If you enjoyed reading “Eat Pray Love”, perhaps you’d like to create your own eat pray love experience with me on my Italy Retreat for Women to live la dolce vita, the sweet life. Even though the Italy Retreat this September is filled, I encourage you to make plans for the September 2011 Italy Retreat.
How can you prepare?
4 Steps
1. Start saving money for the trip. Have a special jar on your shelf or a travel savings account. Each week add more to your Italy jar.
2. Create the trip in your imagination. Visualize yourself strolling along the Mediterranean, eating gelato or enjoying a spa on the Italian island of Ischia or Capri.
3. Jump out of the duldrums and be courageous like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love. Check out her book if you haven’t already, and read other books about Italy throughout the year. Some of my favorite books to read about Italy can be found on my Italy Retreat blog. Just scroll to the bottom of the page.
4. Even if you don’t create your own Eat Pray Love experience in Italy, find the moments in your life to go for more than you ever dreamed possible.
The book, Eat Pray Love, was a huge success and I’m sure the movie will be too (opening Friday August 13) because Elizabeth captures the joy of courageously following a dream, even though it may not be supported by others. She also reminds us that we will recover from sadness in our lives.
I love this section from the book about happiness:
Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.
Each day think of 3 aspects to experience happiness:
EAT: I’m not promoting eating your troubles away in order to find happiness. Far from that, but part of travel in Italy naturally includes indulging in the pleasure of eating delicious food. Again, if your eat pray love adventure does not include leaving your own town, know that eating is symbolic for experiencing life’s pleasures.
PRAY: is a daily experience whether or not you are in Italy visiting an ancient church, or enjoying art, architecture, and turquoise waters that take your breath away, you will be filled with tranquility. Even if not in Italy, daily spend time in prayer, meditation, and communing with nature. I’m visiting Boulder and walking in the mountains to connect with the beauty of creation. This can be deep prayer.
LOVE: Open heart, feel deeply. Think about self-love–you will fall in love with yourself, and the possibilities that the outer beauty of Italy offers. Self-love does not have to mean narcissism, but an appreciation of your beauty and qualities. Love yourself first to be able to love others in a more accepting way.
Do you Eat Pray Love? How do you manifest eating, praying, and loving in your life?
Learn more about traveling to Italy on Lenora’s Italy Retreats For Women
Find out more about Lenora’s Sweet Life Workshops and Sweet Life Happiness Coaching.
You are welcome to reprint, copy, or distribute Lenora Boyle’s article, provided author credit is included.