Happiness is: Being Uncomfortable

Friends, happy morning from New York City, where your good friend Sarah is packing for Budapest while realizing that I am completely uncomfortable and vulnerable. 

 

Some days I feel my breathing speed up, my heart beat faster, as I feel a little lightheaded, wondering what the hell am I doing here in New York, in this kitchen, with this team.  Who do I think I am?  Why do I think I deserve to be in this kitchen, in this city, having this experience?  What if lose my clients and my “real” job and my income while I insist on working the kitchen job, too, where I get no pay whatsoever for about 33 hours a week of work?  But let’s back up a moment.

 

This morning I am sipping my coffee, listening to Nikka Costa’s “Happy in the Morning” (one of my very favorite songs of all time, ever) and thinking again about my time in the kitchen and here in New York and how I can feel things shifting, growing, changing in me.  I meditate every morning as I write to you, and putting my thoughts into words helps me figure out what I really think and feel while also helping me preserve the real-time sensations in a way that is keenly aware of myself.  I prefer to shower you all with attention and fussing, because I am happiest in the background, helping you just shine, shine, shine so bright, but this 20 minutes is just for me, to help me confirm that I am still on the path I am meant to be.  It sets the tone for my whole day, and I will always have it, just for me, no matter where in the world I am.  This is my ritual, and it is a must, every day. 

 

Sometimes it is overwhelming, sometimes I feel so lost and like I am standing on a crumbling cliff that just might send me tumbling to my perhaps death or maiming (which is the only thing I am actually afraid of), and sometimes I feel like I am the lightest feather in the air, because the physical feelings inside of pure joy and humility and being lit up and thrilled like a kid who gets their first bike at Christmas, confirm for me that this slippery little unsteadiness is exactly where I am meant to be. 

 

My God do I love being in that kitchen. 

 

 

It just feels…right.  It feels right even on the days like Tuesday, when I stopped, mid-chop of 27 heads of cauliflower, with a furrowed brow, a look of absolute confusion and panic, and said out loud to my Sous Chef, who oversees my work, “What am I even DOING here?!” in a moment of complete disorientation, before I snapped out of it and pushed back that insecurity.  I am quite sure he might think I am absolutely crackers crazy, and he may be right.  But he puts up with me, he shakes his head and rolls his eyes gently, and with a little smile, just the littlest smirk, and with a very steady, patient voice, says to me, “Sarah, this is fun, remember?  Keep working.”  And so, I do remember that it is fun, and I do remember that this is where I am meant to be, that I chose this, and I do keep working and having fun.

 

It is uncomfortable.  It is scary.  It is sometimes lonely.  It is often a blur, until I get back to my quiet little rented furnished apartment and clear the “monkey chatter” in my brain and actually take quiet time to think on what I am going through at this moment.  I go home, and I sit on my rented couch and I rub my very tired feet and sit in the quiet for about 20 minutes, just thinking, just letting the feelings and thoughts come through my head, making me shrink in embarrassment or light up with a huge grin on my face as I remember moments of the days in the kitchen.  This path, this learning, at this stage in my life (get it?  stage?) is a particularly interesting gift in its timing, as now that I am a bit older/wiser and have success and failures both in my past stories, I am able to look at these current moments with a set of eyes and heart that are incredibly and fully aware of all the little nuances of feelings.  And I like it. 

 

I like the uncomfortableness.  I like the vulnerability.  I like not being sure of myself.  I like it, because I know, now, in my life, that these are the most important moments of all.  These are the moments where I get to know myself and people around me.  These are the moments that I shore up places and parts of myself that are not so strong, so that later on, I will be strong in those parts.

 

I want to tell that Chef, “You go right ahead.  Put me through my paces.  Make me excellent. Shape my work and the way I think, so that I understand it and you and this kitchen better, in order to help me find my own path, my own style.  Push me.  Challenge me.  Shame me and praise me and push me down and bring me back up, because I.  Am.   Ready.”  I trust him.  I trust him to not break me or crush me in the process. 

 

I’ll tell you what, Friends, I am all about being pushed and challenged, but you have to choose the people in your life who you allow to do this for you.  I chose badly a few times, and until I got my self esteem back, it did a lot of emotional damage and made me live in self-doubt and sadness for years—f’ing YEARS of putting up with that bs.  Choosing someone you can absolutely trust to look out for you and help you be vulnerable so that you CAN shine is critical.  And I trust this Chef, this leader, this now new Friend of mine.  I switch from being his kitchen stage/slave to being his peer, when I am dressed in my street clothes and am CEO Sarah again.  I trust him to see me at my absolute, unvarnished worst, so that he can assess and comment and make me figure out how to once again be my best.  What a gift that is.  Do you have people in your life you can really trust to do that for you?  I do.  I am so lucky, Friends, because I do.

 

I choose it.  I seek those people out, and I trust my gut, now, to know who will be there for me and help me and who will take advantage of my kindness and generosity and my vulnerability.  Any person who brings you close and then mocks you for trusting them needs to exited, immediately, from your life.  Pay attention, Friends, because this writing is no longer about the kitchen, but about life.  Only you can do that for you, no one else.  Your situations are about your own choices, and only you can keep or change them, but you must have courage, and you must value yourself enough to do it.

 

Friends, today as you think about your day ahead, I encourage you to go find people who push you and shape you and show you YOU, FOR you, so that you can be your best, so that you can learn all the things you cannot see unless you have a mirror to show you.  Choose wisely, though, because there are people who will want to put you down and step hard on you, as you climb to your higher places, only because they do not have the courage and strength in themselves and want to keep you down only to keep themselves more comfortable. 

 

I promise you, you can do it.  You will do it.  You will shine so bright, and I cannot wait to meet you for dinner and talk all about it and how uncomfortable it was and how happy and strong you are now.  I want to hear about how you see the world differently, more gratefully, in all its joy that comes from knowing you can get through anything, because you can.  I am so happy to see you grow and learn and be your best self.  Friends, you can be vulnerable with me, because I learned and am learning from the best, on how to be vulnerable myself.  I am so lucky to have so many of you in my life who help me do that, thank you.

 

Wishing you a good Saturday today, as I pack my bags and prepare to push my conference attendees and speakers to be vulnerable themselves, so that we can all shine brighter and better, together. 

 

Lots of love from New York, soon to be Budapest.

 

Your Good Friend Sarah