From Sex & Love Addiction to Self-Care as Public Service | Liz Gilbert EP 905

0:00There are two big things happening at one time that I've never done before. I'm going on a book tour for my new book, Make Money Easy, and I'm doing a podcast tour at the same time. It is going to be big, and I'm going to seven cities in 10 days. Get your friends, get your family, bring everyone you know to these cities. I'm coming to Austin, Texas, New York, Boston. We're going to Nashville. Then we're going to Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. Make sure to get your tickets right now. go to lewishouse.com slash tour again bring everyone you know if you're looking to create more financial freedom and abundance in your life and you want to see a massive guest live on the school of greatness show get your tickets i can't wait to see you there hi my name is lewis house and welcome to the daily motivation show

0:59the greatest harm that i've ever done to other people was through me not knowing how to take care of myself because if i don't take care of myself a few things are going to happen i'm going to lose my mind um i'm going to become super needy super clingy and super manipulative because I'm going to try to get my needs met through you. And that means I'm going to be objectifying you and using you as a parental replacement,

1:32a sex toy, a sleeping pill, an unpaid therapist. You know, whatever the need, this huge yawning need in me, parts of me will go out there and try to get that need met. You know, so either I can figure out how to get that need met or like that teenager is going to figure out how to get that need met. And all the amends that I've ever had to make to anybody in my life for the grave harm that I brought to them were because I didn't know how to take care of myself. And so I had harmed them, blamed them, used them, manipulated them, tried to force them to be something that they couldn't be, become infuriated and enraged when they couldn't do it, when they couldn't deliver, cheated on them because if they couldn't do it, I'm going to go find somebody else who can, you know, like all of it.

2:21And so where self-care becomes not so much a sort of new age catchword, but a deeply humanitarian public service is, Byron Katie said it so well, nobody is safe from me when I need them that much. Nobody is safe from me, right? So I actually want, as somebody who genuinely loves humanity. I want to be somebody who people are safe around. And if I'm not taking care of myself, I am an unsafe human being for anybody to be in any relationship with, whether it's a momentary relationship or a romantic relationship. Yeah. I mean, you've talked publicly about kind of your love life and your relationships and books and talks and everything.

3:04You said you were married and divorced twice. What did you learn after the first marriage into the second marriage? Nothing. No, that's not true. I was a much better second wife than I was a first wife. Really? But, you know, I haven't really learned anything until recently. Really? You're just repeating patterns. 100%. So I've spoken very openly about identifying as a sex and love addict. And I go to a room for that. I go to a 12-step program for that. it took me until I was 50 to find out that there was a room for that and I spent decades and I mean untold thousands of dollars sitting in therapeutic situations with you know it wasn't like I wasn't trying to be different you know what I mean like I was paying a lot of people to try to help me not be like the way I am and no one ever said cheers sex and love and there's a room for that.

4:03There's a 12 step room for that. And here's a phone number. Look this, you know, go get yourself some help because there's so much secrecy around it. Because I think especially for women, there's a tremendous amount of shame. But my acting out was nuts, Lewis. I mean, you mentioned that I was divorced twice, but I actually recently had lunch with my old couples therapist, who's a wonderful, brilliant couples therapist, who I, and I said to him, Mark, have have you, did you ever have anyone else who was a patient of yours who brought three different people to see you over the years?" And he was like, Nope.

4:39And I was like, and none of them were my husband. Like none of them were the people I was married to. That was like between my marriages that I was bringing, you know, and he was like, yeah, I don't think I have ever had anybody bring in three different relationships and say, please make this work for me. And he said, I have to hand it to you though, Liz, they were all so different, the people. You were the same. I really admired the fact that like, and I was like, yeah, because I was trying to find what is the formula? Who do I have to connect with that this is going to work, that this great echoing God sized hole within me, this deep unsolvable problem of never feeling like there's enough love.

5:21Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Do I need someone older? Do I need someone younger? Do I need a man? Do I need a woman? Do I need someone who loves me more than I love them? Do I need two people? Do I need an open marriage? Do I need... Like, I want to... And I say this with all love. I'm so proud of myself that I spent 35 uninterrupted years trying to solve that. Like, trying to solve that and being like, why can't I make this work? Very similar to an alcoholic who's like, well, maybe if I just don't drink hard liquor, maybe if I just have wine, maybe if I just have beer, maybe if I just drink on the weekends, maybe if I...

5:55You know, it's like I'm trying to figure out how to have this thing not do what it always does, which is blow up in my face and leave me like flat on the bathroom floor wrecked. Depressed and sad and lonely. Suicidal, if not homicidal. Right. And so it wasn't until I. You're looking for people to be the solution. Always. But it wasn't.

6:23Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:13Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.