Cooking With Rita

Why is it that when I cut celery into tiny parts, my hands start to shake? Honestly more than a half hour in the kitchen breaks me into a smelly sweat. I want to lash out at the innocent zucchini. I want to burn the payaya. I want to never eat again.

I have avoided learning to cook for thirty years. I have been a happy take out queen. Having meals prepared for me where I don’t have to know what work went into them. But I wasn’t nourished by these meals. I was fed, but not nourished.

What is it about the kitchen that puts me into such a shaking rage? Will I be able to overcome it? Will I heal from the fear? What really went on in the kitchen anyway?

My mother painstakingly prepared steaks and broccoli and potatoes for four kids and a distant husband, everyday, three meals a day for at least 24 years. We never gave her an award. We never helped with dishes.

Why should I be surprised that my mother became depressed over the broccoli? She was quite alone. Nobody to help her. No one to cheer her on. I mean, I tried, but I guess my believability, as an authority figure was low at five years old.

I tried to convince my mom to be happy. It was a fairly simple argument. I didn’t really have a reason. It just seemed like a better idea than being depressed and wanting to die.

I guess I didn’t really understand her desire to die until I was much older. I didn’t feel that misery that invades every pore. I didn’t have those dark voices whispering horrible things to me. You’re worthless. End it all. There’s no reason for you to be alive.

Now, I would recognize this pain…it means you are off your path. That’s right. Spiritual or not, every person has a path that is for their highest good and usually feels incredible. The happiness path. Where you are fulfilling your life purpose, where you feel the joys of interconnection, where there is so much to look forward to and experience each day.

I would have told my mom she needed to make serious changes in her life. But at five, I simply said, “Be happy. You don’t want to die.” Now, I could recommend meditation, retreats, spa visits, poetry, and self-acknowledgement.

But then, all I could do was go to bed crying and hope that tomorrow wasn’t the day she ended the pain.

I feel the fear as I cut the zucchini and the rage, as I taste the vinaigrette dressing. I want to leave the room. I want to throw out the food or at least let it rot until it grows new limbs and colors. Until it stands up on it’s own and reenacts my fear of losing my mother.

Yet I stay and let Rita guide me through how much salt to add, how to cut the celery. I am so grateful to have a fearless, loving person mixing and boiling and broiling and sataying in my kitchen. I am afraid she will leave me. That I will mess up and she will refuse to teach me. I try to be good, stay positive. Be grateful. But I am quaking.

I know this is the last step. This is the letting go. I’ve worked on this issue a million times. Meditated and therapized. But here is the real work. I need to be in the place, feel the fear and let it pass through me. I need to let my hands shake while washing the zucchini. And I need to cry after Rita is gone. The final step to overcoming a life long fear. Going back to the place it started.

Please don’t leave me mommy. Please don’t die while the potatoes are cooking. Please don’t tell me again how horrible life is. I might start to believe you.

Once again I am crying, but this time I am not alone. I have my ancestors with me. I have my angels supporting me. I have my animal guide protecting me. I have God cheering me on, to release and let go. I am filled, surrounded and protected with the white light of spirit. I am safe. And I am loved.

Red Meat is My Mother

Recently, I gave up eating red meat. It was after three hours of watching my delicious beef bowl reverse direction from my stomach to my mouth and into the porcelain bowl that my inner knowing kicked in and said, “You can’t do this to yourself anymore. Your body is rejecting meat.”

At first I was okay without it…I found substitutes…who knew there were so many kinds of beans? Lentils are a bean. Cannellinis are a bean. Avocados are great protein. Tofu just tastes like cardboard. (Yes, I tried grilling it.)

I was adjusting, but I would drive by the places I frequented and imagine the beautiful, juicy cuts of sirloin I used to enjoy. I started tearing up just thinking about red meat. That’s right. I was crying. Over flank steaks.

This was me, nostalgically reminiscing: “Oh, that dear filet I used to eat at Cafe Beaujolais.” Or “Oh, I’ll never forget that beef teriyaki lunch special.” It wasn’t until I actually wept that I made the connection… that longing feels so familiar. That feeling of emptiness and desire. That feeling of starvation. I get it.

My desire for meat is a desire for love. And more than just any love…it was a desire for my mother’s love. The same deep yearning. The same desperation if I didn’t get it. The same tears of frustrated disappointment. I wanted red meat to hold me and softly sing me a lullyby. Maybe, “The cow flew over the moon…”

Eating red meat everyday made me feel loved. Made me feel safe. Without it, I was vulnerable and alone. Yearning. Empty. Motherless. Craving…

I thought I had healed my parental abandonment issues through two rigorous years attaining my Master’s Degree in Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica. Though I am sure I made headway, it wasn’t until I gave up my addiction to meat (my true heart ‘s desire) that I could feel the deeper emptiness that remained to be cleared. (I gave up my addiction to men the year before.)

Then I realized: that is all addiction is: the need for love.

(Sorry, if that is obvious, but it was a revelation to me.)

The good news is… there’s no need to be ashamed of your addiction! If it is simply a mother/father substitute, you can admit it…whatever it is…porn, “e”, drinking, men, women, being depressed, being skinny, crack, the Simpsons.

We are drawn to addictions to comfort us, to give us love when it wasn’t available or safe to get it from mom or pop. But probably like that relationship, the addiction hurts us as much as it comforts us. My addiction was causing my cholesterol to sky rocket and was making my body toxic (from eating a steady diet of low alkaline food.) The toxicity was causing migraines and vomiting. Bad mommy!

So I had to give it up!

We have to let go of our addiction in order to feel the feelings underlying them. (Wow, I’m really jonesing for a cookie right now – I must be onto something.)
If I don’t feel the emptiness, I can’t clear it. If I don’t clear it I will never be able to feel the true love that resides inside me and can only be felt when the pain is lifted.

And how do I lift that pain you may ask? First, I bring awareness to it. Then I let myself feel the feelings. Then I ask spirit to clear the negative feelings from my body and finally, I clear the misunderstandings through self forgiveness.

I forgive myself for the misunderstanding that I was abandoned by my mother. I forgive myself for the misbelief that I am alone and empty. I forgive myself for judging my mother as not being there for me. I forgive myself for the misunderstanding that no one loves me, that no one will comfort me or hold me. I cry any tears that these forgivenesses bring up. Then I allow myself to reconnect to mother energy.

I do this by my imagining my inner child being held by the soul of my mother beyond the field of our human judgments and woundedness. Our souls are divine and perfect. Our souls are all loving. I let her soul comfort my soul picturing an image of her soul translucent and glowing, lovingly hugging my tiny shimmering inner child. In a field of light. Or clover. Or well-lit clover.

And I am satiated. I am full. I am complete and whole. I am loved. I am reconnected to mother energy.

So, don’t be ashamed! Don’t hide your addiction in cowering fear! Just recognize it for what it is. Let it out into the open. Take responsibility for it, but not blame! Bring some compassion to yourself for needing more love and thinking that addiction was the only way you could get it.

Then quit. Quit so you can feel the truth of what you need. Quit so you can feeling your feelings and clear them. Quit so that you can get the deep, lasting love that you deserve. Or at least uplevel your addiction to something that might not kill you so quickly. Yes, I am claiming Simpsons are better for you than smoking. And an addiction to porn is probably more fun than an addiction to being depressed. Do the best you can.

As for me, I fall asleep in the warm embrace of my mother’s soul contemplating how I will give up my sugar daddy…