Imagine yourself a chef.
There is an infinite number of meals you could conceivably prepare, with a staggering number of ingredients available on this planet.
And you, as a human being, are part of an even more infinite (it’s possible, trust me) source of creativity and brand new thought.
Words can’t begin to describe the potential.
But just like your meal options on any given day will be limited by what’s in season and in your kitchen, the infinite creativity that moves through you is limited by what’s on your mind.
The meal you end up with—as you take stock of the ingredients you have, add a dash of this and a pinch of that—is not the one true meal.
It’s not the right one, or the best one.
It’s simply the meal that came from your kitchen on that particular day. In any other moment on any other day, with different cravings, ideas, and groceries on hand, you’d have a different meal.
Your moment-to-moment experience of life is a like preparing a meal with what’s in your kitchen.
Pure, unlimited potential exists, and your experience of life is funneled through what’s in the “kitchen” in your head.
You see the world around you through momentary moods, memories of things that no longer exist, scents and sounds and pictures that happen to be active in your mind…
…a dash of this and a pinch of that.
You aren’t seeing or thinking The Truth, you’re seeing and thinking what’s showing up through you.
Filtered and flavored.
So it’s curious that we tend to act as if our thoughts, experiences and perceptions are Truth, isn’t it?
How can anything we ever think be The Truth, when it’s always flavored by what happens to be present within us?
I spoke with a bright, shining star of infinite potential this week. She’s about to bring her art into the world a big way and she’s filled with anxiety and fear that looks like The Truth to her.
What if she doesn’t live up to her potential? What if she lets people down? What if anxiety holds her back?
She’s seeing the world through a thick cheesecloth of fearful thoughts, memories, and projections that are as creative as her art is. But they don’t look like a limited creation from a partially stocked kitchen. To her, they look True.
They simply can’t be.
It opens life in remarkable ways to consider that there’s a strong element of bias in our thoughts and conclusions. Especially our most painful thoughts and conclusions.
Just like nothing you cook is The One Right meal, nothing you think is The Truth.
