From the Mouths of Babes

I made some delicious sesame encrusted salmon with a teriyaki glaze, served over a bed of arugula and with a side of sautéed red pepper and white rice. It was soooo good! 🤤 As I was dishing it up, Cesar studied it for a moment and plainly told me, word for word, that the meal does not tempt him at all and he finds it entirely unattractive. He carefully reiterated - as Cesar often does to ensure complete understanding - that there is not one element on that plate that he would want to put in his mouth.  

Normally, an adult might find this rude or cheeky for a child to be so blunt. We might call it 'unappreciative' or 'insulting'. Yet I could not help but break out into laughter, because I understand Cesar and where he is coming from. 

We have told Cesar in the past that he must be honest with us about what he likes and dislikes in terms of food. There have been times where he would claim to be full after having not eaten, only because he saw how much effort went into the cooking process, and he didn't want to say he didn't like it. We explained to him that if he does this, we will continue to cook the same meals assuming he likes it, and then end up wasting food. In order to not waste food like this, we ask him to not only tell us if he likes it or not, but what exactly it is that he does or doesn't like, so that we can make adjustments. 

So, when Cesar was studying my dish, I knew that instead of disregarding the whole thing at first glance because it looked 'weird' or 'gross'to him, he was meticulously checking each element to see if there was anything he could eat, before giving his answer. This is not rude nor unappreciative, it is being honest. This is actually quite thoughtful. 

When I was a child, there were many times when I would force foods down my throat when eating at friend's houses so as not to offend anybody. The adults would see this as 'having good manners' and being 'well raised', when in fact it is teaching children to act in misalignment with their honesty in order to appease the emotions and expectations of adults. 

I would rather have a child be honest, know themselves and stand up for what they want and don't want to put in their bodies, because this applies to many more important boundaries later on in life. If we teach our children to bend to the will of others merely for the sake of appearances, then we are creating weak-willed children that will accept and allow abuse unto themselves if it means it won't upset someone, and we do this in so many ways. 

Rather use meal-times as an exercise in self-understanding and the courage to be honest about what you know about yourself. There will be times when a child will not have the option to choose what is served to them, due to things like the cost of food, or time, or something else - but this can also be explained and understood on a practical level instead of in the context of pretense and 

Ruining a Dinner Party - micro-blog from Desteni Universe

Here I am cooking... or should I say 'ruining' dinner! As I was experiencing mostly one disaster after another.

New kitchen and kitchen appliances, new ingredients, new climate, air, water... everything is different here than when I am cooking in South Africa. Things were not working out the way I was used to as I was making my usual butter chicken, naan and paneer, yet there was a lot of pressure coming at me to cook a meal for a group of guests, not to the waste money spent on ingredients by things not working out, and to make something fabulous!

What happened was that I burnt the sauce even though I was cooking it a lowest level on the stove top. My cheese simply did not separate into curds and whey, but became a thick cream, my bread did not rise half as much as I am used to - all while using the same steps and measurements I always do!

I thought to myself, 'well this is a disaster', and was told by someone "if you fuck it up I'll kill you" lol! Half jokingly, yet at the same time not.

The interesting thing was that I felt totally fine about the whole thing: as things were not working out, I was feeling a bit bad, yes, but not stressed, not worried, not guilty... what existed in me was more along the lines of: I've done my best so we'll have to make do with whatever happens!

And it's funny because I remember walking this point of 'ruining a meal' at the farm - There is actual real consequence to it, with the resources wasted when resources are limited, and then people also depending on and planning their work etc around a certain meal time - and so I would stress every week on my cooking day to the point where I would get knots in my back... and it seems so silly now how I would project people being angry and disappointed and not liking my food, and it would trigger a whole spiral of reaction within me.

And so I worked on the point every week until it eventually became about practical skill development only (with of course enjoyment, expression, experimenting etc), where I let go of the expectations and projections and worked instead from a more grounded and present stance.

And this is what I did today, quite naturally as I was cooking this meal that was not working out. And it was a pleasant surprise to see my hard self-work pay off, because I used to get myself worked up into quite a state when preparing for guests to arrive in my home.

In this scenario, I saved the sauce by changing pots and not stirring up the burnt part, we made an experiment out of the overly creamy cheese, by breading and frying it into balls which were quite yummie, and the naan was much thicker and heavier than I'm used to, but everyone seemed to love it, and loved the butter chicken too! There were people that didn't show up as well, so a smaller group than expected, lots of left overs to take home, and a very calm, relaxed chef that could laugh at the earlier threats and expectations!

This EQAFE recording assisted me most in working with my anxiety. I listened to it years ago, and still apply the information today. This is one recording, but it is part of a series on anxiety which I'd highly recommend for anyone whose anxiety tends to get in the way of things they should normally enjoy:

Deconstructing your anxiety - Atlanteans' Support - Part 85

"This interview provides support on how to find the source of your anxiety and deconstruct it from your life."

 

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.
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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!