Elizabeth Gilbert Rescues Me Again

To my sister friends,

I tell you (well, some of you already know) I've been going through some big time growing pains lately and wow, wouldn't you know it, Elizabeth Gilbert shows up in my life exactly when I need her - again!

Last year, I picked up Eat, Pray, Love and devoured it - just as I know you will, or already have. The thing is, I needed that book. I had ended yet another lame, toxic and hurtful relationship and I needed to believe that I was good. On my own. On my own terms. And that my terms were good. That kind of good. I needed to be taught that a woman is forgivable for making mistakes, for loving wrong, and getting lost in loving wrong. But what I really needed to learn is that women are allowed and are required to devote loads and loads of time and creative energy loving ....

... ourselves.

Our lives are full of creativity. And those of us who chose to live creative lives put a lot of our selves on the line every day. A creative life isn't only lived by those few people who make money from art, but those of us who quest and question, who seek and find, who celebrate the small wonders and dare to risk venturing into the unknown. Us creative types, we infuse every action of our days with art. Even our relationships are artistic endeavours - we nurture them and watch them grow and feel such pain and loss when they dry up and fail to thrive.

International Women's Day is a day for celebrating women around the world and our achievements. But I would like to think that it's also a day for celebrating the poet, the chef, the singer and dancer in each of us.

I know my greatest weakness in life: it is that I lack faith in my own success. I doubt the validity and value of my creative life. And just as I have awoken from yet another bad dream this morning, a dream filled with questions that remain so frustratingly unanswered, Elizabeth Gilbert pops into my life again. Today she reminds me, and I hope that she reminds you, that on our artistic journeys through life, we are each and every one of us a vessel for artistic success beyond our comprehension. And that when we do fail (and we do, and we will) we do not have to burden the responsibility alone.

This International Women's Day, please listen to and pass this around: Elizabeth's wonderfully funny, uplifting and inspirational speech about nurturing creativity.