How to cut broccoli

Now, this is rather a strange topic and one I hadn't expected to be writing about. Perhaps how to spell broccoli would be more likely, as I keep using a double L but it would be quite a short post! Anyway, it turns out that broccoli is a rather good teacher.

Imagine all this time I have been cutting broccoli and I never realised it could be done so cleanly! I wasn't much of a fan of broccoli due to all the tiny green flower bits that seemed to go everywhere or the taste for that matter. I became slightly keener when my friend Sonia told me her favourite dish was broccoli fried with garlic chilli and soy sauce (and it is delicious). 

Anyway, earlier this year I discovered a way to cut broccoli without all the mess that happens when you want to halve a floret. (I'm slightly concerned at this point that everyone else already knew this, but hey never mind!) It's very simple really - you take your knife and from the stalk end start cutting, but before you get to the teeny flowers you stop and then gently peel your two halves of the stalk apart and the flowers part and decide for themselves which side they want to stay on. You give them a choice. And the collateral damage is very low, frequently none at all. I was quite excited about this and for a while broccoli featured in a lot more of my dishes for the joy of cutting it! Haha! 

Instead of forcing, you make the decision - make the cut - and then you allow things to unfold in the way that it naturally happens - pull gently apart. You don't attach to the final result and force it to be a particular way. I think this is a lesson that can be put to use in so many situations.

Photo with gratitude to ImageParty at Pixabay

What happens when you give up trying to force things to be exactly the way you want? What happens when you let go of controlling a little, or a lot? How does that feel in the body? Maybe you can feel a sense of relief and ease in the body? Or maybe you feel resistance to the idea - after all, you may have spent a lifetime battling with life and with others trying to force them to be who you want them to be. Or perhaps you have spent a lifetime forcing yourself to be different to how you are? Has it worked? How does it feel when you do this? Maybe it's time to try the broccoli approach? 

Set your intention, make your decision, and when you hit resistance, pause and take a breath, or two or three (sometimes it's worth sleeping on it!) and then keep going, if it's important to you, but change your method to a gentler one that gives some choice and accept the outcome. Breathe some softness into the body and let go of some of the resistance you feel. Perhaps ask - what does the other person or people want or need? Or what am I not seeing here? Or what's most important to me right now? Or what does life want from me? Find a question that helps you. It is so easy to get tunnel vision with life and be so focused on what we want and perhaps are not getting, that we miss the ideas and opportunities and joy that can be waving at us, just waiting for us to see them. 

And after all - why should it always go your way? How extraordinary if it did! And who knows, maybe the way it is going is your way - you just don't realise that yet!

Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.

~ Dan Millman

Of course, it's not always so easy, these things take some practice. And an excellent way to practice is during meditation. And meditation doesn't have to be long - you can sit for just 5 minutes if you like! For example, you decide to meditate - set an intention to bring the mind out of auto-pilot into a state of awareness of the breath or the body. And then you allow the meditation to unfold however it does. You don't need to fight or resist thoughts or sounds or other sensations and experiences that draw the attention. They can be included in the experience of meditation. And the mind then gently brought back to the focus of the breath/body again and again. Or you can decide to focus on the other experiences of being alive. Observe. Experience is how it is. Quit fighting it! Let go a little and just be curious. And remember to breathe!

“Simply let experience take place very
freely, so that your open heart is suffused with the tenderness of true compassion.”  

~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche