Tuesday Letters

Recommendation:Interview of Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert--How To Set Strong Boundaries, Overcome Purpose Anxiety & Find Your Inner Voice:Tim Ferriss Podcast via YouTube.

There were so many gems in this interview of Elizabeth Gilbert but there was something about the term, “the relaxed woman” that made me sit up and take notice. Perhaps it’s because it’s something that I aspire to be and I was never able to put words to it. 

Elizabeth Gilbert is a public speaker and New York Times Best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love. During her interview on the Tim Ferriss show, Tim asked her to explain the concept of “the relaxed woman”. 

Gilbert explained that most of the women that she admires would be described as powerful, bad-ass, resilient, and strong. But that there’s nothing revolutionary about these qualities because women already are and have been these things.

She tells us our female ancestors had to be resilient and strong or else we wouldn’t be here. 

What would be revolutionary, she said, would be to be a relaxed woman. She said that she saw a lot of angry, tired women in her lifetime. After all, our culture teaches women to be vigilant, and guarded. To be driven in our careers AND be the caretakers for our families and communities. Many have been violated and don’t feel safe in their own homes.

All of this on top of living in an achievement and productivity driven culture. And let’s face it, you don’t have to spend too much time listening to the news before you realize that our government, politics, schools, climate, etc do indeed have some deep rooted issues (to put it mildly).

Therefore, she tells us, many women believe that it’s irresponsible of us not to be angry and tired. 

But what if there was a different perspective? What if there was a different way to be? She tells us to think of the biggest “shit tornado” in our  life (divorce, a legal issue, problems with a loved one, etc). She then asks us to think about going into that same tornado with all the same shit components BUT to imagine doing it in a more relaxed state. Would we be more effective or less effective at handling it? 

God I love that question. Would I be more effective or less effective at handling this problem if I were a little more relaxed? 

Um...I'll take the relaxed version of myself thank you!!

This begs the question of course of how to become relaxed when our thoughts and our nervous systems are off to the races.  Well I can tell you from experience that it takes practice and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight. But here is Gilbert’s answer.

She tells us the 3 things that she needs for her system to be relaxed. Boundaries, priorities and mysticism.

During the interview she really dives into why priorities are so difficult for women. After all, nothing is a priority if everything is a priority. And once we know what our priorities are, what good are they to us if we don’t create boundaries around them?

As far as mysticism goes, it’s not as woo woo as it sounds. It’s how she describes her meditation, journaling and prayer. It’s what grounds her and how she makes her decisions both personally and professionally. 

On a personal note, I found it so interesting that these same three principles became profoundly important to me when I hit 50. That’s when I realized that saying yes to things I didn’t want to do and no to things that I wanted to do took a much bigger toll on my body than I ever thought. 

If I wanted lasting relief from anxiety and a highly functioning body during menopause, I was left with no other option than to be clear about my priorities and my well-being (I spend much more time on the things that make me happy and for the most part I do so without guilt).

And with every coaching client I have, it’s not at all helpful to start cramming goals like weight loss, dietary changes or exercise programs into a life chock full of tasks and responsibilities that a person isn’t excited about. 

We always have to return to what a person’s values and priorities are and find ways of living by them. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that we will see any kind of sustainable change.

I just loved her in this interview but it is long (almost 2 hours but I could listen to her all day). If you want to just listen to this section about the relaxed woman then fast forward until about 58 minutes in and it will be only about 5 minutes long. 

However, if you are someone who has always felt pressured to "find your purpose", it's worth listening to the whole interview. She will quickly dismantle your "purpose anxiety".

It's also worth mentioning that she has a Substack newsletter that you can sign up for called “Letters From Love With Elizabeth Gilbert”. It’s beautiful and uplifting and I highly recommend it.