Photo: Instagram @eatpraylove_official

'Eat, Pray, Love' creates more questions than it gives answers. The novel is the captivating account of a demand for a new direction and perspective.

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of this acclaimed book, and who, along the pages, takes us arm-in-arm on the journey in search of what is missing in a “perfect life.”

It's very easy to identify ourselves with Elizabeth Gilbert, a real woman overwhelmed by the weight of routine and the emptiness that left her the feeling of personal non-fulfillment. After divorcing, she starts again, without fear of change or the future, and seeks new opportunities, new paths, new cultures.

For a year, Elizabeth travels through three countries: Italy, India and Indonesia, in search of peace, balance, love, pleasure, and spirituality. It's in this engaging novel that Elizabeth lets us know her innermost thoughts, expressing herself openly on such pertinent issues as mental health, loneliness or depression.

Photo: Instagram @thespringwind

First of all, Elizabeth teaches us not to be afraid to live life passionately and to understand that worldly things can even be the way to our happiness and well-being. Appreciate the culture, the gastronomy, the architecture, the people around us-all this brings us a new way to see the world, to understand it and to realize what's our place in it. Above all, it's crucial that we know how to love and respect who we are, have self-love.

Second, she teaches us to seek and welcome our spirituality. It's essential that we know how to look for ways to be good with ourselves, to reflect, and to meditate. We can always change our perspective by changing our way of thinking, and that involves knowing how to accept that not everything has an answer, or that we don't need all the answers. Religions aside, it's almost a given fact that having faith - be it in a God, in the universe, in Destiny - does not bring anything bad, on the contrary.

Finally, Elizabeth teaches us to love. This may be the most 'cliché' part, but it's still truly inspiring and comforting. In the final part of her trip, in Indonesia, Elizabeth finds the opposite of what she was looking for and that's what makes her reach one of her initial goals: the love that wasn't in her plans was the cause of the peace she so needed. We want to believe that love appears at the end of this journey as a sign of overcoming and development - after all, it's only after many challenges and learning to live without guilt and fears that we can give ourselves so fully.

'Eat, Pray, Love' is a novel with a very important subliminal message. When read in the right phase of life, it awakens the will to change what no longer makes us happy, often even unconsciously. The reading is very fluid and captivating, after all the author is a successful journalist, and we almost feel that we're travelling the world with Elizabeth.

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