As does any good story, the awakening narrative presented in “Eat, Pray, Love,” a book by Elizabeth Gilbert and movie with Julia Roberts, ends with a “happily ever after.”
However, at the end of a good movie, I often wonder, what happens next? Do the main characters stay blissfully in love for the rest of time? Do they end up needing couple’s therapy or go through a rough patch again financially? In the case of “Eat, Pray, Love,” does Elizabeth Gilbert stay permanently enlightened?
Narrative arcs that end in a seemingly permanent “happily ever after” perpetuate a skewed version of reality—one in which everlasting states of happiness or bliss can be achieved in this lifetime. By now, many of us have realized that permanence is not the true nature of bliss. The true nature of happiness more closely resembles the nature of the stock market for me. Happiness will rise and fall throughout our lives, but ultimately, we hope our investments are good and our wealth of valuable experience continues to grow over time.
As a young woman, I revered “Eat, Pray, Love” as a holy text and followed Gilbert’s guide to Bali on my own pathway to awakening. However, I’ve since learned that after the success of her book and following movie, Elizabeth Gilbert divorces the man she marries in “Eat, Pray, Love” and falls in love with her best friend who is a woman. Of course, power to you Elizabeth, but for someone who followed your awakening narrative into the dark, it would have been helpful to know this popularized portrayal of enlightenment is incomplete.
Into the dark I travelled, and waking up in the darkness is exactly what happened. My initial awakening experience, through the lens of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, occurred a few years ago. A week after I felt a divine, energetic force rise up my spine, leading me to a spiritual state in which my consciousness merged with the heavens, my father unexpectedly passed away. My awakening did not lead me to an everlasting state of bliss, but rather, it opened me up to a deep experience of both great beauty and pain.
In the following months, I knew I needed support navigating a new world of spiritual terrain and physical world without my father. I got a job working as an administrator at Naropa University, a university in Boulder combining Western academics with Eastern wisdom practices. I was able to take classes through my employee benefit, so I began to grow in my career while also pursuing a master’s degree in religious studies with a concentration in yoga studies.
I wrote my master’s thesis on awakening through kundalini in the tradition of nondual Shaiva Tantra, a body of premodern yogic texts teaching ways to experience the divine, universal nature of reality, or Shiva consciousness. Through scholarly pursuit, I learned that in direct juxtaposition to the popularized portrayal of enlightenment by narratives such as “Eat, Pray, Love” in the modern mindful marketplace, my experience of awakening to both beauty and pain is described in the original yogic texts.
The more I studied, the clearer it became that awakening is not just an expansive experience of bliss that ends with “happily ever after.” Awakening, rather, is a lifestyle where there are moments of blissful expansion followed by times of contraction. The nature of awakening mirrors that of the breath. Like an inhale follows an exhale, times of contraction follow times of expansion. Embracing this rhythm of oscillation is the key to awakening in tune with the original descriptions presented in premodern yogic texts.
So, what does this rhythm feel like? Simply put, it is the oscillation of good times and hard.
An expansive experience is one in which we remember ourselves amidst the universal nature of reality. Meditation and yoga can serve this remembrance, but it can also occur through connecting with the natural world or another human being. I personally feel my connection with a higher power when I am listening to music at a great show. These moments are joyful. We feel at peace and ecstatic, and sometimes these states of mind can feel like full-bodied bliss or enlightenment.
In states of contraction, our connection to the divine feels harder to see. The past few months, contraction has been feeling to me like the call to slow down. This call is uncomfortable for me. I like to move fast, move forward, and produce outcomes, so there is deep surrender in the slow. The slow, however, lets the universe show me what I need to grow.
When I’m less busy, I have time to tend to the deepest parts of myself, the emotions I buried in my subconscious that I don’t want to admit impact me. I feel the pain of losing my father young, unhealthy relationship patterns, loneliness, and self-hatred. It’s not pleasant, which is why I like to keep busy, but the call to tend to these feelings will come until I accept it.
After completing my thesis and graduating with my master’s, I kept busy for a while, ignoring the call to slow down until I ended up celebrating my 30th birthday in India with a few of my classmates. We went on a temple tour throughout Tamil Nadu, and I surfed on the Arabian Sea the day I welcomed in my next decade. I felt so divinely supported, and it was a massive experience of expansion. When I returned home, it felt like everything—my mental health and relationship tendencies—came crumbling down, and I’ve been in a state of deep contraction ever since.
Throughout this time of contraction, I’ve been forced to feel my pain points and let them teach me. Though uncomfortable, I can feel the power in it all as I sink deeper into my unique sense of womanhood. Feeling the pain makes me remember how strong I am. It also forces me to reinvest my resources to truly meet my own needs and desires. Therefore, this contraction, while uncomfortable, has been a catalyst for real growth.
So, my evolution of the “Eat, Pray, Love” narrative is that contraction will come after awakening and “happily ever after.” The story goes on, and you will likely still need to go to therapy (individual or couples) and experience a rough patch again financially.
Therefore, the question becomes: is awakening really worth it? As someone who’s felt it and studied it, I’ve come to the classic academic answer—I don’t know. What I hear and get glimpses of is that my capacity to feel into darkness correlates with my ability to feel light. I have moments where I taste the power of that, and I have moments where I wish I had taken an easier, more typical route.
What I know for sure is that, as a young woman, I needed to take the scenic route. I had to answer the call, and if you’re anything like me, you know the call I’m talking about. It’s the call that there can be a greater experience of life, and yes okay, apparently this article is now dedicated to all my fellow Sagittarius sun signs.
Sagittarius or not, though, if you’re interested in life’s deeper callings, I am going to continue writing about them. Hopefully, one day soon, I can provide a more detailed road map for those interested in awakening and confirm whether or not the destination is worth your trouble.
For now, all I can say is that if you’re interested in tuning closer to the key of awakening, trust the cycles of your breath. Let contraction follow expansion, trust the inhale and exhale, feel into the rhythm, and as much as you can, enjoy the ride.
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author: Kendall Higgins
Image: Author's Own
Editor: Lisa Erickson
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