficult.
You loved her very much.
You haven't healed that wound.
Now you are scared to open your heart.
You are afraid hurt will happen to you again.
Only way to heal is to trust.
This okay.
To have broken heart mean you have tried for something.
Felipe: Is it going to be broken again?
Nyoman, passing by: He's a good man, Liz. You need a good man.
Liz, rolling her eyes: Thank you.
Ketut: True. Ketut knows.
Liz: I am so sick of people telling me I need a man.
Felipe: You don't need a man, Liz. You need a champion.
Leon: So have you slept with her yet?
Felipe: What was that?
Leon: Have you slept with her yet?
Felipe: Crossing the line...
Leon: Dad, it's been 10 years. It's time.
When I was in Italy, I learned a word.
"Tutti", which in Italian means "Everybody".
So that's the lesson, isn't it?
When you set out in the world to help yourself, sometimes you end up helping... Tutti.
~Liz Gilbert
I have the same fears, I have the same scars that you have, and I showed them to you.
But I guess the only difference between you and I is that, you are afraid to love again.
~Felipe
Okay, the balance thing.
You traveled around the world to find your balance.
And the balance that you think you've found is what?
Meditating for 20 minutes and going to see an old medicine man?
Listen, balance, my darling,
balance is not letting anybody love you less than you love yourself.
~Felipe
I do not need to love you to prove that I love myself.
~Liz Gilbert
Ketut: You still smile with your liver, like I tell you?
Liz: Yes.
Ketut: You still meditate like your guru in India teach you?
Liz: Yes.
Ketut: You happy now with God?
Liz: Yes.
Ketut: You love your boyfriend?
Liz: I ended it.
Ketut: Don't understand. Why you do that?
Liz: I couldn't keep my balance.
Ketut: Liss, listen to Ketut.
Sometimes to lose balance for love is part of living balanced life.
In the end, I've come to believe in something I call "The Physics of the Quest."
A force in nature governed by laws as real as the laws of
gravity.
The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this:
If you're
brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting,
which
can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments,
and set out
on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally,
and if you
are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that
journey as a clue
and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a
teacher
and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some
very difficult realities about yourself,
then the truth will not be
withheld from you.
~Liz Gilbert
*****