When I finished chef school in NYC, I started internships or “staging” as they call it, going from restaurant to restaurant to be the lowest person on the team and doing whatever they tell you, for how long, and in what precision.

I would often fail and the chef would throw out in a fit of anger what I spent hours carefully doing because the cut was not consistent and right. I felt bad, he (chefs were mostly male in those days and still are but this is happily changing to equalize the culinary playing field) was right. But did he have to get angry and throw everything away to demonstrate his superiority and to show me my place in the hierarchy?

I decided I was too old for that shit. It’s fine for the younger people coming right out of culinary school, and I didn’t even know if it was fine at all, the old militaristic system or brigade may have its utility in the army but in the kitchen?

Where was compassion and love in the kitchen? I would think this though never verbalize it as I knew I would be ridiculed and laughed at in these environments.

Even if a restaurant promotes that they put much care and love into the food, and do pump out delicious food, the most important element is often treated the worst … the staff. I knew it wasn’t right but didn’t have any control to change it.

Besides, it felt oddly familiar from my childhood where my mother would treat everyone else with kindness and generousity while those closest to her, including me, were not.

I feel it’s partly because she was living through me. I was her. She didn’t like who she was, so how could she like me?

My mom loved me but through her actions, I didn’t feel she did. I felt sad and ashamed that I was the reason for her problems and tried hard to change this.

After much time and reflection, and therapy, I began to see her life from her shoes, not mine.

My mother longed to be freer and unencumbered in her life but had a complicated life. Her parents died when she was a child and she was sent away to a new country she had never been too and torn apart from her siblings for over two decades. She was forced to live with relatives in the back country and worst of all, she said they “didn’t want her” and abused her. Then there was WWII and seeing the nuclear bomb drop close to her home, just to name a few things that happened to her before she was 20!

When my mom’s brother in Toronto found her and sent her a ticket to return to Canada in her twenties, there must have been excitement and relief at first, with disappointment and frustration as the years passed by. Besides a new language to learn, and societal norms of marriage, a husband, children, a home, a car, the culture and customs were different to her. As a child, I was embarrassed by her being not like the other “normal” mothers and didn’t bring friends home.

I was not the problem but it was her life and the times.

I yearned to be different when I left home because I knew that all that my mom had, even me if I am honest, didn’t make her happy.

I felt for the longest time that I was the reason for her unhappiness but now I realize that whatever she did and said to me had nothing to do with me, it had everything to do with what was going on with her.

This is why reading The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz changed my life.  In particular, the agreement on “not taking anything personally” helps me to let go and move on more quickly when I am hurt or offended by someone’s comments or actions.

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.  Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you.  What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements that they have in their own minds.”

― Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

In realizing I was not responsible for my mother’s happiness, I began to understand that I am not responsible for anyone’s happiness. I knew this on the surface but inside I was still the child trying to do anything to make my mom happier and prouder of me. This pattern continued into my adulthood with relationships and situations that were not good for me but I continued to work harder at them or be a “good girl” so they would change and appreciate me. I would end up frustrated and exhausted.

Don Miguel Ruiz speaks powerfully and honestly about our relationships with people, in particular, that we either need to accept and love them as they are, or let go. Ah, the letting go is the hard part, isn’t it?! Because if we let go, what do we have? We are left taking care of the person who needs us the most and can change, ourselves.

“If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you. If that person doesn’t walk away, you will surely endure many years of suffering with him or her. Walking away may hurt for a while, but your heart will eventually heal. Then you can choose what you really want. You will find that you don’t need to trust others as much as you need to trust yourself to make the right choices.”

― Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

Not taking things personally and walking away from people and situations that are not loving for me, is a different way of doing things and a new taste. What does it taste like? Sweet and delicious. Freedom and joy, folded in with space and sunlight. There are often big sighs of relief. The fear and sadness from letting go are always there are like the slightly spicy and bitter elements in a dish. They help kick it up a notch to make an amazing taste memory and a better life.

♥

Here’s a simple-to-make salad and dressing from my dear friend Barb who hates to cook and loves to eat this salad every day for lunch. I love it and have been borrowing of late. It is sweet, bitter, spicy and delicious. Sunshine and life in a bowl.

Start with spicy bitter greens, her favourite is arugula, in a bowl. Drizzle on top of the greens, tahini, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin oil, good salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add some nuts, avocado slices or other protein (that’s my chef and nutritious side speaking). Enjoy!

Also published on Medium.