You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
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 feeling. Such numbness is a kind of mercy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the profound and sometimes overwhelming nature of grief, suggesting that extreme sorrow can lead to emotional numbness as a form of self-protection.
Elizabeth Gilbert's quote delves into the depths of grief and the human experience of loss. It describes a stage of grief where the sensation of pain becomes so intense that it transforms into a numbness, serving as a form of mercy for the heart and body. This numbness is portrayed not as a weakness but rather as a protective mechanism that allows individuals to cope with their overwhelming emotions. In essence, it speaks to how grief can change our emotional landscape and lead us to a state where feelings become muted as a way to endure.
Themes
GriefNumbnessPainEmotionMercy
In practice
Example use cases
In a support group for those who have lost loved ones, this quote can help articulate the feelings of numbness many experience.
More from Elizabeth Gilbert
All quotes →Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?
Elizabeth GilbertRead
And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
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But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
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