Like a lot of other people, when I watched the last Democratic Presidential Debates, I was intrigued with Marianne Williamson. I am an early, all-in supporter of Elizabeth Warren, and I don't feel Williamson's background is what we need in a president, but damn, I loved the emotional, non-political way she called out the darkness of the current administration. I was not at all surprised to read later that, during the debates, hers was the most often searched name, because I was one of those millions who sat there with my phone and did just that.
I had not previously read her books, but when somebody is this popular and so many swear by her, after a point I'm willing to see what the fuss is about. I didn't download her latest, A Politics of Love, because, as I said, I don't think she's presidential material. Instead I went back to her first big hit, Return to Love, and started reading it on my Kindle each morning while I pedaled my stationary bike.
Her life is inherently interesting to me since we are the same age, which means we were experiencing the same cultural and historical influences at the same time. (Turns out that's about all we have in common, though.) I let her words wash over me each morning, and a lot of it makes sense in the way it does coming out of other self-help/spiritual/Buddhist writers…..We can't change others, only ourselves. It's better to give out love than hate. We can't control everything, so give up trying etc.
I appreciate that she uses some of her own stories for illustration, but I'm finding I just can't relate. She had a crush on a gay guy and had to go to a lot of trouble to "release him," she pats herself on the back for directing a new boyfriend to give his ex a call to make her feel better, she spends two weeks mentally forgiving a guy for standing her up for a date, then blows him off (but oh so wisely and nicely) when he finally calls. Marianne! It's not that complicated! If a guy stiffs you, he's a flake, and unless you want to hook up with a flake, that relationship is over as soon as he doesn't call the next day with an amazingly good excuse, like he's in the hospital after a car accident.
Apparently she wrote this book just after she had her one baby, a daughter. According to Google, she has never named the baby's father and at one point mentioned in passing that she had once been married "for about a minute and a half."
So, I'm wondering: Where's the advice for the people not experiencing an on-going dating life? Worrying about whether guys are telling you often enough how desirable you are? What if you're sticking with the same guy, one day at a time, for forty-five years? Honestly, Marianne Williamson doesn't have a clue about the three-ring circus grown children and grandchildren can produce.
But then, when you check it out, isn't that the case with a lot of these self-help/spiritual advisors? The people who write books telling others how to live don't necessarily have the personal lives you'd most want to emulate.
Oh, well! Good for her for speaking up against Donald Trump!!! (Trumpian exclamation points!!!)