For the vast majority of my life, I told people I don’t like doing dishes and that doing them is a bummer. I understood this as a fact about myself, the way you might say you don’t like cilantro.
However, in recent months, I’ve noticed that I don’t mind doing the dishes. I don’t think I made a conscious decision to change my view, and I can’t point to the day it happened. Part of it is probably because Marnie has been making more dinners since we became “bird launchers” last year.
When I cook, it’s plant based: ideally vegan, gluten free, high protein, low sodium, and low sugar. I’m both adventurous and still – STILL – trying to figure out what makes food taste good without meat, flour, lots of oil, or salt. When I adapt a recipe, it doesn’t always turn out so well. We have an agreement where the person who cooks does not need to do dishes, so when Marnie makes something that almost meets my criteria, it’s usually easier to eat what she makes (if she’s kind enough to share). Then we do not both have to cook and do dishes.
And through all of this, the dishes have apparently been able to carry on without an opinion about me.
Three Conditions for Steady Practice
Yes, doing the dishes is related to yoga practice on the mat, and the Yoga Sūtras describe 3 conditions for steady practice. Practice becomes firmly established when cultivated over a long time, without interruption, and with satkāra, care or respect.
We tend to notice duration and consistency. How many years have you practiced? How often? We can count those. But how much care did you bring today?
Some mornings, I sit on my meditation cushion for twenty minutes and spend nineteen of them waiting to finish. I drag my body there, but my mind wants to keep checking whether it’s time to leave.
Care begins with giving some attention to what you’re already doing. So simple! Feel your feet. Notice the breath. You set aside this time for practice. Can you let yourself be here for a little of it?
You don’t have to make every breath special. An ordinary breath deserves some attention, too.
Let Yourself Be Surprised
“I don’t like this” can become something you repeat without ever revisiting your logic. Maybe it was true yesterday. Today deserves another look.
That doesn’t mean talking yourself into liking everything. Some things need to change. But sometimes it’s easy to carry yesterday’s resistance into an experience that hasn’t happened yet.
The dishes taught me something modest. I don’t love scraping the rice off the bottom of the Instant Pot. I also don’t need to spend that time rehearsing how much I dislike it. There is less work when I omit the complaining part.
The same possibility is there when I practice a familiar posture or notice another breath. I can arrive with all of my yoga teacher knowledge about that pose, or I can give the practice some care and see what I notice. There is always something new.
We come into this world crying. We might as well enjoy some of the minutes that follow. Smile when you can, even with your hands in the dishwater. You don’t have to wait for something better to happen.
“Not minding” sounds like a small discovery. But finding lots of those “not mindings” over many years has made a surprising amount of room for more smiles in my day.
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