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EAT, PRAY, LOVE: CONFRONTING AND RECONSTRUCTING FEMALE IDENTITY
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“I can choose how I’m going to regard u
nfortunate circumstances in my life
–
whether I
will see them as curses or opportunities (and on the occasions when I can’t rise to the
most optimistic viewpoint, because I’m feeling too damn sorry for myself, I can choose
to keep trying to change my outlook). I can choose my words and the tone of voice in
which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.” (Gilbert, 2006, p.
177)
By choosing her thoughts, her interpretations and her actions, Gilbert is exemplifying
what Foss and
Foss’ (201
1) describe as a key strategy for change in their paradigm of
constructed potentiality, which asserts that “if individuals are experiencing negative feelings as a
result of an exigence they choose to perceive, the strategy of interpretation can be used to make
another choice about what to perceive, how to interpret that perception, and how to frame that
interpretation symbolically to transform those feelings” (p. 214). Here, Gilbert is choosing to
perceive her exigence as one of her own self-doing. She is accepting responsibility and engaging
her own power to “choose her thoughts,” and is reframing her experiences from “curses” into
“opportunities.” As Alice Walker (2006) offered, “t
hough life as we know it has fallen into the
pit, each of us has the knowledge of how to live life differently that no one taught us, and that we
can find this knowledge and put it to use” (p. 42) –
here, Gilbert is finding her own knowledge
about how to live differently from within these new interpretations of herself and her
circumstances.
In witnessing Gilbert’s
identity transformation through her use of symbolic means, her
readers are presented with a framework they can apply to their own lives as well. As Arthur
Frank (1995)
argues, “in stories, the teller not only
recovers her voice; she becomes a witness to
the conditions that rob others of their voices
…w
hen any person recovers his voice, many people
EAT, PRAY, LOVE: CONFRONTING AND RECONSTRUCTING FEMALE IDENTITY
17
begin to speak through that story” (p. xii). This notion is further explored by Gloria Anzaldúa
who suggested that w
e should “imagine the text as altar—
as an interactive site of healing that is
remade through each loving encounter with readers over time and across space
—
invit[ing] us to
engage as readers and writers with one another within the register of the sacred” (C
arrillo Rowe,
2009, p. 18). So in sharing her story, Gilbert creates an interactive altar of healing that other
women can visit and learn from as they follow her journey.
Universal Identity and Interconnectedness
Another major theme that carries through Gilbert’s personal journey to find a new
identity and a more authentic happiness is her discovery of an interconnectedness that she feels
both with others and the universe. During her time at the ashram in India, Gilbert learns about
the wisdom of the Yogis, who believe that the goal of a spiritual practice is to reintroduce us to
our own greatness and to the innate goodness that exists within all of us (Chidvilasananda,
1994). After spending considerable time in complete silence and self-reflection, she comes to
realize how this spiritual practice presents a new possibility for her own identity.
“The Yogis…say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. We’re
miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws
and resentments and mortality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute
our whole entire nature. We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. We
don’t realize that, somew
here within us all, there does exist a supreme Self who is
eternally at peace. That supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine” (Gilbert,
2006, p. 122).
In another example, she explores this concept further in her explanation of the meditation
chant, Ham-
sa which means “I am that” in Sanskrit:
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