I’ve always had trouble making the perfect salad dressing. And let’s face it, a salad is only as good as the dressing. It’s too oily, too mustardy, too salty, too sweet or worst of all, just bland.
I realized while in deep meditation that my mind is like a salad dressing, trying to find the right recipe in order to taste just right. We all want to "find what feels good", as Yoga Guru with the largest U TUBE following Adriene Mishner titled her yoga series. We want to quiet the negative chatter and find peace in our minds and hearts. It’s what all of us want.
When I was younger I was not sure if I "thought more" or “felt more” but at age 67, I’m firmly in the camp of "feel more” which is both good news and bad news. So in my endless pursuit of modern joined with traditional spiritual gurus and practices to offset shallow religious support, I formulate practical tips on how to live in peace and harmony with my overly active “feeling" brain.
I’m just like a salad dressing, looking to find a taste I can enjoy throughout my days while mixing many disparate ingredients. The analogy appeared in a planned meditation class on Zoom with Meditation and Anxiety Guru Yael Shy. The thing about meditation is that only in such quiet can such insights emerge.
I’m salty (sad), sweet (joy), bitter (anger), tangy (self loathing), oily (depressed), sharp (anxious), umami (fearful) and sometimes just hard to swallow.There’s the vinegar, the honey, the dijon, the salt, pepper, garlic at times, all competing to find a balance, just like the endless thoughts in my head.
And yet, the dressing would not be good if it did not contain all of it, the ups and downs, the sweet and the sour.
So rather than pushing one taste aside or berating myself for having the notes I prefer to discard, I’m going to think of myself as creating the perfect salad dressing. I will blend my feelings together, live as happily as I can each day with the sadness and the joy — all in one salad dressing sized glass bottle, which if I were shaped more like, I’d have that perfect hourglass figure. That’s another story.
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