YogaCookingMeditation

This blog idea has been floating around in my head for almost a year now and I have finally found the confidence to publish it. The following is something I was inspired to write one day after making bread. It pretty much sums up the theme of the blog. Let me know what you think. :)
Inhale. Exhale. Kneed the dough. Inhale. Exhale. Detach from the end result. Inhale. Enjoy the process. Exhale. Give love. While kneading dough I got to thinking. I got to breathing. I got connected. Making dough may not be on everyone’s to do list in the kitchen, but I recommend it. We can spend a lot of money in the grocery store for prepared foods. From carrots that are already cut into sticks, premade bread, cookies, crackers, peanut butter, dinners, sandwiches, coffee and smoothies. We are charged a lot of money for these conveniences. But when it comes down to it, to make these things your self doesn’t take all that much time. And you save a ton of money! Do we really not have enough time? Or can we not find the time? I know “people are busy” but what I propose is to slow things down. First, we need to define what we are doing with our time. Where would we rather be besides be in the kitchen? I’m sure there are a lot of places. I know not every one shares my passion for cooking, however I think with the right ingredients, and most importantly, the right mindset we can transform that.
After you have named all of the places you rather be and the other things you’d like to be doing, let that go. Let it go. Seriously, you’ve got to cook dinner, right? Take a deep breath and just as we do at the start of a yoga practice, set an intention or something to guide your thoughts and focus on, to put your energy toward: however you want to think of it. For me, it is putting my love into action. The love I feel for my family, my friends, neighbors, whomever I am cooking for, the food that will be presented will nourish them from a place of love. For me, the entire act of cooking is love.
After that, we still maybe wish to be other places. Feeling our “time is too precious” to be stuck doing anything “time consuming” while “time is flying by” and time has taken over our thoughts. But, guess what. Time in the kitchen is still “your time”. You are still YOU even though you’re cooking. You are still here, focused on a task, that you need to eat and nourish you body. So really, in fact it is very much your time, very much something you have to do. It does take practice, and just like yoga, should be practiced every day, letting go of attachment to possession of time, helps. It comes in handy while washing the dishes, too. 
The final suggestion is to get connected to your food. Knowing that the bread you're eating is made of yeast, and water, and molasses and flour because you mixed and kneaded the ingredients, watched the dough rise and enjoyed the smell that filled the air when it was baking is an amazing feeling of accomplishment, love and flavor.
Yoga and food feed our bodies, in different ways but to the same end. In yoga we are feeding our bodies with warm oxygenated breath. Awakening tissues layers below our everyday consciousness, and in doing so our bodies feel alive, energetic, open, spacious and centered. The food we eat literally becomes the building blocks of our bodies. We are made of protein, the fats we eat cover nerves to allow synapses to fire regularly, fibers keep our digestive tract clean. Both yoga and cooking are ways of showing ourselves immense love so that in turn we can express love to all beings.