Sunday with Pam
For the past (almost year) I’ve been trying to keep my life vibrant and engaged without the obvious change of scenery – thank goodness for Zoom!
I’ve been on Zoom cocktail hours, bookclubs, lectures on a myriad of topics and my latest and probably favorite activity has been batch cooking with my friend Pam Gross, Founder of The Bread & Buddha Kitchen.
As a certified holistic health coach and certified yoga instructor, Pam created The Bread & Buddha Kitchen to make healthy living easier. Through her online cooking classes combined with her insight on wellness, she has reminded me to fill up my fridge and heart with foods that nourish both my body and soul. And, as it turns out cooking on Zoom actually works!
Spending an afternoon laughing, learning and chopping with a terrific group of women has hit just the right mark during these cold winter days plus I have the added benefit of delicious food for the next 5 days!
Her latest post was such a delight that I wanted to share it with all of you – enjoy!
Pam’s Story
I stumbled across this quote during the first leg of sheltering – 10 wild months ago…
“Cleaning with kids in the house is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.”
It cracked me up. With two full-grown boys, my husband, two dogs and myself, cleaning my house felt like a losing battle. But I tried.
With my life turned upside down, I inadvertently did the same to my house. In April, after losing my food service business due to Covid, I had to move all my commercial kitchen supplies into my basement, which required me to move other boxes to storage, but only after I moved storage spaces.
I shredded files, swept the garage, donated bags and bags, and picked weeds out of my patio. I vacuumed crumbs from drawers, degreased my oven filters, and drove my styrofoam and old receivers to Abt Electronics to recycle. I also literally took apart my refrigerator, scoured it and put it back together. When I fully dismantled my stove down to the gas tubes, my son finally asked, “What are you going to do when there’s nothing left to clean?” “Oh, there’s always something to clean,” I assured him – and myself.
Eventually, I made my way through the big jobs and found a rhythm with this new everyday mess. Anyway, despite all of that, my file cabinet got stuffed again, my storage closet filled back up, my garage re-cluttered with new things I moved out. My Container Store dream of a home just doesn’t exist. And I don’t want that house anyway.
Like your brick-and-mortar house, the real house you live in – your body – holds stuff. They say the hips are the junk drawer of our body – things you didn’t even know you had settle there. Junk in the trunk. Pain in the back body is symbolic of stuff we push to the back of our drawers – if you can’t see it, it’s not there, right? We humans like to stuff stuff back. Your shoulders and arms represent love – they are the extension of your heart. A little hug, a little love. Hamstrings hold fear – tight hamstrings prevent us from fully bowing into faith. Letting go can be uncomfortable.
When you set out to clean up YOUR house, you might go for the overhaul. People may offer you this ideal, and wanting that, you sign up. Rip out everything that isn’t serving you – but put it where? You might clean up one room, drop that stuff in another, only to find it months later shoved under a bed. You get the point. You can’t strip your house clean while you’re living in it. I’m not able to move out of MY house, so this mess is mine. Learning to flow from room to room, cleaning up what I can, is the practice. Overhauls only last for a little while. Things move out, things move in. My house is lived in. Eventually, we just need to learn how to manage the mess.
Author’s note…
Pam’s next cleanse starts this Sunday and it’s not too late to sign up!
Find Pam’s February cleanse right here.
Description of the 5-Day Cleanse: Go deep inside to get to the heart of true health in Pam’s 5-Day Deep Cleanse. Learn how to tap into your instincts for whole-life wellness and how to apply this to everyday life through batch cooking, gentle movement, subtle shifts in thinking and an unbreakable connection to self.
Discount: $10 off the 2/7 5-Day Deep Cleanse, code ZENLOVE
Zen Moment
Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.
— Craig Claiborne
