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f41c580
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I have searched frantically for contentment for so many years in so many ways, and all these acquisitions and accomplishments- they run you down in the end. Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time- when pursued like a bandit- will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging thro..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b37775f
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there's only one part of a man's anatomy that any potential mate should worry about measuring, and that is the length of his vasopressin receptor gene.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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dccf4b2
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I met an old lady once, almost one hundred years old, and she told me, "There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history: How much do you love me? and Who's in charge?" Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief and suffering."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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c71b97c
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Never put away your labors while the sun is high, Alma, with the hopes of finding more hours to work tomorrow--for you shall never have any more extra time tomorrow than you had today, and once you have fallen behindhand in your responsibilities, you will never catch up." So"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6de2909
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Loyal Hanneke," Alma said fondly, "let us be honest with ourselves. Who will ever put a ring on these fishwife's hands of mine? Who will ever kiss this encyclopedia of a head?" --
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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2f88e44
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Without bravery' he instructed' they would never be able to realize the vautling scopes of their own capacities. Without bravery they would never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery their lives would remain small far smaller than they probably wanted their lives to be.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6d31f51
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The bright red sap of the fei plant is meant to be useful for blood ailments." "The signature of all things," Alma murmured."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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0052e62
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it is wise in such circumstances to heed the advice of the venerable North American philosopher Pamela Anderson: "Never get married on vacation."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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5347e4e
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Pilgrims WHEN MY OLD MAN said he'd hired her, I said, "A girl?" A girl, when it wasn't that long ago women couldn't work on this ranch even as cooks, because the wranglers got shot over them too much. They got shot even over the ugly cooks. Even over the old ones. I said, "A girl?" "She's from Pennsylvania," my old man said. "She'll be good at this." "She's from what?" When my brother Crosby found out, he said, "Time for me to find new work..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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983a869
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I do truly believe I am fortunate. I am fortunate because I have been able to spend my life in study of the world. As such, I have never felt insignificant. This life is a mystery, yes, and it is often a trial, but if one can find some facts within it, one should always do so - for knowledge is the most precious of all commodities.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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c1197b8
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My old man also said this about Martha Knox: "She's not beautiful, but I think she knows how to sell it." Well, it's true that I wanted to hold her braid. I always had wanted to from first seeing it and mostly I wanted to in that dance, but I didn't reach for it and I didn't set down my beer bottle. Martha Knox wasn't selling anything. We didn't dance again that night or again at all, because"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f94a76d
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The problem is that we're all full of desire, it is the very hallmark of our emotional existence, and it can lead to our downfall - and to the downfall of others.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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28a1d02
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Oh, Lord--responsibility. That word worked on me until I worked on it, until I looked at it carefully and broke it down into the two words that make its true definition: the ability to respond.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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d46715e
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The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world," says an old Buddhist teaching. In other words: Get used to it."
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world
death
life
the-wise
teaching
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cf50eb7
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Getting out of a marriage is rough, though, and not just for the legal/ financial complications or the massive lifestyle upheaval. (As my friend Deborah once advised me wisely: "Nobody ever died from splitting up furniture.") It's the emotional recoil that kills you, the shock of stepping off the track of a conventional lifestyle and losing all the embracing comforts that keep so many people on that track forever."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1165cd2
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There is a level of grief so deep that it stops resembling grief at all. The pain becomes so severe that the body can no longer feel it. The grief cauterizes itself, scars over, prevents inflated feelings. Such numbness is a kind of mercy. This is the level of grief that Alma reached, once she lifted her face from her father's desk, once she stopped sobbing. She
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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5cec558
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In a world of such abundant possibility, many of us simply go limp from indecision. Or we derail our life's journey again and again, backing up to try the doors we neglected on the first round, desperate to get it right this time. Or we become compulsive comparers - always measuring our lives against some other person's life, secretly wondering if we should have taken her path instead.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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5596b53
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only thing I'd said was that a supreme intelligence exists in the universe, and that it longs for union with us.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9a53500
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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 ..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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957513f
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I believe that life cannot be survived--that is evident!--but if one is lucky, life can be endured for quite a long while. If one is both lucky and stubborn, life can sometimes even be enjoyed.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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d3caf31
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How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer - you can finish the business yourself, from withing yourself. It's not only possible, it's essential.
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relationships
love
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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bf64188
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Read your Bible, child; this world is not a paradise but a vale of tears.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b2aab7e
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Ovau teie! Toa hai a'e tau metua i ta 'oe! E 'ore tau 'somore e mae qe ia 'eo! ~ Alma Whittaker
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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59bbf42
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Or, as Sextus, the ancient Pythagorian philosopher, said, "The wise man is always similar to himself." -" --
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life
wise-men
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f75765d
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Mas vale vivir tu propio destino imperfectamente, que vivir a la perfeccion el destino de otra persona
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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96cedd1
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She reached up and touched his face. He allowed her. She explored his warm features. He had a kind face--she could feel that he did.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cc59607
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I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I eat and read and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate 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..
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thoughts
love
pray
eat
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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126c61e
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Trains running in every direction spit hot ash and cinders. Ministers and moralists feared that the vibrations and jostling of such fast travel would throw weak-minded women into sexual frenzies.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b0fb357
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We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and it grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything." "I know that is what you think," said Alma, patting his hand again, "and I believe it is qu..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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c0e7222
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Pero ese amor que has sentido no es mas que el comienzo. Casi ni lo has probado. Es solo amor mortal, cutre y chapucero.Ya veras como eres capaz de amar mucho mas profundamente. Diablos, Zampa, que un dia llegaras a querer al mundo entero. Ese es tu destino. No te rias.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1404d6f
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Don't we have the right to not stop seeking until we get as close to the source of wonder as possible? Even if it means coming to India and kissing trees in the moonlight for awhile.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cdcae0b
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La gente cree que una alma gemela es la persona con la que encajas perfectamente, que es lo que quiere todo el mundo. Pero una alma gemela autentica es un espejo, es la persona que saca todo lo que tienes reprimido, que te hace volver la mirada hacia dentro para que puedas cambiar tu vida. Un alma gemela es seguramente, la persona mas importante que vas a conocer en tu vida, porque te tira abajo todos los muros y te despierta de un porrazo...
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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2b520d0
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So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience.
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loneliness
inspirational
human-experience
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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0ebfa7e
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So this was the Ashram's final joke on me? Once I had learned to accept my loud, chatty, social nature and fully embrace my inner Key Hostess - only then could I become The Quiet Girl in the Back of the Temple, after all?
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irony
life
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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101325f
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I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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d51318d
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means of knowing. I am certain of this, for I have witnessed it myself. When I swung myself into the fire as a young man, I saw that the storehouses of the human mind are rarely ever fully opened. When we open them, nothing remains unrevealed. When we cease all argument and debate--both internal and external--our true questions can be heard and answered. That is the powerful mover. That is the book of nature, written neither in Greek nor in..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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58e6ae0
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Alma had grown as tall as a man by now, with broad shoulders. ... This need not have necessarily precluded her from marriage. Some men liked a larger woman, who promised a stronger disposition, and Alma, it could be argued, had a handsome profile--at least from her left side. She certainly had a fine, friendly nature. Yet she was missing some invisible, essential ingredient, and so, despite all the frank eroticism that lay hidden within her..
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homeliness
unlovely
handsome
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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bb4957a
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This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping.
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joy
spirituality
life
rituals
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a1615f1
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We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.
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mortality
god
life
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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fd52412
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What if you could somehow create an expansive enough life that you could synchronize seemingly incongruous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing?
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1e02595
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would happen next, as much as ever. The thing was to resist submersion for as long as possible. She clutched the great tree as if it were a horse. She pressed her cheek against its silent, living flank. She said, "You and I are very far from home, aren't we?" In the dark gardens, in the middle of the quiet city night, the tree did not"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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72cb64b
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Pero si pudiera hacerme unos pantalones con la hierba de este jardin lo haria
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ccf303b
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Some people like to argue about God." "Not necessary," he said. "I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion." --
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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c722dd8
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If you clear out all that space in your mind that you're using right now to obsess about this guy, you'll have a vacuum there, an open spot--a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with that doorway? It will rush in--God will rush in--and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |