The movie Eat, Pray, Love raises the issue of how people tend to lose themselves in relationships.

This is particularly true of romantic relationships. It's also the case that many lose themselves whenever they go home to see their parents, around people they work with, and with friends.

It's often said that if you are in a relationship that ends—a relationship of the kind in which you lost yourself—you should probably do some growing on your own before getting back into a relationship, lest you lose yourself all over again.

Why does Eat, Pray, Love have such a passionate following? It’s even being called “a phenomenon.”

If you read the book, the movie that opened this past weekend in many ways features a quite different Liz Gilbert. She appears a lot less serious in the movie, less reflective, less intentional, more upbeat, and the focus of the movie is to a large extent on the problem of losing herself in relationships. That theme seems to have hijacked the main story of the book.