“Mwe”, Interdependence and Gratitude

A little snippet from my Book "Mojovinators: From Survive to Thrive" to be published later this year.

Let's go through a little exercise to kick off your morning. This is an awareness training exercise that will improve your awareness and understanding of “Mwe” and enhance your sense of gratitude. It will teach you about the Buddhist philosophy of interdependence and enhance your sense of connection and wellbeing and…your coffee will never taste so damn good!

Today specifically we're going to bring attention to all of the above by doing a mindful exercise while you have your first sip of your morning coffee. ??Don’t believe me.?Indulge me for 5 mins.

Now, if you're a double espresso human like myself, you'll love that aroma that tickles your nostrils just before you have your first sip of your coffee in the morning. Breathe it in baby! As you take that first sip, I'd invite you to close your eyes and think about where the coffee came from.

The coffee beans have been picked by a beautiful old woman on a hillside in Colombia perhaps… Consider the effort that this woman has put into picking those coffee beans on that particular day. The elderly woman is a grandmother of eight. She passes her basket full of coffee beans to her young grandson who collects all of the baskets and empties them in the farmer's truck. The truck driver then transports the harvest to the shed for the sorters. They scan the beans for imperfections and then pass it through to the team that do the coffee roasting. After a roasting process over several days the beans are bagged and transported from the farm to the port.

The truck driver meets his mates at the port, where the beans are unloaded and put into shipping containers to be transported nearly 9,000 miles across several oceans to Sydney, Australia. The bags are checked by customs and then unloaded at Botany Bay and sent to the Campos warehouse, where they'll be redistributed into 1kg bags and sent off around New South Wales to your local cafe. Your local barista who knows you by name makes your Double Espresso with tender loving care. Now you're having your first sip.

Bringing your attention and appreciation to interdependence is a simple practice of understanding the connection passing from one living thing to another. We wouldn't be drinking our coffee or wearing the shirt on our back without the tender loving care of a whole bunch of people. When you take that first sip of your coffee in the morning, close your eyes and think about all the people that were involved in bringing that coffee to you. And what that tends to foster is a deep sense of gratitude. A really simple mindfulness exercise you can do when you have your coffee. Think about where that coffee came from, and all the people that have put so much love into bringing it to you. “Mwe” is one of the 12 segments on the Mojo Wellness Wheel brought to you by the Team at the Innovation S(Hack).

Enjoy your coffee!