Anna

“PRAYER FOR A RECOVERING CODEPENDENT

What is missing from your constitution right now, my darling, is not empathy, but courage.

It takes fortitude not to leap into somebody else’s suffering with them and call that love.

It takes faith to know that you are not the appointed arbiter of anyone else’s journey.

And it takes humility to admit that you cannot control anyone—
that you might not even understand what you’re looking at.

What you call a “crisis” might be someone else’s awakening, ten thousand lifetimes in the making.

(The awakening, my love, might even be your own.)

And what you call “care” might be dangerous disruption of an ecosystem of unimaginable delicacy.

How hard that person’s soul might have fought its way through the cosmos for millions of ages
to finally arrive here—on the final precipice of egoic collapse.

How close they might be, at last, to freedom.

All they have to do now is shatter.

Maybe stand back.

Maybe let it happen.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, All the Way to the River

“I understand now that unsolicited advice is always driven by panic on the part of the person bestowing it, and I am frequently guilty of that panic myself. (I would much rather tell you what to do, in other words, than sit with my sadness or anger or fear about what you are doing.) And the more we love and need someone, typically, the more we try to control them—especially when we are afraid.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, All the Way to the River

“I’ve been doing the same thing for eight years, and I know it doesn’t help anyone. I know the world would be a better place if jobs like mine didn’t exist. I know I take advantage of people’s insecurities and their desire to thrive in a society where no one can improve. And I know this because even I, after an eight-hour day full of elevator conversations that drive me to low-stakes suicidal ideation (like stapling my hand to get out of a meeting that makes me understand the true meaning of the word “infinite,” or pouring boiling water from the office kettle onto myself so I can spend five to ten days at home with my feet up), still believe that the solution to all my problems will be a floral Zara dress made in Bangladesh that has followed me on every website I’ve visited today, and that, in all certainty, will be worn by millions of women on the street next season. I still believe that dress will turn me into a different woman, a happy, carefree, springtime version of myself. I know that when you buy something, what you’re paying for is the promise of a better life. I know I’m also taking advantage of and accepting money from mediocre clients who think the greatest act of creativity is your smell, of leaving an impression, of not being a gray, boring person who spends two hours of their life every day getting to and from work. I sell the possibility that today, yes, today, with the help of that floral perfume, something extraordinary will happen to you. I’m not selling the umpteenth vacuum cleaner that no one needs; I’m selling the idea of having a nice, clean house, of being able to take a photo of that cute little corner you decorated Pinterest-style, uploading it on Instagram, and getting a lot of likes. Then I pitch a creative idea that’s like all the other creative ideas, the ones that came before and the ones that will come afterward. The lipstick effect. The smell of memories. Your dream house. They buy my idea, they pay us, I get congratulated, and we start all over again.”
― Beatriz Serrano, El descontento

“It was becoming evident to me that addiction is addiction is addiction—that all the ways in which people binge, hoard, numb, act out, control, and self-medicate are just equally desperate attempts to cover up the same deep spiritual pain. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single room in the twelve-step universe that I don’t relate to or qualify for, at some level or another, because my anxious mind never stops looking for ways to escape its host of human dilemmas.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, All the Way to the River