Have Your Cake and Eat it Too
When I was a child I was vaguely unsettled by the concept of colors. I understood that we were all looking at something and calling it red, but how was I to be sure that my red showed up like your red. What if what I was seeing as red, was the same as what you were calling yellow? Now that I’ve grown up a bit, and better explored the color spectrum, I know there’s no possible way we’re all seeing the same red.
This is perhaps one of the reasons I love food so much. While people are willing to get defensive about something concrete like the color red, when it comes to eating, there’s a little more flexibility. We can sit around a table, each of us eating the exact same cake: the same portion of butter, eggs, flour, sugar, chocolate all mixed into a rich concoction. If we wanted to be scientific, we could serve out the portions equally. If not, I would take half the cake and divide the rest up for all of you.
The point being, we’re all biting into the same thing, yet we all process the experience differently. Our taste buds respond: for some too bitter, for some too sweet, for others just right. Our emotional brains kick in: memories of birthday celebrations past, nostalgia for a gramma who always baked a similar cake, yearning for a future trip to Vienna to gorge on Sachertorte.
“Yum!”
“Delicious!”
“Amazing! So good.”
We cry out eating our chocolate cake. (Because anyone who dares criticize is immediately banned from the table.)
But how do those superlatives really convey the joy of eating said chocolate cake?
A lot of coaching is about understanding how we see the color red and what we experience eating chocolate cake. As we dive into the realm of what you want, I often hear strong words coming up:
“I’m lacking confidence.”
“I need to find my purpose.”
“What I want is stability.”
Confidence, purpose, stability you say. Chocolate cake, I hear.
You are the only one who can give meaning to those words. You are the only one who can conjure up how confidence manifests in your body. Do you hold your head higher? Does your stomach feel strong and settled? You are the only one that can define your purpose. Does it mean achieving specific goals or showing up with kindness? As for stability, are you talking about inner calm or a roof over your head?
As we search for what we want and how to get it, we have to start by understanding our own definitions. Today there are thousands of recipes for chocolate cake and hundreds of variations of the color red. And the many variations and definitions are visible in our everyday life. If you follow the same accounts I do on Instagram, you're inundated by information telling us about the best chocolate cake, the easiest chocolate cake, the healthiest chocolate cake. Even concrete colors are assigned significance: that red is aggressive, this red is too soft, you shouldn't even be considering red if you appeal to a wider audience.
Our is to discover the chocolate cake we want. It’s the reason I’m here, it’s the reason I got into coaching. There are so many definitions, expectations, and solutions that are laid out in fixed terms. For me, discovery and change is not about set rules, or processes, or procedures or truths. It's about humans approaching life with curiosity. It's about creation, awareness, and action.
I experienced and still experience the temptation to define myself and my needs according to widely accepted definitions. But in the end, the only chocolate cake that is truly satisfying is the one I make up myself.
As always, thank you for reading, thank you for sharing, and hoping we can connect and discover what kind of cake you want, together as humans.
Sending sunshine,
Henna
PS: Any and all chocolate cake recipes welcome! Above is chocolate + almond favorite from Anna Tasca Lanza presented to me on my birthday last year!
PPS: If you'd like a clarity call and no timeslots work, just reply to me here! I'm happy to make time for you.