Living a Yeasty Life

Saying Yes

We can say yes to the whole life we are living. Yes to our friendships, to our parenting, to our physical appearance, to our personality, to our work, to our spiritual path.

Tara Brach, Ph.D. (Radical Acceptance)

Tara Brach tells the story of Zen teacher Ed Brown, founder the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco. He had grown up eating Pillsbury biscuits, and had tried numerous recipes in his attempts to reproduce them from scratch. But no matter what he tried, what ingredients or variations, he could not produce biscuits that replicated that perfect roundness and rise, that taste he remembered. After much frustration, he finally had a moment of clarity: He had been so focused on trying to make Pillsbury canned biscuits, he hadn't truly tasted his own except to deem them “not right.” When he actually tasted his own creation, he realized that, “They were wheaty, flaky, buttery, 'sunny, earthy, real' (Rilke). They were incomparably alive, present, vibrant—in fact much more satisfying than any memory.” (Brown)

Sometimes, we are so focused on what is “not right” in our lives that we miss entirely what is right. We feel that life is insufficient simply because we compare it to something deemed “perfect.” What we miss in that scenario is our true life, with all its messy, dirty, earthy, yeasty realness. Its ups and downs, its highs and lows, its imperfections are exactly what makes it precious and both unique and common. Saying yes to the life you have is a major step in radical acceptance. It brings contentment. Breaking the habits of a lifetime take time and patience. We don't change our focus on perfection over night. But step-by-step, one day at a time, we can say an unconditional yes to our own life, and then step into it with our whole being.

                                                         In the Spirit,

                                                              Jane