Magic Kitchen

One of my favourite stories is of the Magical Kitchen in Don Miguel Ruiz's Mastery of Love. He asks us to imagine a magical kitchen in our homes where we can have any food from any part of the world in any quantity any time we want. We just wish it and it appears at our tables.

We are generous with our magical kitchen and share and feast with whoever comes to our door. Because this magical kitchen is so amazing, why wouldn't we want to share it?! We share because it's a pleasure to do so and we do it without expecting anything in return.

One day this person shows up at your front door with a pizza. He says he'll give you his pizza as long as you do whatever he wants you to do. He'll keep bringing you pizza every single day as long as you are good to him. You're likely going to laugh at his outrageous request.

Why on earth would you accept this offer when you have this magical kitchen? In fact, you'll invite him in to join in the pleasure of all that your magical kitchen has to offer. But you're certainly not going to be manipulated by his pizza.

Now let's step back and reverse this situation. No more magic kitchen. Several weeks have went by and you have not eaten a thing. You're starving. The same person shows up at your door with a pizza. He'll give you the pizza as long as you do what he wants. You decide to accept and do whatever the person asks of you. And once you have some, he lets you know that if you want more, you can have more, as long as you keep doing what he wants you to do.

Here you are with food today, but you don't know if you'll have food tomorrow so you keep doing whatever you need to do in order to have food. You become a slave to this person and his or her pizza.

You get into this space where you feel like what will you do if you don't get the pizza. You drive yourself crazy thinking about what might happen if this person decides to give YOUR pizza to someone else. So, you keep doing exactly what that person expects of you in hopes that your food supply never dries up.

So, what does this magic kitchen and the pizza have to do with mastery of love? EVERYTHING! Our hearts, our love, is the magic kitchen. Yet so very often, our relationship with love is one of starvation and need. We're not even aware that inside of us, we all possess a magic kitchen of love. We never need to settle for someone's shitty pizza. A pizza we can only acquire through manipulation and control.

We can easily fall into this trap of feeling so starved for love, that we'll do anything to get it. We'll let other people tell us what to do and how to be so they will keep loving us because we don't recognize our own self-worth and the immense amount of love that lives inside of us. Love should NEVER be conditional.

Our work is to open our hearts, recognize our magical kitchens of love, and love ourselves so madly that we will never accept love with conditions. You can open your heart and share your love freely without fear of being hurt. Because you are worthy of love, you are MORE than good enough, and someone else's rejection doesn't define your self-worth.

Love, acceptance, value, worth — these are all things that come from within us. No one can give those things to you. You don't want to be clinging to someone because your life has no meaning without them. That is not a healthy relationship with self. And you certainly want to be with the person who "wants" to be with you, not "has" to be with you.

When your heart is open and you love yourself, you no longer seek out love because you are afraid to be alone. Love becomes a choice. You can accept the unconditional love that you want and have no problem walking away from the conditional love that is not right for you.

Don Miguel ends the Magical Kitchen chapter by saying, "Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant. We become selfish when we believe that maybe tomorrow, we won't have any pizza. But when we know our heart is a magical kitchen, we are always generous, and our love is completely unconditional."

I encourage you to tap into your magical kitchen starting today and revolutionize your relationship with yourself, and love.

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(Side note - I took this photo at a cafe in Mexico City the morning before heading to The Dreaming House in Teo...I know it was near the Zocalo, but I'm not sure if I could even find it again! It was a great cup o' love though.)