Less is More.

I was having dinner with a friend last week, and they were workshopping a new set of recipes. Since they work as a hot line cook at a Michelin Star restaurant, these recipes were not for the restaurant but just for inspiration. They asked me for my honest feedback while eating the meal so they could get a better understanding of the dining experience. As we ate, we discussed flavors, notes, and the mouthfeel of the meal. There was a lot going on.

My friend went on to explain the importance of getting feedback on the meal because this allows them to refine it and make it better. I have learned that it is a common occurrence for chefs creating a recipe to put all their ideas into the first attempt and then continue to tweak and modify it until it is just right.

I originally thought that I had to deal with my grief in the same way. I needed to learn to manage my emotions, control my monkey mind, eat healthy foods, move my body, get good quality sleep, and create a vision for my future self all at the same time. That was totally overwhelming.

I realized that less is more.

I started taking one thing at a time and changing that one thing until it became a habit. Then, I would add another thing I wanted to shift and layer it in. Rather than adding all the ingredients and then taking out the ones that did not fit together and adding ones that did, I started from the base and worked my way up. If I found out that two things did not go together, I would make a shift.

Here is an example. Since the beginning of my self-discovery journey, so many people have told me that I need to journal. Journal before bed, journal when you wake up, journal when you have a challenge, journal when you have a celebration. Journal, journal, journal. I did jump into a journaling practice and was wondering when I was going to have that cathartic revelation everyone promised. I began to realize that journaling was not going to be a saving grace for me (my wife, on the other hand, gets tremendous value from it). I switched from journaling to visualization (imagining my outcomes before they show up). This practice of going into the future in the theater of my mind was the missing ingredient.

My blood curdles when I hear "Grief takes time." That is only partially true. It depends on how the time is used. Use your time to build up your recipe, finding which ingredients pair well with each other, and create your masterpiece.