Journey to freedom

Dealing with what life brings you is apparently the reason why we wake up every day. Well, this is what I've often been told by my parents and my previous mentors. There comes a time, however, when one begins to believe that life does not really have to just happen to you but that you can actually make life happen.

That switch of course does not happen with a snap of the fingers. It is a journey of head-spinning proportions as epitomised by author Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat Pray Love fame, a book presented to me this week by my daughter.

"A must-read for every woman at the threshold of facing change," she said with a smile so wise beyond her years that only I recognise.

The book is a chronicle of Gilbert's year-long journey to find herself spiritually after a messy, unresolved divorce. She finds herself in Italy where food transforms her rake-thin structure to one with curves, to India where she finds a meditation cave and spirituality and then on to Bali, Indonesia, where she finds balance and love of the non-proprietary kind from a man 18 years her senior.

Not everyone is looking for Gilbert's experiences and although thousands of women have connected with the book since Oprah Winfrey made it internationally famous, some critics have panned it as a piece of non-fiction with a fairy-tale ending.

Doesn't everybody want that! How wonderful it would be if we could all float through life knowing that all will be beautiful at the end of that sometimes dark tunnel.

You also don't have to be female to enjoy this travelogue. Gilbert has used her rich tapestry of experiences as a cook, a waitress, a magazine lackey and a traveller who adores people in all the stories/books that she has ever written including Eat Pray Love which will appear on our cinema screens in 2010 starring Julia Roberts.

It's a good, light- hearted read, but the one page in the 348-page tome that really touched me is the instructions for freedom that she receives from a plumber/poet friend:

1. Life's metaphors are God's instructions.

2. There is nothing between you and the Infinite. Now, let go!

3. The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that was beautiful. Now let go!

4. Your wish for resolution was a prayer. Your being here is God's response. Let go and watch the stars come out - on the outside and inside.

5. With all your heart, ask for grace and let go.

6. With all your heart forgive him, forgive yourself and let go.

7. Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering. Then, let go.

8. Watch the heat of day pass into the cool night. Let go.

9. When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe, let go.

10. When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life, with great joy.

Well, there's nothing more to say except eat healthy, pray for tranquillity and love shamelessly to find real happiness.

And, have a great weekend.