Day 234: How I Applied Osho's TOTALITY into My Daily Living

Here is the support structure I set up for myself in my previous blog, based on the Osho card TOTALITY:

"To support myself, i will create a structure for the day, meaning, I will decide a couple of tasks to do to define and organize my time, and to give myself chunks of time to work with to break up the day into sections. This way, I will know very clearly what is the task at hand, so that when it becomes difficult, I can remind myself where my focus and attention should be, and I will move myself according to my plan (remaining flexible, of course), and not go into the wallowing experience that can throw me off track in a moment of 'absentness'."

My plan was to cook a buffet style breakfast for my busy household in the morning. We have two families here, as well as two international guests, Lauri from Finland, and myself, from Canada. The other members of the communal living space are Belgian and South African. With such a busy house, meal preparation is greatly appreciated, and fortunately, I love to cook!

I applied the support I gave to myself in my previous blog, where I focused on the task at hand, yet I didn't place any expectations or demands onto myself. Although I enjoy cooking, it had become, over time, an area of my life where I had accepted and allowed stress and anxiety to come in, where I would get too caught up in making the perfect dish, I would fear negative reactions, and I would work myself up into a bit of a frenzy of rushing and fearing making a mistake - a very unfortunate pattern that was taking away something I really enjoyed.

It may seem small - but if we can't remain stable during something as common and simple as cooking then how can we expect ourselves to know how to stabilize ourselves in the bigger tasks in life? I had began a process with cooking and keeping a cool head, because although I can cook for myself with no issue, cooking for a crowd presented new challenges. Those efforts paid off, because as I was applying TOTALITY, meaning 'enjoyment', 'focus', 'attentiveness', I was also applying all the support I had given to myself in terms of the thoughts and reactions I would normally go into when cooking for a crowd.

To take some of the pressure off, I did a 'buffet style' breakfast, and told the crowd they only had to make their own toast to go with it, which meant I didn't have to do it, so that people could come and serve up when they were ready. Normally I would 'do it all', but here I made a slight alteration and delegated some tasks to make it more manageable. I cooked low and slow, planned ahead, got all my materials and first visualized how I would do it. And it went great - meaning, I enjoyed myself, got a nice meal, others got a nice meal too, and we sat down and had breakfast together, which is rare, and cherished for me.

That night was my cooking night. I decided to make fried chicken - which I have never made before. Having learned from experience, trying something new can be risky when feeding a hungry crowd that has been working all day. For dinner, I was cooking for the entire farm, not just my house. That night, there was such a fierce storm that it knocked over a tree and hailed. I continued cooking, feeling like there was an apocalypse going on around me, not knowing if the power would be cut part way through. I told myself I would cross that bridge if I got there.

Note: I am walking a process of self-change using the tools of support offered by www.Desteni.org. I am taking the course called DIP Pro. In this course I learn how to take every day moments and find ways to make myself a better, more understanding and well rounded human being, the kind of human being I would like to see in this world. "Be the change you want to see" is a cool saying, but actually doing it is a bit more confusing because people tend to believe that you can't change human nature. I believe you can, because I have seen myself changing to someone I've always wanted to be. Not there yet, but my motivation is fueled by the proof I have given to myself, which I have documented online every sep of the way, in my blogs and on youtube. DIP Pro requires serious dedication and commitment, it is ot for the faint of heart. If you want to test the waters for yourself, try the Lite version, it's called DIP Lite, and the best part is, it's free! Why? Because Desteni puts individual self-change above profit. Why does DIP Pro cost money? Because it costs money to exist in this world, and takes a dedicated team to run the program. Otherwise it would also be free.
Visit www.Desteni.org

Of course, the chicken took much longer than the recipe stated, I almost caught the oven on fire and had to halt production to let it cool down and clean it, only to realize the chicken I had served to half the crowd was under-cooked! I had to embrace my fear of giving worms or food poisoning to my friends, and embrace the fact that dinner was 2 hours late and served in separate courses instead of all-together, and despite all of these hiccups, I found the entire situation quite hilarious, feeling light within myself and capable of handling things as they came.

Today, no one woke up with any signs of food poisoning, and everyone thought the chicken was very tasty! I do have the advantage of living with a group of patient, self-responsible and very forgiving people!