Everything I learned from 90 minutes with Elizabeth Gilbert
Last Friday, I saw an email. Elizabeth Gilbert at the Barbican. Last chance tickets.
She was there to talk about her latest book, All the Way to the River – a raw memoir about love, loss and the path to freedom.
I’m not naturally spontaneous. I’m a planner. I like things organised weeks in advance. And given where I live in the Hertfordshire countryside, getting to London for an evening event means trains, logistics, energy I don’t always have.
But something whispered: yes.
So I booked the tickets. Not typical for me, but I’m practising what I preach these days – following the quiet nudges, trusting what feels alive, living like the person I’m becoming. Someone who doesn’t just admire writers and people who inspire her from afar, but hangs out with them.
The moment Elizabeth Gilbert walked on stage, the room erupted. Everyone stood, clapping. The energy shifted instantly.
And then, within a minute, the phones came out.
She laughed. “Oh yes. Here we go. This is happening. Because of course, if you didn’t take a picture, it didn’t happen, right?”
For the next five minutes, she moved around the stage – centre, left, right – posing with exaggerated gestures, leg stuck out, pulling faces. “Okay, everyone get your phones out. Let’s get this over with.” The audience laughed, snapped away.
Then she paused. “Has everybody got their picture?”
She waited a few seconds.
“Now I want to ask you something. Turn your phone off. Actually off. And give yourself the gift of being present for the next 90 minutes.”
The energy in the room shifted again. It was like an angel settled down as the room went quiet and everyone put their phone away.
I would have done it anyway, but there was something about the whole room doing it together. Five hundred, maybe a thousand people, collectively choosing presence.
And then something interesting happened.
