Elizabeth Gilbert: How To Stop Manifesting TOXIC Love & HEAL Your Relationships

I've spoken very openly about identifying as a sex and love addict. I was trying to find what is the formula? Who do I have to connect with that this is gonna work? That this great echoing, god-sized hole within me, this deep unsolvable problem of never feeling like there's enough love.

Elizabeth Gilbert. She is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love.

Author, seeker, and spiritual trailblazer Elizabeth Gilbert is here. And I'm a good manifester. You're a good manifester. in the realm of romantic and intimate connection. I've gotten what I wanted. I've gotten who I wanted at times.

And then it works.

It almost killed me. What would unconditional love want you to know today if it could speak to you? It's gotten me through the hardest things in my life. It's gotten me through two divorces. It's gotten me through an addiction crisis. It's gotten me through the death of the most important person in my life. This is who you are. You are this being who is loved. And that is it.

That's beautiful.

I lost myself in that before she died. So I lost both of us. I lost me and I lost her. It's like the death was almost an afterthought to the great loss of both of us to our own unhealed trauma. Wow.

So you're looking for people to be the solution.

Always.

But it wasn't. What was the solution?

The solution is--.

Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Liz Gilbert who I feel like we've only hung out four times maybe, I don't know. I don't think so. But for whatever reason, I feel very connected to you. I feel like you're a bigger sister to me. I feel a sense of maybe everyone says that about you because they're so connected to your message and your words and your content and your books. Probably everyone says that about you. They feel like they know you very well, but I truly feel Energetically that we have a great connection. And I hope that we can hang out more in the future. Because it's been almost seven years since I've seen you.

I know, isn't that crazy? Crazy. It's so hard to believe. I feel the same way about you. And if I had the height and strength and capacity to pick you up the way you always pick me up, when you see me, I would pick you up as my baby brother. I love that. So I just want you to know that I'm doing that in my heart, even if I can't physically do it. You picked me up emotionally.

There we go. You picked me up with your heart. I love that. I love that. I'm so excited that we're doing this. 'cause the last time you were on was, what, seven, eight years ago, I guess.

I think it was like eight years ago.

A while ago. And a lot has happened in your life. I reference you a lot in different interviews because you, for a number of reasons. But the one reason that I remember you specifically saying, I can't remember if it was a TED Talk or if you said it on my show, but I remember you talking about after Eat, Pray, Love came out, maybe it was a year or two later, you thinking and saying, this may be my biggest hit ever and being hard to like, how do you bounce back after a big success? So I referenced that a lot because I think when people kind of make a big hit that seems like out of nowhere, I always say, go listen to what Liz talks about because she's an expert in this subject and how to really create an identity for yourself after a big success or a big hit and things like that. So I reference you a lot. But today I want to talk about love, love addiction, overcoming love addiction, manifesting love and all these things that you're an expert now, I guess, from the different ups and downs in love and relationships, challenges, beauties that you've been through. And it's been an interesting journey for you in the last seven years. Well, really 10 years, I guess, like 54 years. But in terms of, like, what you've learned about love. attracting love, uncoupling, you know, addiction, all these different things, which I don't think people thought you were. No, knew you as, but now you're starting to speak about more. You've got an amazing platform, these love letters that you've been putting out in the world for the last year as well. That's kind of like, I guess, your therapy of expressing some of these things and allowing people to express their. definition of love and their life and love. Can you share first about that and what that is? And then I'd love for you to share afterwards, kind of your three big lessons about love and love addiction that you've learned about in the last few years.

Great. Let's go. Let's go right into it. So let me start by talking about this project that I've been doing that you're going to be part of. That makes me so happy. And it's on Substack, which is a sort of social media blogging platform that a lot of writers are shifting to recently as a way of getting away from the venomous poisonous snake that is social media that has infected all of our brains. It's almost like a reverse technology. It's like 1990s blogging. And I've been looking for ways to get off social media while at the same time being able to connect with people. And I've also been looking for ways to teach this practice that I've been doing for almost 20 years that is the the foundational spiritual practice of my life. And that is every morning, I write myself a letter from the spirit of unconditional love, starting with this prompt. And the prompt is, Dear love, what would you have me know today? And then imagining, it starts as an act of imagination, but over time it actually becomes an act of listening and sort of downloading. But let's say we start with imagination. what would unconditional love want you to know today if it could speak to you? And it's so extraordinarily healing. It's so the opposite of the perfectionistic, brutal, I call it the internal terrorist self-talk that most of us were raised to think is a perfectly normal way to talk to ourselves. And what tends to come out in those letters is this spirit of tremendous gentleness of, you,'re perfect just the way you are. I've got you, I'm with you. It's all the things that essentially I've always wished that somebody else would say to me.

Like a mother or a father would say to me.

A mother, a father, a partner, a friend, you know, that somebody would just say like, I've got you and I'm here with you and I'm not going anywhere. And you actually don't need to improve or change or perfect yourself in order to earn this love. It can't be earned, it can't be lost, it's got nothing nothing to do with performance. It's just your birthright. Like, this is who you are. You are this being who is loved, and that is it. And I can't hear it enough, you know? And it's gotten me through the hardest things in my life. It's gotten me through two divorces. It's gotten me through an addiction crisis. It's gotten me through the death of the most important person in my life. Like, through all of this, One day at a time, there has been this voice that's accessible that's like, it's all right. It's all right. It doesn't matter. I don't need you to succeed. I don't need you to not fail. So I started this substack community called Letters from Love, where I'm teaching people how to do this practice, how to write themselves letters from unconditional love. And it is so astonishing. One of the things that I find incredible about it, we've got, it's been 13 months since I started it. We have almost 130,000 people doing this now. And they post their letters. on this newsletter so I can read the letters that unconditional love is writing to them. And here's the wild thing. They're hearing the same voice I'm hearing, which makes me think like, oh, we're all tuning into the same radio station. Something is saying to all of us, you're my child, you're my beloved, you can't do this wrong. I've got you. It doesn't matter. I'm right here. And it's so beautiful to see this messaging being echoed across all of these people who need it just as much as I need it, as much as we all need it.

Wow. Who do you think is saying this to you?

The cosmos. You know, I think love is saying it.

What is love?

I think we know it when we hear it. I think there have been times when I've asked that voice, Are you God? And it has said, no, I'm love. I'm included in God. And I've said to that voice sometimes, Are you Rhea, my partner who died seven years ago? And it says, no, I'm love. I was included in Rhea. But I'm not Rhea. God is bigger than that. God, I think, is more than just love. I think God is the great mystery that's beyond the beyond the beyond. But love is something else. And I think A lot of times I've tried to sort of game, I've tried to sort of game it by treating it like it is God and saying, especially when I'm in the midst of a terrible crisis or a horrible dilemma, saying to it, what's gonna happen? How is this gonna end? Like, what does the future hold?

But love can't answer that.

No, it's not. And love has said to me very directly, that's not my department.

I'm not God.

It's not my department. I don't know. I have no idea what the future holds. But I know that I'll be with you through it. Like, you won't-- whatever's coming, you won't go through it alone. Even if everyone else leaves, even if you end up living under a bridge wearing a plastic bag and spitting at people who walk by, I'll be with you in that.

-Jen: Wow.

-Deb: like, so whatever happens, like, no matter how disastrous it'll be. And I remember one time in a moment of terrible crisis saying to Love on the page, When will this end and how will it end? And Love was like, I don't have any more of an idea than you do, but I'm with you. And I remember in my anger saying, if you can't tell me how this is going to end, and you can't tell me when this is going to end, and you can't tell me what to do, what use are you? And Love said, I am company and comfort in your darkest hour so that you don't have to go through this alone. And I've learned so much about how to be present to people when they are in their darkest hour through the way that unconditional love speaks to me. I can now sit with somebody when they're in their deepest emergency and they're asking those questions, why is this happening? When is this going to end? What am I supposed to do? And instead of leaping into my codependent advice giving, which is always driven by panic on my part, I can actually access that voice that says, I actually don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know when this is going to end. But I'm here with you.

Yeah, I'm here for you right now.

I'm here with you.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It's interesting what's coming up for me is two things as you're saying all this. I grew up in a Christian religion that on the wall just said, God is love. So every time I went to church, I just saw God is love just right in front constantly. But what I'm hearing you say, God might be love, but love doesn't mean it's God. It's part of God.

Yeah, that is a lot of things.

Yeah, exactly.

Including a big question mark. Yeah, exactly. And love is a very specific thing. Yeah, exactly. And another thing that's coming up for.

Me is about three and a half, four years ago, I started doing my own healing journey. I've been on a healing journey for 10 years, really. But three and a half, four years ago, I went on a deeper journey. to really heal the inner child inside of me, the parts of me that I thought I'd done the healing work because I started opening up about sexual abuse when, you know, ten years ago and I thought I'd done the work, but I hadn't really done it. And weekly I was seeing a coach and therapist to support the journey for me to heal about three and a half, four years ago. And after about six months, she had me do an exercise where I was alone, you know, in my bed, and I was reconnecting literally with the five-year-old in me right in front of me. Like, I put myself in a spiritual ceremony to see, you know, five-year-old Lewis and all the fears and insecurities and doubts and uncertainties that he had, therefore I had, have. And I created a new relationship with him to where I said, I've got you. I'm here for you, even if we're alone in the side of a bridge spinning at as an adult in this relationship, I am now here for you. I've got your back. Whereas I've been carrying this child inside of me and just he was still wounded and afraid, but I didn't have his back. And I started to learn how to heal men, create meaning to where I was able to integrate him in me and love him fully. And I think most of my life, I was angry at the past. It doesn't mean I still don't like things that happened, but I've learned to love all the parts of me, which created more peace inside of me. And that's just something that was coming up for me, those two things as you were speaking about this, you know, even if we're alone, like love is going to be there. And I think, how have you learned to cultivate the love so that you can actually receive it and know that you are loved?

The word I'm hearing right now, and I love that you share this, with people, especially for the men who follow you, it's so important. And the word I'm hearing is trust. And when I met my own inner wounded child and did a very similar kind of work and looked into her eyes, she had the stare of a, like, three tours of duty soldier.

Wow. Very traumatized. PTSD.

And worse, hopeless.

Really? Where do you think that came from, that trauma?

Constant reabandonment. So every time I abandoned myself, I abandoned that kid. And the way that I've dealt with her pain and her trauma and her need and her insecurity and her desire to have somebody love her is to try to outsource it. Like, I gotta make somebody, I gotta find somebody who's gonna take care of this kid. You know, and I'll do whatever I need to do. Physically, sexually, emotionally, like, whatever you need me to perform so that you step in the role of the caregiver of that child. And so, I'm constantly trying to find someone who will take that on. Because for most of my life, I felt like she was too much for me. Because she was too insecure, she was too frightened, she was too... And I'm like, Here, you do it. I'm constantly handing her off to people. -DEBORAH: Really?

-Susan: so, the adult you never... took care of her.

No, I kept trying to get other people to do it. Wow. You know, and then, and then re, and then recreating the abandonment wound and then recreating the rage at who's got me, right? Because constantly being like, damn, I thought that person had me and they don't. And, and then getting really angry when people would say, you have to learn how to love yourself. Cause I was like, I want someone else to do this. Like, I've been taking care of this kid. I was told from very early childhood, you're on your own, take care of yourself. Like, I don't wanna hear that message again. you're on your own, take care of yourself. I want you to take care of me. Like, I'm tired, you do it. And that's a very understandable thing to want. But the problem with that is that I keep setting that kid up to get abandoned again. And until I took full stewardship for her and said, okay, I've got you. Like what you always needed was an adult for whom you were their first, second, last, and final priority. So you are now my priority. And one of the things when I had a conversation with my inner child, one of the things she said to me was, I don't trust you because you constantly, you will always abandon me to make everyone in the family feel comfortable. You'll always abandon me to get approval from other people. You'll always abandon me to take care of others. And I was like, Kid, you are absolutely right about that. And I'm not asking you to trust me because you shouldn't. And I have done that again and again and again, but I'm asking you to watch me. Like they say to children, Don't tell them to trust you, just let them see you do things that are trustworthy. Consistently. We're changing the rules around here. And every time I set a boundary, every time I Don't allow us to be in the room with a toxic or abusive person. Every time I don't people please, every time I say no and prioritize our self-care, that kid is like, oh wait, you really do have my back?

I believe you more and more. You really are my mom.

Wow. You know, I'm like, yeah, I am.

Gosh, we're in such a similar journey right now. When did this breakthrough start for you? Like when you started to say, okay, I have to start showing my inner child that I am trustworthy over time. When was that breakthrough?

Like four years ago, I started, I've been in 12-step recovery for a while, but I started going to ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families. And that's what ACA is all about. It's like all about reparenting. And it's really traumatizing work. Like I've never seen anyone go through the ACA 12 steps and work the ACA program where they didn't unleash just everything they never wanted to feel again. All the places, the last place you wanna look, the last thing you wanna see, the last, it's like, I was like, no, I've spent my entire life building a Chernobyl bunker around this to make sure this stuff never, ever comes out. And in that program, it's like, well, we're gonna have all that come out. And then we're gonna teach you. It's almost like, I think of the ACA work as like, the way I see it, like they talk about the inner child and the inner teenager. So I've got an inner child who I'm constantly re-abandoning. And then I've got an inner teenager who's furious at me for constantly re-abandoning the child. Oh gosh. Who wants to act out in all sorts of teenager-y ways. who's like, well, I know how to feel better, you know, this substance, this person, this activity, you know, and like, so it's, it's reestablishing. I'm learning how to parent a child and a teenager. And essentially, I'm like a deadbeat mom who's like been off, you know, just like doing really dumb with like a bunch of very unsavory characters and leaving these kids alone. And now I've been like reunited with my kids and I'm like, okay, we're all going to learn how to be a family now. And it's like I'm going to the YMCA and taking parenting classes. That's what I feel like ACA is and learning how to be responsible to myself rather than constantly wanting to outsource that responsibility to somebody else.

Are you diving into a lot of Dick Schwartz's stuff with internal family systems?

Love, love, love him. Yeah, absolutely. And it's painful.

Oh my God.

And it's painful, like it's painful to have these parts who don't trust me, although they do now. And when I do my old tricks of like overworking, serving other people more than myself, self-abandoning, my teenager shows up and she's like, I can't believe you just said yes to these and you're not even taking care of us. And I'm like, you,'re right, you're right, I'm doing it again. I'm still learning how to be a parent. Let me cancel some stuff. You know, like... Gosh, man, this sounds.

So familiar for just what I've been going through. Because I think it sounds like for you, it has been similar to me.

As.

When you feel not enough or you feel like you've been abandoned, you really want a people please, an over people please, and change who you are so that other people like you or love you or will be with you.

What do I have to do to get that? Exactly.

I know, right?

Anything, anything.

It was one of the most painful things that I've had to learn, which is to say no over the last four years. And it kind of all came at once. I realized this and started the healing journey. I was like, I am doing so many things I don't want to do or that my inner child or teenager doesn't want to do. But I do them because of old patterns and old habits. And it was about a year and a half of me saying no and kind of like, oh, just the emotions of like, what are they gonna think? And people aren't liking me and they're getting upset at me and all these things and just being firm in that where I created my own boundary. And four years ago, I used to get like rashes on my body. It was almost like the inner child was screaming at me. And I remember being like, do I have some disease or something? and I got every test, every allergy test I could do, blood work, sexual disease tests. I did everything and I was clean. And I go, what is wrong? Why am I have these rashes just coming out everywhere? And right when I started the boundary setting process, it went away. And my therapist was like, this is the child inside of you screaming, trying to get your attention.

Crawling out of your skin.

To crawling out of your skin for you to create boundaries for all of you. as weird as this might sound.

Don't sound weird to me, Louis.

I know, but for someone watching, be like, what are you talking about? These people inside of you, but like the five-year-old, the eight-year-old, the 16 year old that's like screaming at me as.

An adult, like help us. Yeah.

Take care of us, not everyone else. We need you. Yeah. Don't go please these people, please us first. And you might upset people or they may not like you or want to be your friends, but at least you're friends with all of you first. And I think that was one of the hardest lessons in the last four years is upsetting and disappointing so many people. and shrinking my friend group to like five friends that I hang out with consistently, you know, and just being like, okay, if these people don't understand, I'm gonna have a good intention and do the best I can, but I can't please everyone all the time. Sometimes I can and I'll show up in certain moments, but not yes, yes, yes all day long. And it's been a beautiful, painful, but beautiful and peaceful other side. And then the more I practice it, the better I feel, but it's still not easy.

Can I ask you a question? Have you found that there are some people who, when you say, Listen, I have to say no to this because I'm so overextended and I've been getting sick and I need to rest and I need to take care of myself that they're like, I'm so proud of you. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, those are your friends.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, don't take it personally. Yeah, and I'm the same thing for.

Every time a friend that says no, I'm like, yeah, I'm so happy for you.

I know, right. Yeah, yeah. Even like, here's a good example, you know, the letters from love, like, that's something I think I agreed to like, I don't know, six weeks ago, but I was like, oh man, I've got my event, so I need to make sure that, but can I get it done before the event? And I was just like, okay, if I have to delay this and I'll do it after the event. And if Liz is upset, then she's upset, but I've got to take care of me. Even it's a little thing, you probably even think about it, right? But it's like we've got to make sure we're taking care of ourselves and. And really communicate yeses and nos and be okay if people are disappointed or not and just be okay with them being upset.

You know why this becomes a community service? Because for anybody who's like, that just sounds like a very self absorbed way to live. I heard somebody say something recently in a 12-step meeting and I was like, whoa, that is so accurate. The greatest harm that I've ever done to other people was through me not knowing how to take care of myself. Because if I don't take care of myself, a few things are gonna happen. I'm gonna lose my mind. I'm gonna become super needy, super clingy, and super manipulative because I'm gonna try to get my needs met through you. And that means I'm gonna be objectifying you and using you as a parental replacement, a sex toy, a sleeping pill, an unpaid therapist, you know, whatever the need, this huge yawning need in me. I will, parts of me will go out there and try to get that need met, you know? So either I can figure out how to get that need met or like that teenager is gonna figure out how to get that need met. And all the amends that I've ever had to make to anybody in my life for the grave harm that I brought to them were because I didn't know how to take care of myself. Really? And so I had harmed them, blamed them, used them, manipulated them, you know, tried to force them to be something that they couldn't be, become infuriated and enraged when they couldn't do it, they couldn't deliver, cheated on them because if they couldn't do it, I'm gonna go find somebody else who can, you know, like all of it. And so where self-care becomes not so much a sort of new age catchword, but a deeply humanitarian public service is, Byron Katie said it so well, nobody is safe from me when I need them that much. Nobody is safe from me, right? So I actually want, as somebody who loves, genuinely loves humanity, I want to be somebody who people are safe around. And if I'm not taking care of myself, I am an unsafe human being for anybody to be in any relationship with, whether it's a momentary relationship or a romantic relationship. Yeah.

I mean, you've talked publicly about kind of your love life and your relationships and books and, you know, talks and everything. You said you were married and divorced twice. What did you learn after the first marriage into the second marriage?

Nothing. No, that's not true. I was a much better second wife than I was a first wife.

Really?

But, you know, I haven't really learned anything till recently.

Really?

You know, and-- you-'re just repeating patterns. 100%. So I've spoken very openly about identifying as a sex and love addict, and I go to a room for that. 12-step program for that. It took me until I was 50 to find out that there was a room for that. And I spent decades, and I mean untold thousands of dollars sitting in therapeutic situations with, you know, it wasn't like I wasn't trying to be different, you know what I mean? Like I was paying a lot of people to try to help me not be like the way I am. And no one ever said, you're a sex and love addict.

Really?

And there's a room for that. There's a 12-step room for that. And here's a phone number. Look this, you know, go get yourself some help. because there's so much secrecy around it. Because I think especially for women, there's a tremendous amount of shame. But my acting out was nuts, Louis. I mean, you mentioned that I was divorced twice, but I actually recently had lunch with my old couples therapist, who's a wonderful, brilliant couples therapist. And I said to him, Mark, did you ever have anyone else who was a patient of yours who brought three different people to see you over the years. And he was like, Nope. And I was like, and none of them were my husband. Like, none of them were the people I was married to. That was like between my marriages that I was bringing, you know, and he was like, yeah, I don't think I have ever had anybody bring in three different relationships and say, Please make this work for me. And he said, I have to hand it to you though, Liz, they were all so different to people.

You were the same.

Yeah, he's like, I really admired the fact that like, and I was like, yeah, because I was trying to find, what is the, formula, who do I have to connect with that this is going to work? That this great echoing, god-sized hole within me, this deep unsolvable problem of never feeling like there's enough love. Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Do I need someone older? Do I need someone younger? Do I need a man? Do I need a woman? Do I need someone who loves me more than I love them? Do I need someone who I love more than I do I need two people? Do I need an open marriage? Do I need like I want and I say this with all love, I'm so proud of myself that I spent 35 uninterrupted years trying to solve that. Like trying to solve that and being like, why can't I make this work? Very similar to an alcoholic who's like, well, maybe if I just don't drink hard liquor, maybe if I just have wine, maybe if I just have beer, maybe if I just drink on the weekends, maybe if I, you know, it's like I'm trying to figure out how to have this thing not do what it always does, which is blow up in my face and leave me flat on the bathroom floor wrecked.

-Depressed AND SAD AND LONELY.

-Sucidal, if not homicidal. -Wow. -Right? And so it wasn't until I-- so.

You'Re looking for people to be the solution, but it wasn't. What was the solution?

The solution is befriending myself and finding a source finding what I have always needed, which is a source of infinite, inexhaustible love. And that cannot come from another person. Because sometimes people have to get up and get a sandwich and go to work and like go to the DMV and like do other things besides being.

With you all the time.

You know what I mean? Like they have other things they need to be doing. They can't even if they love me, they can't, like a person can't do that, or they might die, which happened, or they, or like they might change, or they might have another crisis in their life that they have to attend to, right? And then I'm howling on the outside like a seven-year-old, like who's got me, who's got me, where did mommy go, where did daddy go, am I safe, why am I on this tundra of loneliness again, right? So for me, it's about finding Finding a source that can keep up with my need and pour infinitely into me.

That seems impossible on another person.

It is impossible on another person. And listen, I'll save you all the trouble. I did the research. Like I went out there and found a lot of people to try to get that from. It didn't work. And it works for a while, like all drugs.

Six months or something.

Yeah, it works till it doesn't, like every other substance. every other drug, it works till it doesn't. And then you wake up on Tuesday morning and you're still you, you know? And you're still you and you're still lonely and you're still overwhelmed and you're still confused and you're still hungry, you know? 'Cause this thing can't be filled. And I also needed to find a community of people who understood me. And the first time, well, actually the second time, 'cause I went to a sex and love addicts room once, because a friend 13 stepped me there, like sent me there, 12 stepped me there, and was like, I think you need this. And I went in and I was like, yeah, these people are really sick and it's depressing, and I feel bad for them, and I'm gonna be a spectator, and then I'm gonna leave. And then I went out and found another person to blow my life up with. And then I was like, maybe I should go back.

-Susan: From the group?

-Deb: no, no, no. I was gonna say, but it's just from the general population. And then, And then I went back humbled. And the first time I really showed up in that room and said, hi, my name is Lizzie. I'm a sex and love addict, was the beginning of the end of a 50-year attempt to find somebody, anybody, who would take that pain away.

Oh my gosh.

And to have a whole bunch of people in the room who don't look like me, who aren't my age, who aren't from my background, be like, Yeah, we super get it. And to hear my story being told again and again and again through other people's mouths, I remember hearing this woman say, I took one look at that guy from across the bar and I was like, I would follow that man to hell. And then I did. And I was like, okay, I know that story. I've been in that story. I've been in that story. I've been on all the sides of these stories. And sort of find a community of people who are like, we understand why you're like this. and will be your family as you move through this.

What are the main symptoms of a sex addict or a love addict then?

There's different programs for sex addiction. There's different programs for love addiction. I identify as a sex and love addict. A lot of women don't wanna use the word sex addict 'cause it sounds gnarly and shameful. And it is gnarly. It's super gnarly. Because you're sort of pimping yourself out. to trade whatever you have to trade physically to try to get that love connection, right? It's like, it's not pretty, but it's what I've done. It also means constantly objectifying yourself, objectifying other people. But if you just Google 12 Characteristics of Sex and Love Addicts, you know, when I heard those, I was like, oh, that's a 12 for 12. That's a hard identification with each and every one of these. Like, I've done every single one of these things on the regular. But it essentially comes down to this idea that somebody else is going to be able to fix this on the inside of me and returning to unhealthy relationships again and again, abandoning your care by attaching to people who are unavailable. There's a whole lot of stuff.

Sure, sure. How do you then, let's say you go through, you accept that you're a love addict, right? And maybe someone watching or listening is maybe I have some of these tendencies, right? And I've heard you talk about in the beginning of this conversation about how, you know, there's this love that you're connecting with every single day and asking it, what would you want of me?

What would you have me know today?

Would you have me know today? Yeah. And you have this new relationship with love, but a lot of people feel undeserving of receiving love.

Yeah.

So if you don't feel like you're deserving of having love or being loved or receiving it, how do you have a new relationship with it where you can let it into your life?

For me, it's been about, in the same way that those inner children and inner teenagers that we spoke about needed to gradually learn to trust me and needed to gradually learn to see that I do have them and I am prioritizing them and I'm not going to abandon them and I am here and I am going to say no, and I am going to risk not pleasing people in order to make sure that they're okay. It's almost like I've had to develop, I'll just speak for myself, 'cause I think it's probably different for other people. And now I am going to introduce the word God. I've had to have that same relationship build very slowly with the God of my own understanding of believing that I am being loved and not judged, believing that I'm not in trouble. I've spent my entire life terrified of being in trouble. Like, what did I do wrong? I'm in trouble. I'm dead now. Okay. Believing that I haven't done anything that has caused God to not love me and believing that I can turn to that source and be fed. and be held and be guided. And I always say this, like, I always loved God, and I didn't even grow up in a religious family. Maybe that's why, because I had my own independent feeling of a God presence when I was a kid that was very organic and natural. Like, I loved the word God. I loved the whole idea. I loved everything about it. I didn't really know what it meant, but I loved it. I've always believed in God. I've always loved God. I have never trusted God. Really? Because that's a whole another layer. It's like, wait, I have to trust you? Because, I mean, like many of us, because of things that happened to us when we were kids, we don't trust anybody. I have to see bad things in.

The world and you say, how could this be? If God is all love, how do these bad things happen? You'll question that. Right, exactly.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why did all these terrible things happen to me? Why is there injustice? I mean, we can get trapped forever in that. But I have found when I communicate with God, I've said this many times and I find it to be true, why is not a spiritual question and it does not bring a spiritual answer, ever. Like I can shout why into the cosmos and I'm never gonna get an answer. No one is. But I can ask other questions like, what do you want me to do? And I will get an answer. Who do you want me to become? I will get an answer. who do you want me to be around? Like, who are the people who you want me to be around? What do you want me to do next? How do you want me to comport myself through this? I'll get answers to that if I ask God, but I won't get answers to why. I mean, I think that's just the general humility of knowing that my mind can't know. We're not allowed to know why. Sometimes you kind of get a glimpse later where you're like, oh, I see why that might have happened. I see why we couldn't have gotten here.

Without that.

But I even try to stay away from that. I try to stay out of the why. I have surrendered the why. It's funny, I still ask my mom.

Why questions and she says she stopped answering why questions. -I'm like, why'd you do this, Mom? And she goes, I stopped answering your why questions.

-I'M not accepting your question.

-I thought I asked me a different question. -Yeah.

Come back with a better question. -Exactly.

-Sometimes God will say that to me. Come back with a better question. -Interesting. what is the best thing you've heard from God over the last four years?

There's a couple things. One thing is I love this. I hear this from God a lot when I'm sort of unsure about what I'm supposed to do, because that's a thing that I can get really panicky about. Like, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? I will often hear God say, When I've got something for you to do, you'll be notified.

Don't try to rush it or try to know right now. Like for instance, I had a couple.

Years there where I didn't have any ideas for a book or creativity or anything to write. And every day in my journal, I would say, Am I supposed to be writing something right now? Am I supposed to be working on something? And that universal cosmic voice would say, When we've got something for you to do, you'll be notified. And then I would say, well, what am I supposed to do in the meantime? And the answer would come, hang out.

Just be. Hang out.

And I'm like, well, that's extremely uncomfortable. I would rather that you gave me an assignment. I'm a border collie. I do better with an assignment. Yeah, like, I mean, and, but we'll let you know. That's one of my favorites. The other thing I've heard is actually very similar when I've said to God, am I supposed to be dating anybody? Am I supposed to be, now that I've gotten well, now that I've gotten emotional sobriety, now that I've been in 12-step recovery for sex and love addiction, Now that I've learned how to take care of myself and been celibate for five years, which is the greatest gift I've ever given myself.

Five years.

Wow. And the first time since like way too young an age that somebody hasn't been like on me, you know, like it's been so important for me to like reclaim this body and just be like mine, right? My body. This isn't like a tool for anyone else. This isn't a tool for manipulation. This is like, hours, like to find that and to learn how to self-comfort, to learn how to regulate my own nervous system. Like so now that I've done all that, I'm like, am I supposed to be looking for somebody to be with? And my favorite thing that God has ever said to me is the response to that, which is LOL no. Wow. Hard no, absolutely not. Like absolutely not and I love that answer and I trust that answer. And then God says, if I want you with somebody, I will let you know. The idea won't be yours, it'll be mine. I will let you know. I will let you know who it is. You don't have to go hunting. You don't have to go searching. I don't want you chasing anything. Again, I mean, to me, so much of what all sobriety is, is the end of chasing. Like you're not chasing a feeling anymore. You're not chasing a high. You're not chasing an escape. You're not chasing a person. you're not trying to replicate a way you felt once. Like that's a big thing for sex and love addicts. Like stop chasing a feeling. Feeling, right? It's a feeling you wanna have and all that feeling of, I can get it, I can get it met, but it just leads to craving 'cause then.

I want more of it.

And sadness. And then I'm like, okay, now what do I have to do to get that?

Right?

So God has been really clear with me, like, I don't want you chasing anybody. I don't want you chasing anything. you're so good right now, what's the big hurry to, like, why are you out there looking for ways to make your life unmanageable again? Wow. Like, I can sleep through the night without medication. I don't need to be on antidepressants anymore. I'm not on anti-anxiety pills anymore. My body is healthier. My work, I've like written three books in the last six years. My friendships have bloomed. All of my family relationships have changed due to these new radical boundaries. Like, I'm prospering. and God's like, what's the hurry to tip the apple cart over again?

That's fascinating. I, you know, when I decided, because it was a choice to get into relationship with Martha, my fiance. And when we got into a relationship, I told her kind of like a lot of these things that we're talking about where I was just like, listen, I've never made good decisions in previous relationships. And then I didn't have the courage to get out of them because I was afraid and I don't want to hurt someone. so I stayed in things that weren't good for me. And, you know, it was just never good. And it doesn't mean they were bad people. We just weren't the right people together. And so I told her, like, I want to take our time if we're gonna do this. We're not gonna sleep together, you know, which is not something I'd done in the past. It was, like, kind of quick to rush to that. And that was one of the best things I did for, like, the kids in me.

Yeah.

Was not sleeping with someone that I was dating. Like trying my best to get to know all the parts of her. Her family life, her when she's happy, her when she's going through a challenge, you know, traveling together, all these different things as opposed to rushing into chemical bonding.

Right, because once the internal pharmacy gets activated, it's like in Midsummer Night's Dream when they put like, you know, magic powder on the person who then falls in love with a donkey. It's like those hormones will make me fall in love with like a kitchen cabinet.

Anything. I know.

And as somebody with a really dysregulated nervous system, you know, with a process addiction, like, I mean, I experienced those hormones, it's estimated that people like us who have that experience those hormones at like 10 times the rate of other people. So like someone else might feel pleasant experiences with romance and love and connection and sex. I get wasted, you know, I get wasted and I shouldn't be operating heavy machinery. I shouldn't be making decisions about my bank account. I shouldn't be moving, like I go insane, right? So it's really important, like what you've done is a really gracious thing for both of you actually.

Yeah, of course.

To slow that entire process down and try not to go chemical before you find intimacy.

Exactly. And I remember like, you know, unless we're only three and a half years into this, so it's like we've got a long time ahead with our relationship with hopefully it's all good and it's all like smooth, but there's gonna be challenges that we have to face. But I wanted to set myself up for the most harmony possible. Knowing that life is going to throw challenges at us individually and together, how can we create a relationship of harmony and peace where we both have nervous systems that are calm, nervous systems that are okay, independent of each other and stronger together, hopefully. But I'm not reliant on her for my happiness, which I think I never had before. I was always reliant on the other people to like me or accept me. and people pleasing them. And it feels so freeing to experience for the first time after 20 years of painful relationships, peace and freedom in a relationship. Like I didn't think it was possible. I didn't know it was possible. And it feels amazing to, at least up in this point, have experienced this for a number of years. So I'm very grateful for that.

I'm so happy for you.

Thank you. Thank you. But I remember thinking to I don't need to be in a relationship. Like, I'm not gonna jump in a relationship until I feel that consistently from a dating phase without sexual intimacy. Yep.

And that was, it's hard.

I mean, I'm like, you know, my young guy, it's like, it's hard to say no to those things. But by creating that boundary for me, it's like I built respect for myself and about trust within my nervous system and the parts of me. And it has allowed me to trust myself in the relationship more than ever before.

Oh, it's wonderful.

And I feel like, it sounds like that's what you've been doing the last five years is reclaiming Trust within yourself that you're not going to abandon yourself. And when you do get into another relationship, you're not going to abandon or people please who you are. And it doesn't even mean you're going to be avoidant either. You're going to be securely connected to the person because you're securely connected to you. That's what it sounds like you're building.

That's the thing. And also for me, as somebody who's now become God-centered instead of self-centered, You know, and my wants, my wants have driven me over cliffs many times. My wants, my needs, my desires, my ideas. Feelings, yeah, yeah. Big ideas, like I get some big ideas and then it's like cut to six months later, oh my God, what did you just do to your life? You just drove into another brick wall. So for me, I think you mentioned the word manifesting very early in this conversation. And I'm a good manifester, you're a good manifester too. Like we, you know, we're like we're disciplined, we're resolved, you know, we vision board our way into like, you know, we're like, I want to get this, I want to make this, I'm gonna get this many, you know, like, I'm less in the realm of romantic and intimate connection. I've manifested, like, I've gotten what I wanted, I've gotten who I wanted at times. And it's almost killed me.

Yeah, it didn't work.

Right? So it's not, I'm not that interested anymore in the question of what do I want? But I'm really interested in the question of like, what's God's will for my life?

Man, I love this.

And how can I live in alignment with that? I love that. And so I don't even worry about like, will I ever be with someone again? It's not up to me. I don't really care. Like, I trust when God says you'll be notified if that's supposed to happen. Like, great, I don't have to think about it. Wow.

When did you bring God in your life?

Really, I mean, really seriously when I came into 12-step recovery. Which was five years ago. Five and a half years ago.

Is God in 12-step recovery or is.

It more- oh yeah, how- I mean, how high is- High power is. It's a spiritual program because addiction is a spiritual sickness and it's a deep spiritual emptiness. And addicts like me are people who have such a profound emptiness that we will use anything or anybody to fill it.

And you don't have God in your life as like the faith or the trust or the knowingness of it. Then you find everything else to be your God, I guess, or to fill that void.

I've heard addiction referred to as false worship. It's like, I'm gonna worship this thing, I'm gonna worship this substance, I'm gonna worship this person, I'm gonna worship money, I'm gonna worship success, I'm gonna worship food, I'm gonna worship cigarettes. You know, like, it's, it's, it's, there's this line in that, I mean, there's a line in the Bible about false idols, about not worshiping false idols. And it says that people who worship false idols, and they describe them as like, like wooden creatures with lifeless eyes. It's like what sort of what an idol is. You worship that and then you become that. You become sort of wooden and lifeless. And I mean, I'm not a fundamentalist Bible reader, but I think that's a really accurate description of what addicts become. You become sort of wooden and lifeless and the god-sized hole is what it's referred to. can only be filled with God.

Wow. Do you feel a lot more peace now with God in your life? Yeah.

I mean, it is my life. And I had this great experience in step three, which is made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the God of our own understanding. The beautiful, generous thing about that language is the God of your own understanding. It doesn't necessarily mean the God that you were raised with or threatened with. And I had a sponsor who said to me, Write down what you're looking for in a God. Nobody will ever surrender their life over to a God who was forced upon them. So write down the qualities that a deity would have to have for you to surrender your life completely, happily over to them. And I was was like, you, you get to do that. And she's like, of course you get to do that. Because why would a loving God not appear in whatever form you need? Right?

Like, of course.

And, and it was such a fun assignment cuz I was like, the very first thing was like, my God has to have a sense of humor. My God has to have a sense of humor and think that I'm adorable and funny and that my failures are adorable and funny. Like, I can't have a judgmental God. I can't have a punishing God. Um, I have to have an incredibly patient God. I have to have a God who doesn't have anywhere Better to be than sitting with me in the middle of the night, present and comforting. Like I need a God who doesn't have office hours. I need a God who doesn't stand on ceremony and need me to prostrate in a certain particular way. I don't want, I can't have an insecure God. Like I can't have a God who's like, if you don't like pray to me in this certain way, I'm not gonna feel right. You know, like I need to have like an abundant God, a generous a loving God who knows me and who likes me. I wish I could remember who said this, but somebody said that the true feeling of being one with God is relaxing completely in the presence of somebody who you know is deeply fond of you. And if people had been taught that in childhood, that that's what God presence feels like, relaxing completely in the presence of somebody who you know is very fond of you.

Not being afraid constantly.

Oh, my God. Instead of what James Joyce called the hangman God, you know, the judge, the executioner. You know, this is like. Like, of course I created you. I love you. You know, like, I made you the way you are.

This is fascinating. How many. How many relationships do you feel like you've been in in the past? Like, intimate relationships, whether it be, like, dating or sexual or.

Oh, like 40.

40. Okay.

You know, like 45 maybe?

45.

I'm trying to remember, 'cause I had to inventory it when I was, it's part of like the sex and love-atic recovery. That's good.

So 40-45 kind of intimate, loving relationships. Sure. Sexual relationships.

45 deeply intimate relationships, Louis. Yeah, yeah.

How many? How many of these relationships- I've got myself. That's good, yeah. No judgment here. I mean, no, I don't feel- How many of the relationships you've been in had God at the core of the center?

None.

How many are we gonna... In the future, do you feel like God will be in the relationship in some way?

If God's not in the relationship, it's not a relationship. Wow. And I heard a prayer recently in one of the 12-step rooms, and this is about every relationship. You know, not just sexual and intimate, but somebody said, Dear God, please only bring me relationships where you can be first and I can be me.

Oh, man, that's good. Say that one more time, so again.

Dear God, please only bring me relationships where you can be first and I can be me.

Man, that gives me the chills.

I know it is.

Imagine every relationship in your life like that. Friends, family, you know, intimate relationships.

Yeah.

That's, that's a beautiful life, isn't it? With every relationship like that, because then you're not feeling judged or you don't have to people please. You don't have to impress, you know, obviously you got to create boundaries and you have to communicate and you have to, you know, stand up for yourself, but you don't have to worry about what happens when God is at the center.

Yeah. God is going to have your back no matter what. And they're back. Yeah. Right. I mean, to know that they also have their own higher power. Of course. Right. I mean, I got super high off of becoming other people's as much as I got super high off making somebody my higher power. Yes.

Right?

It's like, oh, let me be the thing you worship.

Right?

Like, that's a, that's a rush. Big rush. Right?

Until you crash.

Until you get de-pedestalized and then you don't even want to be in the room when that happens. I mean, like, that's, that's such a terrible crash for everybody. The terrible disappointment of that. Like, I, like, I say this to my sponsees. a lot. Like, if they idealize me at all, you know, I'm like, okay, I just want to point out that, like, that language sounds a little bit idealizing. Please don't do that to me or you. Because when you inevitably discover that I am not this ideal, I don't even want to be in the room when that statue comes crashing down. Right? Right? Like, that's gonna be really bad for both of us. So, like, just don't. Don't do that. like, let's not do that.

Wow, this is fascinating. So, I mean, can you share what it was like being in a relationship with someone that then you're so deeply in love with or you or whatever you feel like is love at that time? I don't know if you look back and if you feel like that's real love or it's love addiction, we can get into that later. But you're deep in a relationship. You've poured your heart into someone, your life into someone that then passes away. Can you share what that experience was like? Because I can't even imagine. But how did you navigate that? And what was the lesson that opened up for you once you got to reflect on it?

So yeah, you knew Rhea, and so Rhea was my best friend for many, many years while I was married to somebody else. And while I was married to somebody else, I fell in love with my best friend. And slowly, over many, many, many years, and I won't get into the reasons why. Actually, I will. I mean, the primary reason was over time, she became the only person in the world who, when I was with her, I felt completely safe. And I had never felt safe in the world. And she was so good and strong at handling people and dealing like, I had this deep fear of people's insanity, and Rhea could Just handle it.

She kind of protected you.

Yeah, I kind of walked into every room behind her, 'cause I was like, whatever goes down, she's got it. She's got it, she's not afraid of anybody. She'll say the thing that needs to be said, she'll set the boundary that needs to be set. So I was like a little kid kind of behind her, and that feeling that she could provide for me of security was so beautiful. Then she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic and liver cancer and given six months to live. And at that point, it was no longer possible for me to continue to pretend that I wasn't in love with her. And I came to my then husband and said, I'm in love with Ray. And he was like, you've always been in love with Ray. I mean, he knew me so well. He was like, you've been in love with Ray for so long, honey.

And how long were you guys married for?

12 years.

12 years, yeah.

He was like, you need to go be with her.

Like it was-- so he kind of gave you that. that blessing. He wasn't upset. He wasn't mad.

She was very upset, you know, but like, and hurt, you know, but like.

But her, but not a you.

No, and hurt, you know, but also, he was a wise soul. And, you know, he wasn't in an argument against reality. And it was true. I had to go and be with her.

Were you not upset that he wasn't like fighting for you guys or saying, like, this is not okay?

No, I was deep.

I'm gonna fight for us.

Moved by his compassion and his courage.

It's also hard if someone's essentially saying, I don't love you this way anymore. I love this other person. It's hard for someone to be like, Please love me. He probably had some self-respect to say.

He had way too much self-respect.

That's painful and hurtful.

Yeah, he had way too much dignity.

To get in a beg you to love me back. That's not gonna work. So he was like, He let it go.

Yeah. And I'm so grateful for that. And I have great respect for him. And then I went to go be with her and we had six months to be together.

And she really only had six months.

She ended up having a year and a half. But they had told her she would have six months. And we both knew that our time together was gonna be very short. There was something incredibly intoxicating about that.

Every day is a rush.

I mean, if you live at the extreme levels of emotion that I've always lived, I mean, this is high. It's like, okay, there are no consequences. There are no tomorrows. Let's do whatever we want. Let's spend all our money. Let's-- I always say Rhea was the one who had been given six months to live, but I acted like I also had been given six months to live. I was like, I don't give a about anything that happens in the future. ride or die, let's just blaze out right to the end. There's no reason to hold back on anything. I mean, it was incredibly exciting in a way, and sort of thrilling. We're like, let's make art. Let's go on all these bucket list trips. Let's eat everything we want to eat. Let's blow off everybody we don't care about. Like, there was something that was really wild about it. And that wildness was, pretty out of control and very exciting. And wasn't, I'm gonna word this, because I mean, it was perfect how it turned out, because it had to go that way. But Rhea was a recovered heroin and cocaine addict who had been in recovery for 12 years and then had decided much to her own danger and detriment that she wasn't an addict anymore and left the rooms of recovery. She was like, I'm cured. And we know that addiction can't be cured. Lifelong journey. And that addiction never ends, it only waits. It waits till you're given. It just waits. It just waits for its moment. It just waits. And so she just got kind of full of herself and was like, you know, beat this thing, I'm gonna start drinking again, I'm gonna do other kinds of drugs. And then once she got really deep in the pain of the cancer and the fear of the cancer, she went fully back to being an opioid and cocaine addict.

Oh man, that's tough.

And as one of her relatives said, I wish Rhea was a nicer drug addict. Oh man. She was not a particularly nice drug addict.

Wow. She mean to you too?

Vicious. And then just the darkness arose. And so our sort of like, let's just ride or die into the sunset. Love story was not a-- turned into Sit and Nancy. And I mean, it was just ugly. It just got very ugly and very destructive. And I was lost in my codependency and my love addiction and my people pleasing. And like, here, I'll go take tens of thousands of dollars out of my bank account so you can buy all the cocaine you need, 'cause I love you. to, like, just so degraded. Like, whatever love we had became very degraded. But what I want to make clear and what I learned from that, we did that together. Yeah. You know? And that's what codependency does. It's like, this isn't a story about how somebody did a bad thing to me. This is a story about how two people who were unhealed addicts came together and lost their minds.

Wow.

And God let her live long enough for that to happen. Because if she had died right away during the hot, blazing, beautiful, exotic, erotic, let's burn out together in a comet shooting through Earth, I'd be like, that was the greatest love story ever told. And God was like, I'm gonna let her live another year, and I'm gonna let you guys go on this other journey that you were not expecting. Yeah, and so it was brutal. So to answer your question, what is it like to have the person you love the most in the world die? I lost her before she died. I lost her to drug addiction, which actually made cancer look like a day at the beach. And I lost myself in that before she died. So I lost both of us. I lost me and I lost her. And so it's like the death was almost an afterthought to the great loss of both of us to our own unhealed trauma.

What's the biggest lesson you learned from that afterwards? Like a year or two later when you were able to reflect and have space.

It took a little more than a year. Yeah, I guess.

Five, seven years later.

I was like, Let me find someone else to do this with. You know, like, because I was not- It was, you know, like, let me, who can I fill, who can I replace her with?

I guess now, if you're looking back, if you could have a, you know, what's the biggest lesson now? And also, two questions, sorry.

Yeah.

What, if you could give wisdom to yourself before choosing to get into a relationship and just give yourself some wisdom to that younger you, what would you have said?

Nothing she would have been able to hear.

I understand, but if you, you know.

So it's more how I would speak to myself now. So the way I felt at the end of that relationship was so far away from myself. And I had abandoned myself so completely into that story. And what that ends up doing only always is making you feel like you've been abandoned. So for a long time, the pain I had was an anger and a pain of like, she abandoned me. Like she chose cocaine and opioids over me. We had this very short period of time together, and she chose to go back to her drug rather than being present to me. She took herself away from me, and she left me in the cold. I don't see it that way now. That's good. I see somebody who who was an excruciating existential and physical pain, and who turned to the thing that had always taken their pain away. And the only thing that had ever taken her pain away at that level was opioids and cocaine. And it's like, that's what she needed to do. I mean, I remember Rhea telling me back when she was sober, and I always think about this with addicts, she said, I needed every gram of heroin I ever took or I would not have survived the world. I was in so much pain. Like people who drink need every drop of alcohol they ever imbibed or they were not gonna make it. I needed every one of those 45 deeply intimate- Partners, yeah. Partners in relationships or I wasn't, I would not have made it. Like I was in so much pain, I would not have made it, right? So I don't see somebody who abandoned me, I see somebody who was trying not to be in pain. And I also was trying not to be in pain. Of course. And I love something I always refer to Byron Katie, I know you love her too. She's great. But I love something she says, adults cannot be abandoned. Only children can be abandoned. Adults can only abandon themselves. So anytime as an adult that I feel abandoned, I have abandoned myself. And, and so the lesson coming out of that, well, first of all, the lesson is I'm a love addict and I need a program and I need a fellowship and I need a higher power and I need a sponsor and I need a sisterhood in my recovery program and I need a daily spiritual practice. And I need that to be, they always say in other rooms of sobriety, anything you put before your sobriety, you'll lose. So I need staying emotionally sober to be the single most important thing in my life. Like that's my job. Everything else, being a writer is a part-time job. Like staying emotionally sober within a community and a fellowship of people who help keep me emotionally sober is my full-time job. And that's gonna be my full-time job for the rest of my life. That's my public service, and it's my service to myself.

That's interesting. I interviewed a brain surgeon who'd done a thousand brain surgeries, and he also has a PhD in Neuroscience. So he studies the mind and the matter in the brain. And I was like, what's the number one skill that every human being should learn to master that'll help them forever? He said, emotional regulation. And it sounds like, you know, learning how to regulate emotions and. And connect it to a higher power. and making that the forefront of your life will help you in almost every situation, as opposed to reaching for substances or numbing addictions to help you fill a void that you might have inside of you. Do you feel like, did Rhea have God in her life when she met you?

Yeah, when I met her, she was deep in her recovery, but she and I and every other addict in the world have very powerful egos. And Rhea had a particularly strong sense of her own amazingness. And it was extremely convincing, 'cause she actually was really amazing, and she was really powerful, and she was really charismatic and dynamic, and, you know, the first person we fool is addicts as ourselves. And so she had this front of, like, mightiness, and she kind of was the alpha predator in every room she walked into. I mean, I loved that about her, and she loved that about herself. that about her. But that's a kind of fragile landscape upon which to build your home is your own awesomeness.

And God will humble you pretty quickly.

Pretty quick, pretty quick. And so she kind of replaced God with Rhea, and I replaced God with Rhea, and I needed a God in human form, and I made Rhea into my God, and she must have needed an acolyte, because she took me on as her worshiper. And for a while that worked. And we both got really high off it. And then it did what all drugs do, stopped working.

I'm sure you've had many, well, I don't want to assume, but I like to think that you probably had many writing sessions where you've reflected on her and your time with her. Maybe you've had conversations with her or not spiritually But what if you're willing to share, would you say to her now if she's listening?

We're so good, babe. We're so good. You know, like, man, we went for a ride together and we're so good. You know, like, that's the thing. Like, underneath all the dysfunction, there was this real friendship and this real love. And Martha Beck always says that true love always liberates the beloved. It's the only thing that true love wants is for the beloved to be free, for everybody to be free. Like our souls unhindered by ego only want one thing for ourselves and each other, and that is liberation. It's the only thing we want. And if I could be said to want anything for Rhea, seven years after she's dead, because relationships don't end, When people die, we've had a lot-- we had a lot of healing to do after she died. Like, including some conversations where I was like, you don't get to just float off into the ether and like become music. We have some to work out.

You know? I'm still suffering here.

I'm still here. Like, you know, like we have some stuff to work out and like we've worked it out. Like we've worked it out in various ways. But if I could be said to want anything for Rhea, it's that she be free. You know, that death actually be a liberation, that she be free, that she not have to stick around and take take care of me, you know? And that, you know, something that I've heard her say to me recently when I feel her is like, I know you want me to say that I'm always here for you, but you actually don't need me. And that's great news, you know? Like, I used to need you to need me, but she used to say to me, I'm not gonna die till I see you standing on your own feet in every situation in your life. And, like, she wanted, like, her higher self really wanted that for me as much as her codependent self wanted to worship her. Her higher self wanted, I just want you to be free.

But the ego is loud.

Very deafening. I want you to be free, but I also want you to worship me.

Love me.

And I want you to not replace me, and I want you to never let, you know, and it's all that-- Never leave me.

Yeah, yeah.

Right, but like the true unfettered free soul only wants everybody to be free. What else could it want? Yeah. You know?

What do you feel like is the biggest lesson you need to learn over the next decade of your life?

How to not throw it all away.

Throw what away?

My life. I'm always looking, my inner addict is always looking for an opportunity to throw myself away. I want to throw away my money to somebody. I want to throw away my time. I want to throw away my creativity. I wanna put somebody else at the center of my life. I've heard it said in the codependent recovery rooms, codependency is like the other person first, you second, God last. And recovery is God first, me second, the other person gets whatever's left over, right? It doesn't mean they're last, it just means like that whole paradigm of like what we call romantic love, when we're obsessed and infatuated with somebody and we wanna hear them say, you are the center of my life. You are my everything, right? Is actually turns out to not actually be that healthy.

It's toxic.

You know what's interesting?

Before I forget, I'm glad you said that because When I entered my relationship with Martha, my fiance, after a few months of us dating and not being exclusively committed to each other, she asked me a question. I've shared this before on my show, but she asked me a question. It's the old, what are your priorities in life? question that every girl I feel like asks a boy at some point. Like, what are your priorities in life? What do you really want?

You know? Yeah.

And I remember thinking, this might be our last day hanging out. out because I'm going to tell her the truth and she's not going to like it. Because everyone I've talked to in the past didn't like it. They either screamed or got sad or cried or emotional. And then I kind of like gave.

In because I wanted to people please.

You're like, oh, never mind. You're my friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, are you sure you want me to tell you the truth?

Right.

Because in the beginning of the relationship, when we first started hanging out, I made a promise to myself that I'm going to tell her the truth about everything. mm-. Like past visions for the future, like every all the parts of me to tell you the truth, things I'm working on, things I'm not proud of, things I'm ashamed of, all of it.

Right.

And if you ask me the question, I'm going to tell you the answer. And I'm not going to sugarcoat anything. And you can either take it or leave it. You may not like it, but you get to either accept it or not. And so she said, what are your priorities in life? And I said, I don't know if we're going to be, you know, hanging out together after this. Are you sure you really want the truth?

She said, yes.

I get it. Okay. 'Cause no one's been able to accept it, but I'm gonna tell you. And I said, you,'ll never be my number one priority. And it's just saying it, even now, it's like I have a reaction to it 'cause I'm like, yeah, am I gonna mess it, hurt someone when I say this? But I said, you,'re my number one priority. I can't even look at a woman in the face and say it 'cause I feel like, oh, but he had screamed at.

How dare you not put me first?

I think the gods of romantic comedies come in like, I know, right? But I was like, you'll never be number one priority for me. And no woman wants to hear that from a man they're dating. They just don't want to hear that. Yeah. Most women, I should say, right? They don't want to hear that. And she's like, okay, I go, but let me finish. And I go, you'll not be my number two priority.

It gets worse.

And I go, number one was to be number one or number two. I said, I said, my number one priority in life is my health, my overall because if I'm not emotionally, spiritually, physically healthy, I'm not going to be good for my number two priority, which is my mission from God, is what I feel called to do on this earth for this season of life or every season of life, whatever that is. And this season, I feel called to impact a lot of people with my, with my message, with my content, with what I'm creating in the world. And if I'm not able to fully pursue my mission that I feel called by God to do that's inside of me speaking to me, I'm going to be very unhappy. I'm going to be resentful and frustrated, and I'm not going to be a great partner. I'm just not. I'm going to be a shell of myself, limited and really pissed off at myself, at you, you know, God, whatever it is, the situation. And so number two needs to be my. My mission and my ability to serve. That means you've got to be respecting in my time when I need to go to the gym and take care of my health, or if I need to go to therapy, like, whatever it is in my. work, you got to be respecting of that time. The third priority would be my relationship with you. You know, if we're together, it'll be my relationship and then my marriage and my family, you know, relationships. And I tell you what, though, if you fully accept that where my health is my priority, and I want this for you, too, but my health is my priority. Number one, spiritual, physical, emotional, my mission. like God is number two. You're gonna feel like the number one priority because I'm gonna give you all of me. Like when I'm with you, I'm present. I'm gonna be thinking about you. I'm gonna be speaking about you. I'm gonna be building for us. And it's not like I'm gonna neglect you and never be around. Like you're gonna feel my presence, my energy, my love, because I'm gonna have so much gratitude for you, so much appreciation. Every night, I'm gonna speak gratitude into your soul. And every night, I tell her what I'm grateful and it's her and other things as well. But she feels those things. And if you ask her today, do you feel like you're a third priority? She's gonna say, no, I feel like he puts me at the center. And I think it took me a while to be able to say that confidently and not be worried about like losing someone, but really owning that truth. And it's not easy to say, like you would never say this on a rom-com. And the funny thing is she's done 40 romantic comedies. She's a big actress in Mexico. and very famous in Mexico, she was the queen of romantic comedies. So she had to unlearn this herself.

In her own life.

But it's what's allowed for peace and harmony in the relationship. And again, I say this as a caveat, we're not married, we don't have kids yet. So everyone's always like, well, wait till you have kids and you're married.

But I'm like, why do people want to instantly knock you off? I don't know.

People want to say that it's gonna get worse.

Because they're like, when you have-- but I'm like, Building a foundation. You're building something that when you introduce.

The children, it'll be a beautiful home for them. Hopefully, yeah, that's the goal. And we started the relationship in therapy because I said, I don't want to enter a committed relationship unless we're in therapy. Just keep it therapy. 100%. Not because there was something wrong, because I wanted to create agreements from the beginning. And I want to make sure we're aligned with our values.

Because every relationship I'd had before ended in therapy.

When there was too much- It was already too late.

It's gone. And it was too much.

I want to start it and then end it quickly if we're not meant for each other.

Right.

And try to create alignment and agreements.

That's wonderful.

And so again, it doesn't mean it's like this perfect thing, but I feel harmonious consistency.

It's a very good start and it's.

A very good foundation.

Great foundation, yes. I'm very grateful for that. And you found, and you said it took years to be able to say.

That, but it also took you years to find the person who could hear it. and not take offense to it. And this is a very, I think that would make me feel incredibly secure.

If somebody said that. Why?

So I said, Liz, you're not gonna be my number one priority. And you're not gonna be number two.

Well, if they just said that, and if they were like, My car is my number one priority. No, but if they said, Listen, I.

Want to be the best version of me, my health, I want it to.

Be as the center.

Or if they said, God first.

The introduction of a higher power. that would make me feel very secure. You know, I think like one of the questions that I've heard people say is a really good question to ask somebody when you're in relationship is like, what do you turn to when you're shattered? Like what do you turn to?

And before it used to be what? People or drugs or alcohol, whatever it is.

Like what do you do to come, like what do you do when you're broken? Where do you go? It's a really important question because you're gonna get shattered.

Great question.

You're gonna get shattered. Life is in session, Earth School is happening. The curriculum is hard and there are gonna be things that happen. So I wanna know, is it me you're gonna turn to? Because then I'm probably gonna get shattered with you, right? Are you gonna turn, what do you turn to? Do you isolate? Do you go to rage? Do you go to God? Do you go inward? Do you try to work harder and achieve more and gather more stuff? What what is it?

Yeah, that's really interesting. And I haven't asked Martha that, but I think innately, because I've seen her, the thing that makes me feel really safe with her in this relationship is something that she does really smart, I think, at least for my personality type. She doesn't bring every challenge or problem to me right away. She's got her mom, her sister, her girlfriends, her therapist. She's got a community of, like, women or her father. her. She's got a community of people that she'll also speak with and not put everything on me right away. Sometimes she'll come to me right away, but a lot of times if she's feeling something, she'll talk with a girlfriend first.

Yeah.

That usually like, okay, I feel good. Or she'll talk to her sister or her mom or her therapist, and then she'll bring it to me.

It's a good sign that she's a person who has a community. It's really nice. Because one of the things that love addicts get high on is meeting somebody who's got becoming their everything.

-Yes. -Or having them get rid of all their friends.

-I will, yeah. Or isolating them away from all that. Like, I will become your world, right? It is a really wonderful thing. I also have heard it said, and this is a thing that I think is really good for women to hear. Everything that I ever thought I had to get from one man, I now know that I can only get from a community of women.

You can't expect it with one person. It is what Esther Perel says. We expect our romantic relationships to give us everything a community used to give us. It's impossible. How can you put that on someone? Or expect that from yourself, from that person? It's like, it's exhausting. Exhausting.

Exhausting, and it's gonna leave you hungry and angry. Like angry, hangry. It's gonna make you hangry, emotionally hangry.

Wow.

Yeah.

This has been really beautiful. I wanna ask a few more questions, and we'll wrap things up. What is love speaking to you right now?

Take a break. I've been working really hard. I mean, I know how to work hard and I've been working hard my whole life, but that's what I've been hearing is plan a really big break, like a big pause. I had a chest infection recently that lasted for almost eight weeks. And every year recently I've been getting like a bad chest infection. And a friend of mine who's a great healer was like, Did you get quiet and ask your lungs what they need? And when I got quiet and asked my lungs what they need, they said, We need you. Like we need you. Like you've been spreading yourself a little too thin. And so I've been learning how to ask for support and help in ways that I've never done before. Like, okay, this is such a dumb, this is such a dumb ACA thing to be proud of, but like, I have been crowingly proud for years that I don't have a personal assistant. Like crowingly proud. You know, like when people write to me and they're like, can your team get to us? I'm like, I am my team. Wow. You know, like, I don't have a team. I don't need a team. I don't have a PA. I do speaking events and they're like, we'll give you two business class tickets for you and your assistant. I'm like, this is just me. I can carry my own suitcase. I can book my own hotel room. I don't need somebody to get me coffee. I don't need any help. I don't need any help. This is the flip side of the codependency and the addiction to I need you to save me is, I don't need anybody.

Wow.

Right? Like, I don't need anybody.

I can do it myself.

Total extremes. Like, you know, and that comes from a way of being raised in a system where you better not need anybody. Like, because they're just gonna tell you to take care of yourself, right? So it's like that there's huge pride that, like, I don't need anybody. And just very recently, I was like, I'm 55. I think I've proven, like, I've proven that I don't need anybody. Now I think I need I need some help. It would be nice. And like, I didn't even know how to use an assistant. Like, I don't even know how to ask for that. But my friend Saleeka Jawad, who wrote Between Two Kingdoms, and is so extraordinary, actually helped me find somebody. And then she was like, I was like, I don't know how to have an assistant. Like, I also, like, what do I, how do I unlearn? Like, I don't know, you know? And she was like, write down every single thing you have to do this week and then ask her to do those things.

And don't do it yourself.

And I was like, go to the post office, you can have somebody do that for you. So it's just been this new learning of, can you go pick this thing up for me? It's crazy. I've never done that. And it's crazy for me to have been moving through the world at the level that I've been moving through the world and not have it. It's insane. But it's such a prideful, like, I can do everything myself. I can carry it all on my own shoulders. It's ridiculous. So I'm looking for more places where I can ask other people to help me.

That's good.

Rather than proving that I'm an Olympian.

How can I help you?

Aww, Louis. Come on letters from love.

I'm going to, yes, it's happening. I'm excited.

Yeah, come on letters from love. And the reason And it's actually not just helping me. So I do this project with my beloved friend Margaret Cording, and we're not going to embarrass her by telling everybody that she's in the room. But she's in the room. And Margaret and I have been friends since college, and we created this whole Substack thing together. And every week we ask a special guest to come on and take the risk, because it's an incredibly vulnerable thing for people to do. to dare to take this thought exercise, spiritual exercise, trauma exercise of asking unconditional love, what would you have me know? And it hasn't necessarily been easy to find men who will do it.

Oh, I'm in.

And that's why you're so great, is because you actually, there's been a number of men who we've asked to do it and they're like, I don't feel safe or comfortable doing it. no?

Or they just said, I'm not ready for this?

They said no. And one that I found really interesting was he said something, I don't want to out him, he said somebody who I love so much, but he was like, I feel like I already know what unconditional love would say to me. Unconditional love would say to me, like, you,'re lovable just the way you are, and I don't want to hear that because I'm afraid it'll take away my motivation to be better. And I was like, who hurt you? Sweetie, why do you think that you can't be unconditionally loved and also still strive to be better?

Pursue things.

In fact, maybe knowing that you are loved is the soft landing place that you can live in. And from there, like, you can, you can, it's a place you can go back to, to rest. Those letters that I write to myself from love are my home.

Yes.

You know, I go out there in the world and I strive and I try and I, you know, like, I work so hard on myself and I work so hard on my work and I, and I try to be a really good person and I try to serve the world and like, I work so hard. And then I come home to these letters where love says, like, my beloved just come home and rest. Yeah.

You know, that's interesting that that person said that to you because I think a lot of, a lot of people, not just men, but a lot of people can understand that feeling of like, well, if I love and accept myself, do I just give up on life? I'm not driven anymore. Right. And I'm not, that's going to take my edge off of me. I won't be as competitive or driven to succeed, and then I'll get complacent. And, and I can relate to that because for most of my life, I was driven to prove people or to prove people that I wasn't, you know, what they thought I was when I was younger or something. To prove the bully's wrong or whatever it might be, right? And I'm going to get bigger, faster, stronger, you know, more successful to prove you wrong. That did nothing good for me. Like it helped me achieve, but it didn't make me feel better once I did. Maybe for a day, but then I was almost angrier. I was like, why am I not feeling better?

Right.

I need a bigger goal to go conquer. It's like, I don't know if you.

Can relate to that, but- 100%.

And I think I think learning to, this has worked for me, learning to be on the healing journey and say, okay, I feel more peace than ever. And because I have energy, it's more sustainable, it's more renewable. It doesn't burn out as quickly when I'm driven by like anger and like pride and proving people wrong. I feel like I can serve at deeper levels and I feel like I can, because doing it out of love and collaboration, not competition, and proving God right versus proving others wrong.

Proving God right. I love that.

You know what I mean? It's like, okay, of course I have a mission to get up for today and of course I'm going to go the extra mile. Of course I'm going to serve bigger and better however I can. Of course I'm going to endure what I need to endure in the season, and I'm going to go home and rest, and I'm going to listen to my chest when it's telling me, you need to take two weeks off or you need to take two years off or two months off, whatever it is, and you need to slow down. And I think it's being able to listen at all times of what you need. It's like, is now the time to push or is now the time to rest? And it sounds like you're in that season of listening and needing to rest or do something else.

A little less.

What is that? How can I support you and staying accountable for whatever that looks like for you.

Oh, God.

What does that look like for you to rest or to do less?

You know what? I'm gonna send you, 'cause you're my friend, I'm gonna send you the dates that I have already set aside.

Perfect.

In the year of our Lord.

2025.

When I'm gonna take a six month sabbatical.

Let's go.

And I'm not gonna do any teaching, I'm not gonna do any speaking events, I'll keep the Letters from Love going 'cause that's actually my spiritual space. I'm not gonna write, I'm not gonna start a new book. I'm going to stop.

Perfect.

And I'm gonna send you those dates.

You promise?

Absolutely.

Okay, good.

And I'm gonna hold you accountable. I love that. That's such a great question. I love asking, like, how can I serve this aspiration?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm gonna take six months and I'm gonna not produce, achieve, aspire.

That's great.

Yeah.

That's greatness for me in this season of your life. I'm so happy that you're doing that because I'm grateful you're doing this because I know when you feel kind of stretched thin and the committing to something like this last minute, I appreciate you coming on here. I think it's going to serve and help a lot of people. So hopefully this is energy giving, Louis, and not stretching you.

You are a banquet of a human being.

Thank you.

And I always come away from being with you feeling fed. and nourished and seen. And this did not take energy. This gave energy.

I'm glad. I'm glad. We're here to serve people together. So I'm grateful for you. And I'll wrap it with this. I want to acknowledge you, Liz, for the journey you've been on, because I think people have seen the side of you for a long time of your success, of Eat Bread Love and all the millions of copies of books and master speaker and all the success of you.

You.

And I'm so grateful that you are starting to reveal the parts of you of what you've been struggling with at an even deeper level. You did this before, but you're doing it at a deeper level where I feel like it's feeding your soul. And you're not worried about what people think about you. Not that you did before, but I feel like this is what you're doing now and how you're serving with the letters that you're doing. is just really valuable. And I'm grateful for you and I acknowledge you for the gift that you've been giving yourself continually over these last five years to be of support and service to you so that you can serve the way you need to at this season of your life on what God wants you to serve.

Thanks, Lord.

So I'm really grateful that you're doing this journey. I'm grateful that you're allowing support in your life and you're allowing a team around you as opposed to doing it all yourself. I think that's amazing and I'm grateful because you get to rest and you also get to inspire and empower other people and provide opportunities for other people to be with you. So I think it's amazing. And how can we follow the letters? How can we sign up for it.

And be a part of it? Yeah, so if you go to Substack or if you just Google Elizabeth Gilbert Substack or Elizabeth Gilbert Letters from Love. It'll take you there. And for some people, it's a new technology, but it's just like, essentially you're just signing up for a newsletter. And come and sign up and be part of this community. I also just want to say that that community, I have a friend named Dr. Stephanie Covington, who's an expert on women's addiction and recovery. She wrote A Women's Guide Through the 12 Steps. She's a very reputable expert in the psychological field. And she that community is the kindest corner of the internet. Wow. And the support that the people in that community are giving to one another as they share this incredible vulnerable work of daring to believe that something might love them, and listening for that voice, and downloading those messages, and then letting it be seen. There's a tenderness. I mean, it's been 13 months. We haven't had one person bring any negativity into that space, which is astonishing in this age. People are showing up with truly undefended hearts, and we're reversing a terrible cultural paradigm of self-hatred, perfectionism, and scarcity, and turning it into self-friendliness and acceptance and community love.

That's beautiful. Is there a specific website to direct it to them, or just go to substack.com?

Elizabeth Gilbert. I don't even know. Whatever. Maybe we can put a link on the thing. But I don't even know.

People just find it.

Google Elizabeth Gilbert substack. It'll be up there.

It'll take you right to it. Two final questions for you. This one, I think I asked you this, when's the last time you were.

On, like seven years ago, eight years ago?

God, isn't that crazy? Crazy to me. Is it that long? I think it was.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure I asked you this question last time, but it may be different now. This is a hypothetical question I ask everyone at the end of a conversation. It's called the three truths. Okay. So imagine, hypothetically, you get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day on this earth. And you get to, from this moment until then, you get to accomplish or live however you want, accomplish all your dreams. Everything comes true that you want. And for whatever reason, on the last day, you have to take everything with All of your content, books, substack, letters, this conversation, everything is gone, hypothetically. But you get to leave behind three truths, and this is all we have to remember you by, are these three lessons that you've learned from everything you've learned. What would be those three truths for you?

It's a friendly universe. Transformation is possible. And this is Earth School.

Yeah, that's good. Okay, final question. What is your definition of greatness?

Trust. Trusting that going back to this is a friendly universe, trusting that we are not alone, that our lives are not accidents, that God doesn't make trash, and that you're here because you're wanted to be here. And you're wanted and loved and chosen, no matter what your family of origin might have said, no matter what your culture might have said, no matter what the people who left you might have said, no matter what your failures and your addictions might have said, you are wanted here. You are wanted here. We want you here. That's what I hear the universe say. We want you here. We love you here. And we want you to know that, that there is no deep cosmic silence. There's just 10,000 angels saying, We want you here. We love you here. It's important that you and we want you to stay. Yeah. It is.

You're amazing. Appreciate you. Love you. Thank you very much.

Love you.

Amazing.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.