letter from love

On a recent Saturday morning I was walking on the greenway in my town, which runs by a river. It was cold, but I was bundled up, moving briskly, with lots of time (my husband was working and I had a babysitter!). As I walked, I listened to an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert on the Working It Out podcast.

First off, I love Liz Gilbert; and so much of what she said in this interview resonated with me deeply.

She talked about why she decided to cancel her most recent book, which was a Russian novel. She quoted the Bhagavad Gita: you are entitled to your labor, but not to the fruits of your labor.

She told a beautiful, endearing story about coming back into the U.S. after a two-month trip wandering around South America. The customs officer asked what she’d been doing and seemed a little suspicious, then asked what kind of work she did.

Liz said she was a writer, and the officer asked what she’d written. She said, “I’m most well-known for a book called Eat Pray Love.” The officer started calling down the line to the other customs officers, shouting, “This is the woman who wrote Eat Pray Love!” And all the customs officers were blown away.

Liz was surprised they were having this reaction, especially since most of them were young men, until the officer said, “You don’t understand. Every single day, multiple times a day, women come back into the country from traveling alone, and when we ask the nature of their trip, they say, ‘I was doing my own Eat Pray Love.’”

Then Liz talked about her Letters from Love project on Substack. She shared its genesis: about being in the worst depression of her life, in the time period right before she embarked on the travels for Eat Pray Love. She stumbled onto this tool at four in the morning when her shame was coming at her with knives: she wrote a letter in a notebook from love.

The first letter, she explained, said to her, “Even if you never get better, we’ll still love you.” (The plural “we” was love.)

I stopped walking and stood still. Even if you never get better, we’ll still love you.

I am always trying to make myself better than I am. More patient. Having fewer needs. Being more “evolved” - less jealous, less petty, more kind. I never feel like I’m good enough to just, you know, exist in the world.

Even if you never get better, we’ll still love you.

I’m always trying to be a better teacher, a better writer, a better parent, a better WHATEVER. And while in some ways it’s always good to strive for more, I often let this affect my core worthiness.

Here’s an example: midway through listening to this interview, I was thinking of the multiple times I’ve been criticized in the past few weeks for saying “like” too much in videos and interviews.

I started out listening to Liz thinking, this is how I need to be. Calmer, more centered and grounded, more articulate. No “likes.”

But here’s the hilarious thing I noticed: when they started talking about the letter from love, Liz got more animated, more excited, less polished – and started saying “like” a whole bunch of times.

That was when she said, Even if you never get better, we’ll still love you.

So here’s my promise to you. I’ll practice reducing my “likes” when I’m teaching and doing interviews. And, I’m not going to let it stop me from showing up or from being excited and animated.

Even if I never get “better” - more articulate, less “likes,” whatever I’m currently trying to improve about myself with the zeal I bring to everything - I’m going to lean into being loved anyway.