My “Eat Pray Love” Era
You know the 2010 Julia Roberts movie, Eat, Pray, Love? I didn’t see it until the summer of 2024. I even owned the book, but for whatever reason I had never gotten around to reading it.
If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, or it’s been 15+years and you need a refresher, here’s the long story short: It’s based on the true story of Liz (Julia Roberts), a woman who seems to have it all (husband, career, money, friends), but realizes she is unfulfilled, and goes on a journey of self-discovery that takes her to Italy (EAT), where she makes new friends, eats, and enjoys life, then to India (PRAY), where she finds herself spiritually, and ultimately Bali, where she goes to find balance and meaning, and ends up finding- of course- LOVE.
Back to me, in the summer of 2024. I was on a call with my friend Fernando, talking about what I’d been up to in life. I had been spending most of my free time developing myself spiritually, while healing from the trauma of a failed marriage. I still had a bitter taste in my mouth about the relationship and was harboring some serious negativity towards men that I was working through in various ways. Mostly, though, I was loving my new life, which was filled with yoga, meditation, self-discovery, and new, uplifting friendships. At some point, he said “Carly, you are living out Eat, Pray, Love!” When I told him I’d never seen it, he insisted that I watch it before it left Netflix, which was going to be happening soon. I’d been spending most evenings at home with Murphy (my geriatric, diabetic, blind dog, who needed my presence in what I knew were his final days) so I figured I’d give it a shot, even as I was wondering how this could possibly have anything to do with my life, since I knew enough about the movie to know that Julia/Liz was traveling the world, and I had barely left San Diego in the past year (see note on Murphy above).
EAT:
I didn’t go to Italy. I didn’t even eat much pasta or otherwise indulge in food. In fact, I had recently started working with a nutritionist and was exercising more, so I was actually losing weight and getting fit during this time. No Italy and no big culinary experiences… Fernando’s off his rocker.
PRAY:
In the movie, Julia/Liz goes to India to seek out a guru she’d taken an interest in prior to leaving home. She enters the highly disciplined environment of the guru’s ashram, where work- both physical and spiritual- was hard, and comforts were few. I did most of my meditating in my home, or on my back patio in the beautiful San Diego weather. It wasn’t exactly grueling.
LOVE:
Ugh. Love. Why? I liked that the movie was about Julia/Liz finding purpose and meaning within herself, rather than through romantic relationships. Why did this have to turn into a love story? When the charming love interest makes his way into the story, I had the same reaction she did. “Go away!” She was worried about losing the sense of self she had worked so hard to find. Her past romantic failures had left her traumatized, and she believed that getting involved in another committed relationship would undo the personal growth she achieved during her travels. Exactly! This I could relate to.
But then she ends up moving forward with him… yuck. Not me. I loved my newfound independence and the luxury of only attending to my own needs and desires.
So I turned off the TV and took old Murphy out for a walk, reflecting that it was an enjoyable movie with a lot of visual beauty, and while I really related to her heroine’s journey in many ways, I wasn’t immediately struck by a sense of strong relationship to my own experience.
BUT THEN…
The movie stayed with me. Over the coming months, it would creep back into my thoughts, and I started to feel more and more aligned with its meaning.
EAT:
Of course it wasn’t about Italy, or the food. It was about experiencing life's simple enjoyments and finding a sense of peace and happiness in the process. This is exactly what I was doing in my quiet evenings at home caring for my dog, letting myself fully experience the depths of love I had for him. As I trained myself in learning to live in the present moment, I was better able to practice gratitude for the things in life I may have once considered “small”: a nice breeze, a fresh cup of coffee, a comfy pillow. And I was building a new community of friends that lifted each other up. Just like Julia/Liz.
PRAY:
You don’t have to go to an ashram or have a guru to awaken spiritually. I occasionally attended services at a local Buddhist temple, I was regularly meditating and practicing yoga, exploring concepts of consciousness and the quantum field, attending workshops, lectures, and retreats, and processing and letting go of trauma through various therapeutic modalities. None of these experiences required me to travel more than 10 miles from my front door. At one time, I would have loved to have Julia/Liz’s experience, as I was hungry for a major spiritual breakthrough, and although dismantling my old self-concept was difficult and sometimes painful, I was ready to do the work. Eventually though, I learned to embrace my own path and trust that awakening looks different for everyone. True transformation doesn’t require a distant destination — it unfolds quietly inside you, right where you are.
LOVE:
Julia/Liz’s journey ends with her realizing that self-love and spirituality are crucial, but human connection and giving to others are also necessary elements to a fulfilling life. She had found balance and now it was time to surrender and to embrace love, letting go of the fear that she would lose her spiritual practice or revert to old patterns.
In October of that same year, an old friend came back into my life, by sheer happenstance. We reconnected via text, long-distance, and discovered we had grown to have a lot in common since we had last known each other (many years prior). I was excited to have a new friendship with someone so like-minded, although I was firm in my resolve to keep it platonic. Even after spending time together and feeling an undeniable energetic connection, I resisted. I was afraid I hadn’t come far enough in my journey, that I was going to lose touch with my spiritual practice, that I would repeat old patterns… I was afraid of what I didn’t know. It took me a while to realize, but the universe’s hand was guiding me toward this man and this relationship, and I needed to surrender to it. It wasn’t until much later that the memory of Julia/Liz came back to me, and I realized that Fernando really did have it right, after all.
I hope that Julia/Liz learned, as I now have, that a healthy love- while it might temporarily destabilize you (“Sometimes to lose balance for love is part of living a balanced life”) will be with someone who sees you, values your growth, and helps you become the best version of yourself.
Have you had your Eat, Pray, Love experience yet? If not, what’s standing in your way? The world is waiting, and so is the truest version of you.