How To Rewire Your Inner Dialogue and Re-Regulate Your Nervous System | Elizabeth Gilbert

Overview

Elizabeth Gilbert shares deeply personal insights into addiction, love, grief, and recovery, exploring how she rewired her inner dialogue and re-regulated her nervous system. The conversation delves into her journey of self-compassion, spiritual practices, and the pursuit of healthier relationships.

Notable Quotes

- Addiction is giving up everything for one thing, and recovery is giving up one thing for everything. – Elizabeth Gilbert, on the transformative power of recovery.

- You are perfect exactly the way you are, and I also see you suffering. Come with me if you want to live. – Elizabeth Gilbert, describing the unconditional love she experiences through her spiritual connection.

- Nobody is safe from me when I need them that much. – Elizabeth Gilbert, reflecting on the destructive impact of her love addiction.

🌊 The Turbulence of Love Addiction

- Gilbert candidly describes herself as a sex and love addict, a romantic obsessive, and a blackout codependent, highlighting decades of compulsive behaviors that led to self-abandonment and harm to others.

- She explains the brain chemistry behind love addiction, likening it to a process addiction where the craving for attention and validation triggers intense hormonal highs and devastating withdrawals.

- Her recovery journey began with a 12-step program for sex and love addiction, where she found solace in shared experiences and tools for healing.

🏠 Making Others Into Home

- Gilbert reveals her lifelong struggle with homesickness and the tendency to make others her emotional home, stemming from a childhood where home felt unsafe and impermanent.

- She reflects on how this dynamic led to manipulative behaviors, such as fostering dependency in relationships by offering financial support and other resources.

- Her spiritual practice now serves as her true home, providing a sense of belonging and security that she previously sought in others.

🧘‍♀️ Grounding Practices for Nervous System Regulation

- Gilbert shares her full-time commitment to regulating her nervous system through daily practices like mantra meditation, yoga, breathwork, and two-way prayer.

- Two-way prayer involves asking, Dear God, what would you have me know today? and receiving guidance in a compassionate, non-judgmental voice she identifies as divine.

- Service, a cornerstone of her recovery, has shifted from codependent people-pleasing to genuine acts of selfless giving, which she finds deeply healing.

💔 Redefining Healthy Relationships

- Gilbert outlines her sober dating plan, a structured approach to relationships that includes boundaries like avoiding unavailable partners, limiting early emotional entanglements, and prioritizing her independence.

- She emphasizes the importance of learning to stabilize herself and rediscovering her own preferences and rhythms after years of self-contortion to please others.

- Her recovery has allowed her friendships and creativity to flourish, as she redirects energy previously consumed by romantic obsession into other areas of her life.

🌟 Self-Compassion as a Path to Healing

- Gilbert describes her spiritual connection as an infinitely loving presence that reassures her she is perfect as she is, without needing to change or earn approval.

- She likens this unconditional love to the scientifically validated concept of self-compassion, where one channels their innate kindness inward.

- This practice has helped her navigate withdrawal from addiction, reparenting herself through moments of discomfort and grief with patience and care.