I’ve been cooking lots with my partner recently and while it does take quite a bit of time and effort, it always makes me feel much healthier and happier to make the food I eat. (And it usually ends up being tastier, too!) Which brought me to the question–what feeds you?
Though it seems to often be this way, there have been big shifts happening in my life and the lives of those closest to me, and I personally think I haven’t been dealing with them in the best ways. “Driving myself mad” is how I’ve been putting it. It never feels like I have enough time to sleep or relax or be productive, and I know that’s largely a mindset I trap myself in. (And don’t forget the capitalist, patriarchal society many of us were raised in ;) )
And so, when it comes to cooking, I have to calm myself. This is not time wasted; this is time I get to slow down and focus on the next hour or so of layering actions that will be in service of nourishing myself and my loved ones. Much of my energy goes into acting career-related things, which I often don’t get to experience material returns on. I’m used to putting in work and having to coax myself into releasing it and the attachment I have to it and the outcome. But with food, I get to experience it every step of the way. All the preparation and effort leads to me feeling satiated and enjoying the meal and gaining fuel to carry on with my life.
It’s made me reflect on how I move through each day. Lately I’ve been feeling so behind. I’ve been hard on myself and I’ve been unmotivated and I’ve been tired. When I think about cooking, and I compare it to the many tasks in my planner I keep scooching over to the next week, I wonder. In the way that my therapist has told me to do self-care before doing anything else–it’s a necessity, not a reward–can doing what’s making me feel fired up right now, even if it’s not what I’ve told myself I have to do next, actually make the day easier, more enjoyable, AND more productive?
I feel a good amount of resentment that I’ve already spent so much time in my life ruminating and toiling and shaming myself for things I haven’t done, things I haven’t achieved–but those are just yets. I’m holding myself to really trying to trust that I will get to those things in due time and it’s all part of the process–my personal life process. You can’t boil a soup if the pot is empty. You have to prep the ingredients, add them in, sautee, simmer, stir, etc. It takes steps, and those steps take time and intention. We might as well enjoy the experience as we go, and certainly savor the outcome if we can.
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