Sing Breathe Rest Believe and Eat Pray Love Too!

Yesterday a good friend of mine forwarded the NY Times review of the movie, Eat Pray Love based on the best seller by Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat Pray Love is the story of a woman’s journey to find herself after her marriage ends in a divorce. The book came out during the time my husband and I were dealing with the unraveling of my husband’s affair with another woman. The trauma and stress of that experience resulted in me suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome and anxiety attacks-something I’d never come close to experiencing before and I hope I never will again. During this time it was difficult for me to focus enough to read fiction and it was next to impossible to watch, read and listen to anything remotely related to infidelity, mid-life crisis’s, etc. I had to walk out of the movie, Waitress, that I went to see with Dan and my Grandmother. So I did not open the pages of Eat Pray Love until I was on a little more solid ground and even then I identified with the story and the main character a little too closely and was a little envious that I could not “globe trot” for nine months at that time trying to figure out my life. All in all I found the book a good, light read and I devoured it in a day or two. The review talks about how unusual it is for a woman in a Hollywood movie to be concerned with herself, her creativity and spirit and not focused on finding a mate. The happy endings in most mainstream movies involve the woman getting the man with all happiness ending at the altar. I have had a lot of people comment on my writing and the similarity between Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey. I think it is every woman’s journey, every “humans" journey- our quest to find our individual selves outside of anything else. Here in Nosara, I talk to people, men and women, everyday who are doing exactly what I’m doing. I’m glad such an inspiring story is actually going to reach the masses. Perhaps we can all be encouraged to share our stories with each other, all the real, raw stuff that actually makes up a life. Leaving for my two month journey to Nosara, Costa Rica, I talked to a woman who acts as a coach for me sometimes, she is a Jungian therapist and life coach and has been invaluable to me in regard to bouncing my ideas off of her, sharing my thoughts and feelings- and in return I receive very pragmatic and wise guidance- mostly she just helps lead me to my own truths. I was sharing with her the fantasy that I had about meeting another man in Nosara, one who would sweep me off of my feet and take me away from my reality. This fantasy bothered me on several levels, first why does it have to be a man, a knight in shining amour to save the day? To rescue the damsel in distress? I think as women we are so preconditioned to that kind of outcome. I’ve always considered myself a woman who is strong and independent. I want to break free from that inclination, the belief that all will be right with the world if the right mans comes along. Another reason this concept bothers me is I don’t believe any other man can fix this. I know the man I’m married to loves me and I also know he is human and like all humans, we make mistakes. I truly believe that building a foundation on the goodness that exists-if it does indeed exist- is better than jumping into the open arms of a stranger. Even so, before I left I had this feeling come over me that I wanted to bring condoms with me on my trip. Again, it was just a thought but it bothered me and I thought it important enough to share with Dan. Dan’s response amazed me. He understood how I felt and told me he thought the condoms were a metaphor, a symbol of how free I needed to feel during these two months alone. Condom as metaphor. Who knew? I think my husband is very wise and his perspective helped me to put my feelings in the right place- I packed just one, the metaphorical one.