Life Lessons From The Countertop

We can tap into wisdom even in the midst of daily activities.

Vegan chocolate chip banana bread ❤️

There’s something beautiful about sitting with life’s teachings, letting them settle into our bones like morning light through kitchen windows.

These lessons have found me during quiet moments—some while preparing food like the banana bread pictured above, watching steam rise from my coffee, others while cats chased butterflies in the backyard.

They’re simple truths, really, but sometimes the simplest things carry the most weight.

Feeling Everything

Your emotions aren’t problems to solve or enemies to defeat. They’re messengers carrying important information about your inner landscape.

When sadness visits, don’t rush to show it the door. When anger arrives, don’t apologize for its presence.

Feel it fully, honor what it’s teaching you, then let it move through you like weather through an open sky.

The goal isn’t to be happy all the time—that’s exhausting and impossible.

The goal is to be present with whatever is here, to meet each feeling with the same gentle curiosity you’d offer a friend sharing their heart.

In the center, the middle way, unconditionality, trusting that all is happening beyond me, others and events, needing to be a certain way.

TRADER JOE’S VEGAN ONE-POT HAMBURGER HELPER WITH MUSHROOMS & ZUCCHINI

The brain thinks, stay centered as it does incessantly

Notice how your mind loves to create stories, especially the dramatic ones where you’re either the hero or the victim.

Most of our suffering isn’t caused by what happens to us, but by the elaborate narratives we weave around what happens to us.

That anxious thought about tomorrow? It’s just a thought. That harsh judgment about your past self? Also just a thought.

You don’t have to believe every story your mind tells you.

You can observe them like clouds passing through the sky of your awareness—interesting, temporary, not requiring your immediate action.

When a stressful thought appears, ask yourself, “Is this thought helping me right now, or is it just creating unnecessary drama?”

Most of the time, you’ll find it’s the latter.

CREAMY VEGAN COCONUT GINGER CHICKPEA RECIPE

Compassion is your compass towards truth

Start treating yourself with the same tenderness you’d offer your dearest friend going through a difficult time.

Rule #2: Treat Yourself Like Someone You Are Responsible For Helping -Jordan P.

When you make mistakes (and you will, beautifully and humanly), resist the urge to become your own worst critic.

Instead, place your hand on your heart and say, “This is hard. I’m learning. I’m doing the best I can with what I know right now.”

Feel how different that is from the harsh voice that usually takes over.

VEGAN BACON & MUSHROOM PASTA (NO CREAM)

It’s all under control; not by you

Here’s what I’ve learned from countless attempts to orchestrate life: the tighter you grip, the more life slips through your fingers.

You can’t control outcomes, other people’s choices, or tomorrow’s weather.

You can only tend to your own inner garden—your thoughts, responses, and the energy you bring to each moment.

This doesn’t mean becoming passive. It means focusing your energy where it actually has power: in your daily choices, your responses to challenges, the love you give, the boundaries you set.

Everything else is just weather, temporary and ever-changing.

(Nice graffiti a came across as I snuck in a set of pull ups on scaffoldings in the city. By the way, you can bang out sets that will set your heart rate up, wake up your body and mind and instantly feel good. You’ll look good too, but that’s just a bonus byproduct of the beauty of what you truly are)

Delay Reactivity; pause with a breath respond with a smile

Between what happens to you and how you respond lies a sacred pause—a space where your true freedom lives.

Most people react immediately, letting their automatic patterns drive the bus.

But you can learn to pause, breathe, and choose your response from a place of centeredness rather than reactivity.

This pause doesn’t need to be long—sometimes it’s just one conscious breath.

But in that breath lies the difference between being driven by old wounds and responding from your highest self.

(Used to sling pizzas when I ran and owned a vegan cafe, this brings back memories)

Ship imperfectly

You don’t need to be perfect to be worthy of love, success, or happiness.

You don’t need to have it all figured out before you start.

Progress isn’t a straight line—it’s more like a spiral, where you revisit the same lessons at deeper levels, each time with more wisdom, compassion & integration.

Celebrate the small wins: the day you spoke up for yourself, the moment you chose rest over productivity, the conversation where you stayed present instead of planning your response.

These seemingly small shifts are actually profound transformations in disguise.

Watch, protect, regenerate your energy

Setting boundaries isn’t about building walls—it’s about creating space for authentic connection.

When you say no to what doesn’t serve you, you’re saying yes to what does.

When you communicate your needs clearly, you’re teaching others how to love you well.

Your boundaries aren’t up for negotiation. They’re not requests—they’re loving announcements about how you’ll be moving through the world.

Some people won’t understand this, and that’s okay.

Your job isn’t to make everyone comfortable with your growth.

Be radically candorous to yourself and others, challenge directly while caring deeply.

Home is anywhere you are really presently at peace

Tomorrow is a story your mind tells you. Yesterday is a memory, often distorted by current emotions.

But this moment—right here, right now—this is where life actually happens. This is where your power lives.

Practice returning to now: feel your feet on the ground, notice five things you can see, listen to the sounds around you.

Your breath is always available as an anchor back to presence. In this moment, right now, you have everything you need to take the next right step.

Your worth is unconditional

You don’t need to earn your worth through achievement, productivity, or pleasing others.

Your worth isn’t conditional on your performance or dependent on external validation.

You are worthy of love, respect, and belonging simply because you exist.

This isn’t something you need to prove or improve upon—it’s something to remember and return to, especially in moments when the world tries to convince you otherwise.

Each moment is an opportunity to start anew

Every morning offers you a fresh start. Every breath is a chance to choose differently. You’re not stuck with yesterday’s choices or limited by past versions of yourself.

Growth means being willing to begin again, as many times as necessary, with the same gentle persistence of a river carving through stone.

There’s something profoundly hopeful about this: no matter what happened yesterday, today offers new possibilities.

You can always choose love over fear, presence over distraction, kindness over judgment. The invitation to begin again is always available, waiting patiently for you to accept it.

These lessons live best when they’re not just read but felt, not just understood but practiced.

Take what resonates, leave what doesn’t, and trust that the teachings you need will find you exactly when you’re ready to receive them.

All Love

-P