Ten Best Life Hacks

Feeling lost and adrift? Out of sorts? Cut off from the things that used to bring you joy? Does it feel like a stranger has taken up residence in your own skin? Here are ten life hacks that will quickly get you back on track toward your own best life.

1.    Get up earlier

Instead of dreading the alarm clock and pushing it as late as you possibly can, try reclaiming the calm, quiet, sacred hours of the early morning. Stop intoning the lie that you are not a “morning person” as if that was even a thing. People are not cast in stone. They can change their patterns. Get up early and watch your happiness, self-esteem, productivity, and sense of calm increase.

2.    Turn ordinary activities into rituals

You’re already doing them every day anyway. You might as well turn them into meditative, conscious, reflective rituals. Grinding coffee with gratitude for the Central American farmers who lovingly tend their trees. Pouring that first cup with the focused intention of a monk in Japanese tea ceremony. Brushing your teeth, shaving, bathing, and dressing with deep appreciation for the magical mystery of the mind-body, and the creativity and ingenuity of those who design and make our clothing. This way, your very life becomes a temple, and everything holy.

3.    Move more

An unused door hinge rusts shut. An unexercised body closes down. You don’t have to do anything crazy. Just walk for an hour. Do yoga. Bicycle or swim. Take the stairs. Rake leaves. Whatever you have access to. For tens of thousands of years human beings walked for miles and miles every day. We were made to move. Not only will your body start functioning and feeling better, but your mind will too.

4.    Meditate

Finally commit to a real meditation routine. Not just a dabble here and there, but a commitment as consistent as eating and sleeping – because it’s damn near just as important. Meditation unlocks the mind-body’s hidden restorative powers. Wellness happens if you let it. And unburden your meditation practice of any silly and overblown expectations. Forget about enlightenment. Let the stillness and glow of meditation be its own reward. The rest happens by itself without your interference.

5.    Eat real food

Food guru Michael Pollan famously reduced all of his books down to one line: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” What he means is, eat real food – food as close to the source as possible. Ditch the margarine. Switch back to butter. Just eat less of it. And when you look down at your plate, it should be 75% plants, 12% protein, and 12% carbs. These aren’t hard numbers, but guidelines. Infuse your shopping, prepping, cooking, eating, and clean up with gratitude and presence. Let the miracle of food become a sacrament. Shifting your eating habits will awaken strength and restore equilibrium throughout your mind-body processes.

6.    Find some new music to fall in love with

Ludwig van Beethoven said that “Music is a higher truth than philosophy,” and he was right. If you’re not mindfully, deliberately, deeply, and consciously listening to music on a regular basis, you are at real risk of soul-starvation. Find new music. Ask around. Look up artists you like on YouTube and let the algorithms lead you to similar artists you’ve never heard. Indulge in satellite radio or commercial free streaming subscriptions. When you find artists you like buy their music so they can afford to keep making it.

7.    Fall in love

You can’t snap your fingers and make love happen. But it’s always hovering nearby waiting to be born. And let’s not limit this to romantic love exclusively. I’m talking about love in its broadest sense – that feeling of deep, liberating, exhilarating, and dizzying interconnection with everything. The way a bird loves the sky, a sailor loves the sea, or a singer loves a song. There’s an unbridled zeal within all of us longing to emerge. Don’t be coy. Get out of the way and let your love find its mark. To love is our deepest calling. Be still enough to hear it.

8.    Work in service, not self-interest

Sure we work to eat. We need money to live. That paycheck really matters. But there are deeper currents in motion. When we work we turn our time, talent, and energy into goods and services that help other people enrich their own lives. When we pull back and see the bigger picture, all work is service – an opportunity for us to participate directly in the healing of the world. When you begin to see your work in this light, everything shifts. Your self-esteem increases, your anxiety about outcomes abate, your depression reduces, and your enjoyment expands because you finally see your work for what it is – not a simple quid pro quo for money, but a tether that connects you to the tapestry of all energy, all matter, and all consciousness. It is through our work that we affirm our oneness. Our work is a ritual that sanctifies our life and the lives of all it touches.

9.    Mari Kondo your condo

Get rid of most of your stuff – you don’t really want it anyway, and mindlessly holding onto it is clogging up your life. Take a few days, empty every closet, hold each item in your hand and ask yourself, “Do I really love this, I mean really love this?” Kondo’s animistic Shinto spirituality asks us to feel the energy of each item. It will “tell” you if it should stay or go. If it vibrantly belongs in your life, keep it. If it doesn’t, say “Thank you” and graciously let it go. Place the items you are keeping back in your closets and drawers one piece at a time. Give the rest away. When you are done, your home will feel free, clear, and full of light. And so will your mind. Read Mari Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up for guidance.

10. Ask for help

Maybe we don’t ask for help because we want to maintain the illusion of invincibility. We don’t want anyone to see how lost we are. I get that. But get over it. Ask for help. Delegate. There are people all around you who know way more than you do about just about everything. And they’re grateful to be useful. (They hunger for self-worth and validation just like you do.) When you ask for help you are giving them a gift – the opportunity to turn their work and their love into service. And you too are brought home to the truth that none of us does any of this alone. It’s a win-win.

            When you adopt these ten life hacks you’ll soon see changes happening within. You’ll see your old problems with new eyes, and feel reinvigorated enough to withstand them. You’ll shift from negativity to gratitude, from scarcity to abundance, and from fear to fullness. But don’t wait. Seeds don’t grow in a jar on the shelf. You have to plant them. Ideas alone don’t shift us, only actions do. Begin now. You do not have forever to begin living the life you were born to live.

The Sacrament of Food

          Maybe the most sacred space in your home is not the yoga room, or the altar with the candle, or the chair by the window where you meditate and pray. Maybe the most sacred room in your house is the kitchen.

          Food is a daily ritual, one that we mostly overlook. Caught in the grip of a modern world moving way too fast, many of us eat on the run, thoughtlessly shoving food into our mouths from fast food bags and microwave trays. The nutritional and environmental costs of these short cuts are well documented. But have we tallied up the spiritual cost?

          Some of us are making changes, trading in the Fast Food Nation for the Slow Food Movement, and voting with our forks for a world that better honors the earth and ourselves. We’ve learned that there are scores of local farms growing organic produce, employing sustainable agricultural practices, and treating animals humanely. And by eating locally produced food, we drastically cut down on the fossil fuel wasted to transport food over great distances.

          What exactly is food anyway, and how can we use it more mindfully?

          Food is energy embodied. Through photosynthesis, a plant turns the light of a nearby star into the cells of its own body. When we eat plants and animals, we are eating stored starlight. Then we use this energy to build the material of our own bodies. We are made of light.

          Food is a sacrament because all food comes from sacrifice. No matter where you are on the vegan to omnivore spectrum, all food is made of formerly living things. Each of us must decide for ourselves where to draw the line, mindful of the fact that all eating kills.

          Many of us are awakening to the moral impact of our food choices. We are no longer just shopping for the cheapest eggs. We want to know about the living conditions of the hens and how much fuel it takes to bring the eggs to market. We are willing to pay a little more for local, free range eggs, knowing that our consumer choices are the most powerful and direct way of affecting the food industry, and thereby, ourselves.

          But no matter what the source of our groceries, now comes the transformation of these raw materials into a ritual meal. When we feed ourselves, our families, our friends and neighbors, we share with each other a mystical communion that connects us to the very energies that animate the cosmos. Ancient people understood this. Even the Eucharist ritual in traditional Christianity echoes this archetypal truth. The energy of the universe is sacred. And when we partake of that energy consciously, mindfully and reverently, we become sacred too.

          One way to honor this process is to get organized. Before you begin cooking, clean your work space, gather your tools and pre-measure your ingredients. The French phrase for this is mise en place, or “putting in place.” If your process is chaotic, your results will be chaotic. All of the functions of our lives, including our spiritual practice, would improve if we took on this simple responsibility.

          Focus on one thing at a time. When you’re mincing shallots, mince shallots. When you’re filleting a salmon, filet a salmon. A divided mind is the enemy of awareness. That’s when you burn the butter, drop a glass or cut your finger. Be fully present in every task. Only then do pathways and solutions appear.

          Keep it simple and let the ingredients speak for themselves. Avoid needless flash and pointless ornamentation. When possible, eat in season, eat fresh, eat local, and let the natural flavors, aromas, textures and colors of your ingredients guide your hand. As in life, enhance what is given instead of imposing arbitrary plans. You don’t have to use every ingredient in your pantry. Less really is more. When in doubt, leave it out.

          Don’t put all your stock in the end result. Make every step of the journey a destination in itself. The process is the outcome. “Sometimes it’s better to travel than to arrive,” wrote Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Sometimes the meal you slaved over all day doesn’t turn out right. But you have most certainly not wasted your time. By fixating only on end results, we miss out on the joy of becoming. Let the path itself be your reward.

          Before you begin, take your emotional temperature. Don’t cook in the consciousness of resentment. Cultivate gratitude. Honor the plants and animals that gave their lives for your table. Respect the fishermen, ranchers and farmers whose tenacity and passion brought you the fruits of the earth from every corner and continent. A sacramental offering is placed before you upon the altar of your kitchen counter. Don’t poison it with self-pity. Preparing food is not a burden – it is a sacred ritual.

          Food is communion that erases all boundaries. When we gather around tables like spokes around a wheel, we draw each other into a sacred hoop that affirms us all in our humanity and deepens our awareness of the sacred nature of every breath, every word and every gesture. A chef is a shaman, a priest and an alchemist who uses fire to transform the base elements into the Elixir of Life. Cooking and eating binds us to ourselves, to each other, and to the sacred source from which all things come.

          Are we eating mindlessly or mindfully, randomly or deliberately, cruelly or compassionately? There is no line that separates our food habits from the rest of our lives. The way we eat is the way we live. How we eat is who we are. Let us affirm that which is best in us and in each other through the sacrament of food.

[An earlier version of this article called "Eat, Drink and Be Mindful" first appeared in the January/February 2013 edition of Unity Magazine, and is reproduced here with permission.  Both of these articles were based on my earlier piece called "Ten Truths From the Kitchen."]

Ten Truths from the Kitchen

I’ve been studying cooking for a few years with Chef Bernard Guillas of the Marine Room in La Jolla, California.  When he isn’t running a group of top-tier restaurants, writing award winning cook books, flying off to New York for a Today Show appearance or Paris for induction into the prestigious Maître Cuisiniers de France (Master Chefs of France), he shares his boundless love of food in bi-weekly cooking classes at the Macy’s Home Store in San Diego.  Each class costs a whopping five dollars, every penny of which goes straight to the San Diego Food Bank and helps feed thousands of families in need.  My wife and I and a few friends have been attending regularly and it has really boosted the quality of our dinner gatherings, to say the least.  But something surprising and unexpected happened along the way.  Whether he intended to or not, while Chef Bernard was teaching us how to cook, he was teaching us how to live.
 

1.  If your process is chaotic, your results are chaotic.  Before you begin cooking, clean and organize your entire work space.  Gather all of the tools you will need.  Assemble and measure your ingredients.  That way, once you begin cooking nothing will interrupt your flow and you’ll be able to feel your way through the process without having to constantly stop and go looking for something.  And clean up as you go.  Your kitchen should start clean, stay clean and end clean.  The French phrase for this is mise en place.  It means “putting in place.”  How much easier would our work lives be, how much smoother would our homes function, and how much richer would our creative output be if we applied this principle to all the processes of our lives?

2.  Do one thing at a time.  When you are mincing shallots, mince shallots.  When you are filleting a salmon, fillet a salmon.  A divided mind is the enemy of awareness.  That’s when you burn the butter, drop a glass or cut your finger.  In every task we must be present and in a state of relaxed focus.  Only then do solutions and pathways appear.

3.  Keep it simple and let the ingredients speak for themselves.  As you create your own recipes or adapt the recipes of others, don’t over-think it.  Never let flash obscure substance.  When possible, eat in season, eat fresh, eat local, and let the natural flavors, scents, textures and colors of your ingredients suggest combinations and techniques that bring out their natural beauty.  And just because you have every ingredient in your pantry doesn’t mean you have to use them all.  Less really is more.  As in life, when in doubt, leave it out.

4.  You eat first with your eyes.  When you plate food, pay special attention to the way things look.  Every meal begins as a visual image, followed by aroma, then flavor.  But it all begins with the eyes.  So too in life, don’t discount appearances – of course inner beauty matters, but so does outer beauty.  Make your homes, offices, gardens, indeed your lives beautiful.  Follow and amplify the natural lines of your raw materials.  Celebrate the splendor of the visual dimension.  Take a tip from nature.  Look sharp.  Let your personal appearance be your primary art form.  Make it easier for others be drawn to the treasures within.

5.  Follow your senses.  We are cerebral creatures.  The name of our species, Homo sapiens, means “man the thinker.”  We are justifiably proud of our intellectual and rational accomplishments.  But we are still animals sensing our way through a world of bewildering sights, sounds, scents and textures.  As you assemble the earth’s bounties into dishes that feed and delight, allow the authority of your senses to speak.  And as you struggle through life’s challenges, let intellect guide your steps, but let your senses show you the path.

6.  Practice.  Cooking requires the mastery of a core set of techniques – knife handling, heat management, traditional prep processes, culturally specific ingredients and the regional methods that accompany them.  There is no short cut to mastery.  Simply begin cooking everything you can.  Then do it again, and again.  Eventually mistakes fall by the wayside, instincts sharpen and results improve.  So too in life, how can we demand mastery in any endeavor without a long and arduous apprenticeship littered with failure?

7.  Let the mystery be.  Food is energy embodied, made from the elemental substance of the earth just as we are.  When we eat, we commune directly with the mystery of existence and with our own deepest nature.  When we break bread together we enact a ritual that grounds us in the fundamental unity of all life beyond the veil of birth and death.  Don’t turn eating into an intellectual puzzle.  Embrace your animal nature.  All eating is killing, and as such, involves loss.  Eat mindfully, compassionately and reverently.  Honor the earth’s gifts.  And honor your heart.  Each of us must draw our own ethical lines and avoid imposing our views dogmatically on others, for in the end it is only a matter of degree between the omnivore and the vegan.  We vote with our forks and with our dollars.  Support growers, ranchers and fishermen who share your values and treat the earth with dignity.  Still, no matter where we draw the line, we all must participate in the sacrifice of life.  Trust your gut, and do what you feel is right.

8.  The process is the outcome.  Don’t put all your stock in the end result.  Make every step of the journey a destination in and of itself.  “Sometimes it’s better to travel than to arrive,” wrote Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and he’s right.  Sometimes the dish you slaved over all day doesn’t turn out right.  But you have most certainly not wasted your time.  There is joy in the stages of becoming that the end result doesn’t know anything about.  Let the path itself be your reward.

9.  Cultivate gratitude.  After your mise en place is complete and you’re ready to begin, check in with yourself.  Don’t touch anything until you have a grateful heart.  Respect the plants and animals who gave their lives for your table.  Work with them consciously and compassionately.  Respect the fishermen and farmers who dedicate their lives to bringing you the fruits of the earth from every corner and continent.  Feel their passion and their commitment to excellence.  A sacramental offering is placed before you on the altar of your kitchen counter.  Don’t poison it with resentment or self-pity.  Preparing food is not a burden – it is a sacred ritual.  Really see.  You are surrounded by miracles.  Let gratitude fill your heart and guide your hand.

10.  Let your work be play.  Cooking shouldn’t be a chore, it should be fun.  If you cannot cook with love and an open-hearted sense of wonder, step away from the stove.  Slap yourself in the face and get it together.  Your mom was wrong.  You should play with your food.  Get your friends involved.  Lead your kids into their own life-long love affair with food by your example.  Explore the myriad wonders of the earth together.  Food is communion that erases all boundaries.  A chef is a shaman, a priest, and an alchemist who uses fire to turn the base elements into the Elixir of Life.  Cooking and eating binds us to ourselves, to each other, and to the sacred source from which all things come.  Learning how to work with food teaches us how to work better with the whole world.  Who knew all of that could begin in the kitchen?