Saturday night I settled into the pew with a few Tranquil Space teachers in great anticipation for Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk. Since devouring Eat, Pray, Love before it was a hit and hearing her TED Talk on creativity, I’ve been a fan.
She spent the majority of the event reading from her new book, Big Magic, and answering questions from the audience. She exuded confidence and compassion while handling tough questions with ease and vulnerability.
Here are my takeaways as penned into the front page of her book:
- She knows fear intimately. {I liked that adverb}.
- Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.
- Kill off fear and you murder creativity.
- We must travel comfortably with fear.
- Criticism is a small tax to pay to be heard and creative.
- “Nobody will care”—prove to the Universe that you’re here to do something.
- “No one’s going to care and it doesn’t matter”—then begin creating to make it matter.
- Don’t dress rehearse for disaster. When we feel joy, thinking of the worst that will happen is wasting joy. Don’t try to prepare because you can’t.
- Set a timer for 20 minutes and write. See what happens.
- Art is subjective. Some will love, some will not.
- Write your book for a specific person, not a demographic.
- She read Louise Erdrich’s poem “Advice to Myself” and invited us to think about what we can say no to, so that our creativity can flow.
For more inspiration, peruse her podcast series Magic Lessons.
Have you started reading the book? If so, what are your takeaways so far?
May we all connect with the magic within. Practice, refill, practice. Bisous. x
