Sweeten Your Life

We're plagued by lots of challenges and problems. We're constantly stressed and anxious. We're preoccupied with the past or the future. We rarely savour the present moment and all the sweetness it has to offer.

A sweeter life is all about your state of consciousness. It's all about how you perceive your life to be. If you are living from the concept that life is a struggle it will be so. If you are living from the concept that life is sweet and easy, it will unfold so.

On my spiritual journey, I have studied many magnificent masters, but one in particular proved useful in my daily spiritual practice and that was “The 4 Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz.

This guide to Toltec Wisdom details four agreements to live by in order to live a life of contentment and peace. The following are practices I have taken from this learning and adapted them into my life. For the purpose of understanding, remembering and using the agreements they are described in “Sweeter Life” style using our culinary theme.

1ST AGREEMENT: BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD

Sugar & Salt

A sweeter life, that is our end goal and who doesn’t like a sugary delight to devour? Each day of our lives, we have thousands of thoughts and some of those thoughts can quite often be criticisms. Once you begin to analyse this, it's surprising how many criticisms we partake in daily.

The 1st agreement is to be impeccable with your word. So, basically, positive sweet opinions of others and yourself. How many times a day do you criticise yourself?

From this day forward, imagine your day as a mixing bowl of thoughts. You want a delicious sweet cupcake at the end of the day, so the more sugar you put into that bowl, the better!

Every positive word and thought about yourself and others represents the sugar pouring into your bowl and each negative word or thought about yourself and others represents salt going into that bowl. Believe me this takes practice. Many a time, I have ended my day with that salted cupcake feeling as a result of either criticising myself or saying / thinking something unsweet about others. That cupcake tastes bitter on reflection. It brings down your spiritual energy and you feel how the cupcake tastes - bad!

We're only human and getting used to not pouring salt into our daily mixing bowl takes practice. On the days I have consciously added plenty of sugar to my cake mix, ie not gossiped about others, not agreed with other people’s derogatory opinions and not fed myself with “I am not good enough” thoughts, at the end of those days, that cupcake tastes divine.

When you have added sugar instead of salt to your daily mixing bowl of thoughts and feelings and words, your whole being feels like warm toast. Your contentment levels sky-rocket, you almost want to give yourself an “Impeccable word boss” badge as a reward. It is very important to remember, however, that on the salty days when your human nature takes over your spiritual self and your word has been less than impeccable, to NOT punish yourself for it. This will only bring on the opportunity for a salty cupcake marathon. Just throw away that cupcake mix, wash the bowl clean and make a better one tomorrow.

This practice takes time and even now I get days where, on reflection, I could have brought more sugar to the bowl. But, hey, we live in the real world here at Sweeter Life and just being aware of your mixing bowl and monitoring it daily gets you one step closer to becoming a regular 5-star cupcake mixer.

2ND AGREEMENT: DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY

How Do You Like Your Eggs?

No, I haven’t lost the plot. This simple analogy of how you like your eggs demonstrates the second agreement that we here at “Sweeter Life” not only live by but have used to find an absolute scrumptious release from the opinions of others in your life.

You may like your eggs poached, scrambled or even benedict style if you are posh, but how others think you like your eggs will be different to your preferences. Even if your loved ones know you like them scrambled, when you make them, it will have the exact amount of seasoning, milk and cooking time to your liking as opposed to somebody else cooking it for you. The point is this: everybody in your world will have an opinion of you. Your actions, your choices and even how you like your eggs but those opinions of you by others will always be distorted because they are not you. Only you know yourself and only your opinion of yourself is important in this scrambled thing we call life. One of my favourite quotes to live by regarding this agreement is…

Your opinion of me is none of my business.

This is powerful. Not taking people’s opinions of you personally is a gigantic leap forward into living a life of pure peace and freedom. Whenever somebody says something about me to others, either negatively or positively, I immediately regard that as their opinion and not the reality of my thoughts, dreams, aspirations and life. Seriously, do they know how I like my eggs? People are like walking databases. Their experiences during their lives have moulded them into who they are. When the database people have an opinion of you, it comes from all the data they have stored in their lives and so will not match your database at all.

Taking their opinion as real and correct is like cooking your eggs the way they think you like them. In the past, when I have in fact taken things personally, 9 times out of 10 it has brought my spiritual energy down. As a result, the negative vibes take over an affect my wellbeing and peace. Learning not to take things personally breaks that cycle wholeheartedly. Now, if something negative is said about me or to me, I send that person love and light and hope they enjoy their eggs. This next task will really highlight how often we take things personally and how this affects us in our daily actions.

Take a journal or notebook and detail past experiences on how you may have taken things personally and what happened as a result. Release the need to allow others’ opinions of you into your life and start living each day free from the contamination of walking, talking databases.

It is very important to remember, however, that on the salty days when your human nature takes over your spiritual self and your word has been less than impeccable, to NOT punish yourself for it. This will only bring on the opportunity for a salty cupcake marathon. Just throw away that cupcake mix, wash the bowl clean and make a better one tomorrow.

3RD AGREEMENT: DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS

The Wedding Cake

Unfortunately, making assumptions about everything and anything is in our DNA. The unnecessary internal drama and external carnage this habit causes has probably been part of your life already.

Following the culinary trajectory of our Sweeter Life programme, I am going to attempt to explain such damage with a simple wedding cake scenario. A bride-to-be has been dreaming of the perfect wedding cake for the big day. An elegant 3-tier tower smothered in exquisite white frosting, sugar daisies cascade the edge. Each daisy is encrusted with edible diamonds at the centre adding to the simplicity and classical splendour of this masterpiece. The bride is filled with joy and excitement at the discovery that her dream cake can be made to her eerie requirement and budget. Husband-to-be returns home from work. This soon-to-be wife cannot wait to impart the joyous news of the wonderful wedding cake. The response she receives does not match her expectations at all, “That’s lovely, what shall we have for dinner tonight?

The evening progresses with frosty undertones. The bride-to-be begins making assumptions, pondering and analysing the groom’s reaction. Questions arise, such as: “If he is not even interested in the cake, does he even care about the wedding?” “If he doesn’t care about the wedding, is he having second thoughts about marrying me?”

Her mood changes over the coming days as she tortures herself with such assumptions. The groom is also making assumptions of his own. “Why is my usually happy fiancee so quiet, withdrawn and miserable?” “Is she fed up with me? Is she having second thoughts?” At this stage, if neither partner communicated, there may not be a wedding at all, let alone a wedding cake.

Luckily, they do communicate and it transpires that hubby-to-be would be happy with a cupcake and candle as a wedding cake as long as he marries his soul-mate and gets to spend the rest of his life with her...she is overjoyed with his response. The wedding was glorious - as was the wedding cake!

As this scenario demonstrates, assuming what another person is thinking or feeling can lead to a a multitude of drama, pain and inner conflict. We also make assumptions about the actions of others and this, coupled with taking things personally, is a recipe for disaster.

A colleague could be “off” with you at work and you assume it is something you have said or done. By the end of the working day, you have convinced yourself that you’re failing at your role and you may as well print out your P45 when, in reality, your colleague is just having an “off” day due to personal events at home (probably arising from assumptions).

In this scenario, my favourite thing to say to myself is “It is what it is”, nothing more, nothing less - send love and light and drop the assumptions. Recognising the fact that we are making assumptions is key.

Take a moment now to think about times you have made assumptions in your life and the troubles it has caused. It is surprising how unconsciously we do this! To release yourself from this daily burden, practise recognising your assumption-making and how you deal with them.

Don’t be hard on yourself, this is your journey and you navigate it at your pace. Trust me, it is quite unbelievable how many unconscious assumptions we make daily and when we realise this, we can take action. By doing so, we free ourselves of the pain it causes, therefore raising our positivity vibe and living a life assumption-free.

4TH AGREEMENT: ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST

The Cooked Dinner

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are tired as opposed to well-rested. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret. - Don Miguel Ruiz

Have you ever noticed that when you cook a roast dinner, some days everything progresses perfectly. Your mash is creamy, your roasts are crispy with fluffy centres and your gravy is like nectar from culinary heaven. Other days, you do exactly the same, but your mash turns out lumpy, your roasts could break a tooth and the gravy is more nasty than nectar.

This is exactly how life is, you can live the exact same days twice, but how each day unfolds will depend on your emotional and physical barometer. Some days you wake feeling happy with a positive disposition on the day's events ahead. Your body says, “let’s do this!” and you physically jump out of bed ready to take on the day. Other days you wake feeling blue, for no reason, that is just how you feel. Your body says: “Nah, let’s stay in bed”. And you physically roll from under the covers, dragging yourself into the day. Your “best” is going to look different for each of these days.

Honouring this is key. When your emotional and physical barometers are measured daily, you can act accordingly.

Attempting to overdo everything on blue days will lead to exhaustion, feelings of failure and self-judgement. These are the days when you need to truly love yourself, to accept that a slower pace is required and that is your best today - celebrate it! I felt blue and tired today, but I got up and did my best “go me!”

On “let’s do this” days, go with your emotional and physical barometer and celebrate that too. It is like the Cooked Dinner scenario: your meal is perfect on a good day, but less than perfect on a blue day, but you did your best on both days in line with your barometers and that’s okay.

Accepting and acting accordingly to my physical and emotional barometers daily has been an essential aspect of my spiritual development, peace of mind and quality of life. On low reading days, I automatically take a slower pace, meditate more, ponder more and drink lots more hot chocolate.

I want to share with you an excerpt from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book “The Four Agreements” as this extract resonated with me.

“The first three agreements will only work if you do your best. Don’t expect that you will always be able to be impeccable with your word. Your routine habits are too strong and firmly rooted in your mind. But you can do your best. Don’t expect that you will never take things personally; just do your best. Don’t expect that you never make another assumption, but you can certainly do your best...If you do your best always, over and over again, you will become a master of transformation.”

To help me assess my barometer throughout my day I imagine a physical barometer in my mind. At any moment in time, I can honestly assess where my arrows are going to be on the physical and emotional scale and act accordingly. This has helped me to rid myself of self-judgement, guilt and exhaustion. You may visualise a different barometer, but recognising and acting according to your physical and emotional readings at any given time is the key to living freely. Check out your own levels, get to know yourself and enjoy every day knowing you are doing your best.

These words are shared from the Sweeter Life mini course which myself and my friend Catherine Cleobury put together (admittedly many of the words are hers, but I also deeply resonate with them). They encapsulate just one of 7 ingredients in the course. The total cost of the mini course is just ￡99 and includes journal prompts, checklists and meditations. If you're interested in obtaining a copy, please DM me or message me on +44-07864-056919.

Thank you so much for reading and taking an interest!

Esther x