[listen]
"Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever " -Henry Rollins
[read, with tough love]
There's an old phrase that goes something like this: To get different results, we must ask different questions. This is not going to be a comfortable read, but it's incredibly important.
In an industry saturated with talented badasses, I often find myself wondering:
why do we hate ourselves?
Fuck tiptoeing. Let's jump right in.
We all know smoking is terrible for you. We all know that it's slowly poisoning our bodies and impacting our ability to truly taste properly. We all know it makes our teeth look gross and it causes wrinkles. We all know it's shortening our life expectancy and giving us cancer. We all know it makes our hair and our clothes smell. It's also linked to problems in the bedroom.
Why is no one asking why so many of us are trying to kill ourselves?
We all know that alcohol dulls our senses. We all know that it poisons our organs and wrecks our bodies. We all know it's a total waste of money and that it bloats your face and gives you horrible body odor. We know that it hypnotizes us and slowly turns us into someone we don't even recognize. We know that it intensifies feelings of anger and harms more relationships than it helps.
Why are we ok with that option as our character?
We all know that sugar rots our teeth and causes diabetes - along with a metric fuckton of other issues. We know there's a link to Alzheimer's and that too much of it will kill you. We know it makes us fat and depressed and unmotivated. We know sugar and simple carbs make our skin look like shit.
Why are we trying to make ourselves as unattractive as possible?
We all know we spend every waking hour of our lives thinking about and perfecting our craft. We are walking encyclopedias of random food knowledge. Yet somehow, we can't seem to band together and demand that our pay matches our experience. Most of us suck at money and blow it when we shouldn't.
Do we not trust ourselves to hold on to it?
We all know that we need to eat lighter and more natural foods for optimum body functioning. We know that our diet and our nutrition affects our overall health. We know that intentionally exercising several times a week is proven to boost mood and overall enjoyment of life.
Why do we resist this beneficial change so much?!
Do you not feel that you deserve to have a real chance to experience health, wealth, or success? Do you feel like you need to accomplish certain milestones before you are allowed to be happy or fall in love?
(What are your conditions? Most of us have several.)
Why do we give our power away to vice?
Why do we wreck our bodies and give our time away for minimum wage?
Are we hiding something from ourselves? What are we trying to bury?
What are we trying to pretend didn't happen?
Why do we feel the compulsive need to punish ourselves?
What happened in our past that we haven't allowed ourselves to re-visit?
What are you afraid of?
Is the existence of a (possibly traumatic) memory causing a deep sense of internalized shame or embarrassment?
Why is no one asking you why you've been trying to slowly kill yourself?
Have you ever asked yourself why you're engaging with the vices that you do?
Have you ever asked yourself what hole they are filling in your life?
Ask yourself if your punishment fits your crime.
How much longer is your sentence?
How long until you're allowed to feel happy?
Behind the vice
Cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, casual sex, sugar/highly processed foods, and other "vices" are nothing more than dopamine bandages masking a fragile sense of self. They pacify our ego and help us ignore the real problems. In turn, the real problems start to compound over time. Each time we engage in a vice, we are denying ourselves truth and understanding. This is a tough pill to swallow. I've been there.
Every habit is driven by a 3-part loop — trigger (the stimulus), routine (the behaviour), and reward (the benefit of the behaviour).
What are you looking for when you smoke? What do you get out of it? Is it a deep calming breath? Is it 5 meditative minutes to yourself? Is it an excuse to leave a social situation? Is it a feeling of control? Is it the feeling of distraction when life gets stressful?
What does drinking actually do for you? Does it distract you from your thoughts? Does it loosen the grip on your inhibitions? Does it give you both the permission to be yourself... AND the get-out-of-jail-free excuse to brush your true self off as "just a drunken moment" in case your true self isn't readily accepted by those around you? Why are you not comfortable being YOU without assistance? Where did the belief that you're not enough as you are originate?
Have the courage to dig deep. Keep asking yourself questions. The answers will surprise you.
"When I'm fucked up, that's the real me" -"The Hills" - The Weeknd
(give the lyrics a listen, even if it's not your usual style)
Proper preparation prevents poor performance.
Imagine it's Friday afternoon. You have 200 on the books and your produce order shows up late. Instead of taking everything out, breaking down the boxes, and organizing your walk-in, you just toss the boxes on the floor and say "I'll do that later." What happens during service? It's fucking chaos. You can't find anything, you're tripping over boxes, everything's a mess, and it takes 10 times longer to do a simple task than it would have if you had just taken 10 minutes to hustle and DO the work when the order- the problem - showed up. You end up fucking yourself over. Ignoring one problem creates 10 more. We know this in the kitchen. We embrace this in the kitchen.
Our brains are like this, too. When we mask our problems with vices, we create new problems. Eventually, we have so many new problems to deal with that we forget what the original problem was in the first place. We confuse and disorient ourselves.
Clean out your walk-in, Chef. Find the rotting produce tucked in the back corner of your mind and take it to the trash. Start creating a mental P&L sheet. What hurts you? What helps you? How do you maximize your inventory? What do you actually need to order? You are the chef here. In most other languages, chef means boss or chief. You are the chef of your own mental kitchen. You are in charge. Do not let your ego - your pestilent little shit of a sous chef - try to convince you otherwise. Take control of your kitchen. Take responsibility for your life.
Why bother masking your true self?
The carefully curated, chemically altered, socially "acceptable" safe version of yourself that you're most likely currently projecting robs you of the chance to find people who truly get you. It dooms you to a mediocre life surrounded by people and activities that make you feel empty inside. After all, if you never let anyone know the real you, no one can ever truly reject you - they can only reject your persona. Weird logic, isn't it?
Are you safe? Or are you real?
We all long for deep connection - but, as tacky as it is, we cannot ever truly connect with another until we learn to go within and connect with ourselves. We are all a bunch of closet weirdos dying to escape and find our tribe. The kitchen offers a bit of solace, but only because we are all suffering from the same anxieties - we don't often end up finding people who we truly feel safe enough to fully open up around. We are inmates in the same prison cell, working through the same life sentence. We expect to be made fun of when we share the real parts of ourselves, so we put on a mask as a protective measure. Humiliation and shame are, after all, a cornerstone of restaurant culture.
When people respond with a lame cliche like "go cry in the walk-in" or "fuck your feelings," what they're really saying is "I don't know how to deal with my own emotions, so I'm going to shame you for daring to express your own because it makes me uncomfortable. I blame others for my emotional state. I don't want to be burdened with actually having to see you as a person, because then I would be hit with the crushing reality of the fact that I have no idea who the fuck I am as a person. Don't make me feel inferior. I am not mentally strong enough to handle this, so I'm going to shame you until you stop talking."
Ew. That's not a good look. We can do better.
In the working class, especially in the US, most people don't grow up knowing how to form emotional connections. It's seen as an unnecessary life skill when you're struggling to meet your basic needs for survival. Showing feelings - especially kindness, gratitude, and god forbid empathy - is uncommon in most families, and once we reach adulthood we internalize this and it often turns into the false belief that "feelings" and "emotions" make you weak. Ironically, a lack of feelings and emotions is actually what makes you weak. If you don't understand your own feelings and emotions, how are you supposed to understand anyone else's? If you find yourself in one toxic relationship or job after another, here is a slice of humble pie: YOU are the common denominator. Something in YOU continually resonates with this type of treatment. Make it your mission in life to discover why.
The Call to Adventure
On the surface, "misfit" and "oddball" seem like unique, desirable traits - conformity [following the herd] is, after all, without a doubt the least interesting thing that we could choose to do as a person. Desiring to find our own identity is an extremely noble virtue. As writer Joseph Campbell describes, it is "The Hero's Journey"; philosopher and professor Jordan Peterson imagines it as "The Call to Adventure."
The problem is, most people don't even have a clue about how to even begin to start that adventure - let alone where. The way I see it, it is an invitation to get to know the parts of ourself that we've suppressed over the years in order to get people to like and accept us. Biologically, we are hard-wired to seek out acceptance - in the early days of humanity, being exiled from the tribe was a literal death sentence. We need connection in our lives - so we become the person that we think someone else needs in order to satisfy our own inner craving for acceptance, effectively denying our own needs in the process. And we wonder why so many of us feel like no one understands us.
This made sense in the time of wandering tribes - our access to other humans was extremely limited, and we had to make due with the people we found in our immediate areas. It doesn't make sense any more, though - we are more connected than ever before, and it's much easier to find a new "tribe" if you don't vibe with the social group you were born into. We have the choice and the ability to leave and seek out people who truly like us for who we actually are. We have evolved past the need to deny ourselves in order to get our needs met.
The call to adventure usually happens when life gets REALLY shitty - rock bottom levels of despair. It gently invites you to review events and memories from the past - the key is, view them from your current perspective. See your younger self. Watch what happened objectively, like a movie. Understand why decisions were made, why words were spoken, and where beliefs about life were formed. Pay attention to the things you missed the first time. Discover the catharsis that lies inside radical self acceptance
When you begin to get curious, you begin to learn.
Teach yourself about yourself. Take yourself on self-discovery dates - try as many new things as you can, as often as you can. Gradually work your way further and further outside of your comfort zone until you form personal opinions on things based on lived tangible experience - not heresay. Not regurgitated group think. Not what your parents taught you. Follow through and research the things and ideas that genuinely interest you. Discover and radically embrace the music and the fashion that feels the most authentically you - not just what's trendy or cheap. Understand the reasons why you like the things you do. Find joy in solving the puzzle of you. Understand the freedom that comes with taking responsibility for our own success. Stop doing what everyone else wants and expects you to do. Stop playing into the "chef" stereotypes.
Stop living the victim's story, and begin to embody the archetype of the hero - after all, a hero is simply a victim that decided to stop suffering.
Close your eyes and visualize yourself going inward, powering down, and taking a rest. Dissolve that character. Take off the mask. It may have protected you in the past, but it is no longer serving your best interests.
What kind of person do you want to be? How does that compare with the person you currently are? What excuses are you currently clinging onto? What emotions have you attached to them?
Make yourself uncomfortable. Force yourself to grow. Nothing great ever happens inside your comfort zone.
Think of your life like this: you're the chef, and you get to write your own recipe. Don't use rosemary unless you actually enjoy the taste of rosemary. In order to know if you like the taste of rosemary, you have to actually try it a few times. If you've never tried it, you cannot hate it - aim to understand it, instead of judging it as good or bad.
Turn your life into a quest to discover the things, moments, and people who give you the happiest stories - these are your prime ingredients. Once you figure out what your best dish consists of, making it becomes easy.
When you stock your pantry with high quality ingredients, making a great meal is easy.
When you fill your life with high quality habits, having a great life is easy.
To further illustrate this point, imagine you've been wearing glasses for 10 years. For 8 of them, you've had intermittent migraines - the kind that temporarily paralyze you. You've tried every type of pill out there and have run out of hope. One day, you get a new doctor and he compliments your bifocals. You look up - and the world gets a whole lot sharper. Because the eyes are no longer straining in the wrong direction, the migraines disappear.
Changing your focus changes your perspective.
Changing your perspective changes your life.
We have two different ways of seeing every single thing that happens to us.
If we spend too long looking down, we'll forget that we even have the option to look up.
Dare to be real.
[absorb]
[shift]
If you're hearing the call and want to make a change in your life, scroll up to the top of this article. Get a pen and paper, and honestly answer each question posed in the order listed. See what happens.
We also offer affordable + sliding scale personal coaching if you're feeling stuck in life and would like some help navigating the darkness. Email us for more info at consciouschefs@gmail.com If this article sparked something in you and you'd like to send us a thank you tip, every dollar helps and goes directly towards website maintenance + content creation 🙏🏻
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