It's Social Conditioning

I have redefined “doing an exercise” for myself. I have always defined it as actually doing the exercise successfully and with the correct frequency from the moment the decision to “do an exercise” is made. Now I am beginning to appreciate the underlying effects of the simple determination to work with the exercise as it works on me and learn from each stage.

For the last couple of months I have been not at all successful at keeping silence in the kitchen. As much as I wanted to not speak I found myself doing it more and more frequently. I continued to work with the exercise of not speaking in the kitchen watching the continued inability to be silent. As I struggled to keep quiet I realized I have a very strong pull to be social – to send off the witty quip, or acerbic response and maybe once in a while a helpful hint. Watching this I saw that not speaking in the kitchen meant giving up the social interaction that helped me keep in place my current idea of myself and my place in the universe.

I made efforts to overcome the automatic response to be social and not speak in the kitchen. I was not having positive results.

I finally spoke to the group about my difficulty. At the moment I don't have the ability to easily choose being silent. I can keep myself from initiating speech, but when I am spoken to I don't seem able to keep silent. Social conditioning. So, we have agreed that I will not only be silent but others will not speak to me when they are in the kitchen. Now to see what transpires from this change.

Wax On Wax Off

When I decided to stop talking in the kitchen I had some thoughts on what benefits I would get from doing it. I was certain that I would enjoy a quieter kitchen. After all since I don't talk back most folks don't talk to me. Makes for a very nice environment. 

I did not expect the other benefits that have come my way. It reminds me of the movie The Karate Kid, an old movie in which a young man is trained in the art of karate by a rather curmudgeonly fellow who insisted that he wax his collection of cars before he would ever teach him karate. Of course the kid was very impatient but when it came time to start the karate he discovered that waxing the cars had taught him a lot about the moves of karate. That's what my experience of not talking in the kitchen has been like.

My need to "chatter" away about whatever pops into my head has gone way down. I have discovered that most, if not all, "chatter" is the need to be social or the need to relieve some type of discomfort. Spending several hours a week in the kitchen while not talking has allowed me to adjust to the discomfort of not speaking. That discomfort doesn't go away but I now recognize it for what it is and do not let the discomfort push me into unnecessary speech. There's a lot more energy available to me now that I don't use it in unnecessary talk. My internal dialogue has slowed down allowing me to focus on what's happening in the moment. 

So, like the wax on wax off method in Karate Kid not talking in the kitchen has given me skills that I can use in other areas of my life.

What, Oh What, Can I Do?

I just recently celebrated my birthday. Following the pattern of the last several years the day was proceeded by several weeks of anxiety. The underlying feeling / thought is “What have I gotten myself into.” Probably not articulated quite like that in the womb but none the less that's how it feels these days. I use this time to look at what my life is and has been up to this point. This year had a different dimension to it because it was my sixty year celebration. And having gone through pre-birthday angst for several years I was getting a little impatient with myself. Okay, I say to myself, this is the same stuff you think every year at about this time. That being what can I do to make my life – my spiritual life – deeper, fuller more meaningful – more a part of my everyday and not something I keep thinking is going to come to me in some magical way. What, oh what can I do? Truth be told there is that little feeling in the back of my mind that knows what needs to be done. Whatever it is is something that requires work and not just wishing. Always before I have set up practices for myself that within a few weeks, at best, fall by the wayside and I didn't want that to be the same this year. Also, in years past, whatever I set up for myself didn't require the knowledge of anyone else and even if I told someone they usually could not know if I was carrying out my practice. They were always things like meditating each day, painting, doing an LRS reading, working with the Beacon  inductions or other such things. Always done in the privacy of my own home. So, this year I decided to make it public. So far it has proven to be a good plan.

Not talking in the kitchen has already begun to effect the rest of my life. I find that I am less likely to blurt whatever is in my head to the nearest person. I consider whether the thing needs to be said at all or if I'm just saying something to fill up the silence. Most of the time I find the words can stay where they are – in my head. Seems that really there isn't that much that needs saying. A sigh of relief from the burden of social interaction can be heard coming from some part of myself. More space is available and a calm foundation reside within.

Fasting From Words

Day one of the silent cook went well. I must say that I was nervous making my 60th birthday vow known to all I live with. It's a household of nine other folks almost all women and though we've spoken about not speaking in the kitchen following the information given on psychic-cook's blog of June 10 titled What The Heck Is A Psychic Cook, Anyway? http://psychic-cook.blogspot.com/ I wasn't really sure how my vow would be received.
Certainly not speaking did cause me to consider what I was about to blurt out and would have done in earlier days.
The other thing I noted was that after coming out of the kitchen I was more conservative with my speech. Still feeling that I should not be speaking or should be sure that the speech was related to what I was doing and not just social, idle chatter.