Eat Pray Love

I am so glad you're here! We have begun to unpack Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert in the Mothering MOMent (can be viewed at www.livewithintention.org in the archives) and will use this space to continue. Please post your thoughts and responses. Let's go down and in for 2008!

"Then my mother shocked me. She said, "All those things you want from your relationship, Liz? I have always wanted those things too."
In that moment, it was as if my strong mother reached across the table, opened her fist and finaly showed me the handful of bullets she'd had to bite over the decades in order to stay happily married to my father. I had never seen this side of her before, not ever. I had never imagined what she might have wanted, what she might have been missing, what she might have decided not to fight for in the larger scheme of things. Seeing all this, I could feel my worldview start to make a radical shift.
If even she wants what I want, then....?
Continuing with this unprecedented string of intimacies, my mother said, "You have to understand how little I was raised to expect that I deserved in life, honey. Remember - I come from a different time and place than you do. "
I closed my eyes and saw my mother, 10 years old on the family farm in Minnesota, working like a hired hand, raising her younger brothers, wearing the clothes of her older sister, saving dimes to get out of there...
"And you have to understand how much I love your father," she concluded.
My mother had made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive - a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a family that has extended now into grandchildren who adore her; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made his sacrifices too - but who amongst us lives without sacrifice?
And the question now for me is, What are my choices to be? What do I believe that I deserve in this life? Where can I accept sacrifice, and where can I not?"


Think about your mother and your grandmother(s). What choices and sacrifices have they made? Would you like to have a conversation with any of them about these things? Which choices and sacrifices do you want to make? Which ones do you want to avoid? What do you believe you deserve in this life? Have there been times when you have copped out on yourself? Is your peace visible to others?

I look forward to hearing from you and to creating some great discussion!