LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Jen Hatmaker!

There is something that does not end

Hello, Lovelets!

Okay everyone, let’s do a little experiment.

Everyone, right now, using one of your hands, point to yourself.

You might have to put your phone down. Do it — put your phone down and point to yourself!

Okay, now tell me, what part of your body did you point to when you were asked to point to yourself?

Did you point to your head?

I bet you didn’t.

I bet you did what people all over the planet, from all different backgrounds and languages do when they’re asked to point to themselves.

You pointed to your chest. You probably pointed right to the center of your chest, which is what the yogis call the heart center. Right? How did you know to do that? How did you know that “you” do not exist inside of your brain cavity — despite how much of your day and life you spend there, thinking about stuff?

How did you know that the mind is not the home of the self — that it is not where you live or what you are?

You just did. You just did know. Everyone knows. Because the heart is what you truly are. “Go there and roam,” instructed the monks at the ashram where I studied in India. Go there and roam.

Our special guest this week is the lovely and kind

Jen Hatmaker

, whose letter pointed her right toward her own heart — knowing that the heart is the true self, the true home, and the one thing that does not change.

Let’s go there and roam together, dear hearts!

Let’s see what we find.

Love,
Your Lizzy

Dear Love, What would you have me know about the difference between my mind and my heart?

Oh honey, that mind of yours sure loves talking about differences, doesn’t it? Loves to make categories, to sort things out, to measure, to compare. Loves to give names unto things, to put dates on things, to make timelines, to make decisions, to have opinions — all of which is about carving up reality into little megabytes of perceived understanding. All of which is about control, or the appearance of control.

Little scoop of sugar, don’t mind. Don’t worry about it. The mind will do what the mind will do. Mainly, that means that the mind will keep thinking that it’s very important, keep thinking that it knows what’s going on, keep thinking that it has to keep tabs on things, keep thinking that — if it can understand everything — then it can keep things safe and handled, thinking, thinking, thinking . . . and there is nothing innately wrong with that. Actually it’s kind of adorable. Busy little spinning top. But haven’t you noticed that you can think all day and still not think your way into feeling alright? Have you ever analyzed yourself into a state of well-being? Has anyone? Has your mind ever been able to comfort itself, when it thinks itself into a panic attack?

This is what we want you to see: the mind thinks, but the heart knows. Did you feel the big exhale that came with that sentence? The mind thinks, but the heart knows. Did you even notice you were holding your breath? Sweetheart. The heart knows.

Ancient, weathered, infinitely expansive, the heart remembers. The heart remembers love. The heart remembers every lifetime you have been here — every form you have taken in this world and in others, in this life and in others, and it remembers, it knows, that the song of the universe goes like this: it’s all gonna be alright, it’s all gonna be alright, it’s all gonna be alright.

Your mind is a junior assistant prosecutor, wheeling a cart into the courtroom filled with evidence of lots of things to get extremely involved in and worried about and stressed over. And the heart watches, lovingly, and knows something else to be true.

Everything is perfect, just as it is.

When you sit in quiet meditation, have you ever been told a different message than “everything’s alright”? Have you ever read of anyone having a near death experience who did not, when they saw the white light, instantly understand the perfection of everything — including their own apparent death, and all the things that had ever appeared to go wrong? Have the great mystics of all traditions, when they reached truth and stillness, ever had anything to report except “everything is fine”?

There is something that does not end.

Sweetheart, you rightly identify as a sex and love addict, as a fantasy addict, as someone who has been many times swept away by the lure of seduction, but please believe us when we tell you that nothing is more seductive than your own thinking. Your mind is the great romancer. It lures you, it captivates you, it fascinates you, it convinces you that what you are seeing is true, and that your opinions are true, and that your thoughts are extremely important — oh, so important! Each thought deserving so much attention! Each opinion needing so much validation.

It just does that. Because that’s what minds do.

But the heart knows. It knows who it is, it knows where it is, it knows what it is, it knows where it comes from, it knows where it’s going, and it knows that all is well and that nothing is actually happening.

To try to protect your heart with your mind is hilarious; it’s like trying to block the sun with the petal of a daisy. Also, there is nothing within your heart that is in need of protection.

We know that. Because we created it.

There’s that smile we love.

There’s that heart we love.

Don’t be seduced into a state of panic, dear one, by anything the mind tells you. Everything the mind appears to see is just a passing story, a flicker of imagination across an endlessly unfolding field of consciousness.

Remember what Richard from Texas told you: “No one thing matters all that much.”

Your heart is that thing which does not come and go. You are that. You are love. Start remembering. Start knowing.

Prompt

Our assignment this week is just that: start knowing — not intellectual-knowing, but heart-knowing. A recurring theme in your letters and mine over the course of this project has been the physical relief we feel when we can quiet our mind and listen to our own intuition, or Love, or Source, or whatever you want to call it. The body knows what’s up. But we humans tend to jump right to cognitive responses before we check in with our somatic truths, and that’s what we’re exploring this week with this question: Dear Love, what would you have me know about the difference between my mind and my heart?

It is getting real! All my creativity workshops and other events are over, and now it’s full-steam-ahead planning for the September 9th launch of my new book, ALL THE WAY TO THE RIVER! Here are all book tour events — you can find information and ticket links for each stop by clicking here: www.elizabethgilbert.com/tour.

And as we get closer, we’ll open up some new chats so you can find one another at these events — we love a Lovelet meetup!