I think deep in a women’s soul is a restlessness waiting to be stilled or an emptiness to be filled. Since 2006 when the book Eat Pray Love came out, women all over the world have been inspired to undertake a similar quest in search of the thing they are missing from their mediocre lives.
An awakening occurred, where women started wanting more from their lives. They want to live their one life on earth to the full instead of merely existing. Author Elizabeth Gilbert’s story makes it possible for women to dream.
Often we have been told one way to live or think and just keep on keeping on, doing what is necessary, keeping so busy with so many unimportant things. A time comes in our lives where we stop and question if it is what we really want from life. We question if that is really who we are? Maybe you were rushed into an early marriage at a young age that isn’t working out or maybe you chose a career instead of a family and you may love your job but coming home to an empty bed every night isn’t what you signed up for? Our happiness relies on someone or something else and we want it to lie within. So that we can be content in whatever circumstance we are in.
Society shapes us and creates us; it boxes us in and hinders us. We are constantly bombarded with rules and restrictions, do’s and don’ts, expectations and duties, we live for our bosses or our husbands or our children rarely stopping to make any time for ourselves. The self neglect is looked at as noble but in fact it is stupidity. How can we be any good to anyone else when we are not being good to ourselves first? We lose our identity! We forget our purpose or our dreams die. What this book did was highlight the need for us to find ourselves and undertake journeys of our own.
Something like that requires a spiritual journey as only God can truly fill that spot. We need to feel love and peace in our inner core. We all on our own spiritual walks that also get questioned and we need to find out what we really believe and search for God. An Eat Pray Love journey is a quest for spirituality and a quest for self. In solitude and in nature we can have quite stillness to hear God speak and to find out who we are. When we stop the business and the rut of life we really have time to think about what is important. It isn’t money or a job or keeping up with the Joneses. Life offers so many valuable treasures and we want to be the treasure hunters. We want to experience all that life has to offer with all our senses and emotions. We want to taste exotic food and experience the rich beauty and culture that exists in the world. We want a story of our own.