Deserving of Tenderness

Photo and quote by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

“A friend sent me this photo the other day…I believe this was taken around 2001, when I was about 32 years old. I know that I was in the middle of my divorce. I know that I was incredibly depressed. I know that I was very thin. I know that I was scared to death, and felt like my life was going to be depression and anxiety forever. I look at this picture now, and all I see is an innocent baby, who just needed to be loved, and to be kind to herself. But when I looked in the mirror back then, all I saw was a guilty failure. Back in the day, I was mercilessly cruel to the dear little person in this photograph. I blamed her for everything. I told her she was a loser, a cheater, a liar, selfish, a fuck-up, and OLD. Old enough to know better! And too old to ever be loved again! How had she made such a wreckage of her life! She deserved every punishment! That’s truly what I believed. But Dear Ones: LOOK AT HER. She was just a kid, overwhelmed and doing her best. And she still is just a kid (overwhelmed and doing her best) at 50. And so are you. If I live to be 100, I will probably die feeling like I’m just a kid who is overwhelmed and doing her best — and I’ll probably be just as innocent as the young woman in this photo. Why can we never see our innocence in the moment of our disasters? My prayer for all of us today is that we show ourselves some tenderness. Whatever you’re going through, you are deserving of so much love and care. Take it easy on yourselves out there, kids. You are, in the eyes of a loving universe, such a small and precious thing. Be very, very gentle with you. You are worth EVERYTHING. Onward. ❤️LG”