5 Key Teachings: KITCHEN TABLE WISDOM, by Rachel Naomi Remen M.D.

TRANSCRIPT:

So I was introduced to Rachel Naomi Remen and Kitchen Table Wisdom, who many of you probably know, through Joan Halifax’s book, Standing at the Edge (key teachings from that book here). That’s typically how I figure out what I’m going to read next—I follow breadcrumbs in other peoples’ books and bibliographies. Anyway, this was a massive seller. It’s old, but it’s not dated. She’s a doctor and therapist, who has helped thousands of people navigate diagnosis, loss, change. And these are just changes. There’s no over-arching thesis, it doesn’t ladder to any grand argument. They’re stories from her practice and what she’s observed in life. Just these incredible bombs of wisdom. “Those who don’t love themselves as they are rarely love life as it is either. Most people have come to prefer certain of life’s experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain or even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all cost, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness. Or even that the love we have been given can be trusted.” I love this book. I savored it. I just read a little bit of it before bed. Kitchen Table Wisdom.

More coming on some of her insights in upcoming newsletters, including this story about putting intentions into rocks.

5 KEY TEACHINGS:

1. This offering is like a Buddhist koan: Hard to grasp, ineffable, and yet undeniably true. We are so fixated on making things happen, bending them to our will, that I think we forget that we may plant the seeds but we don’t make them grow.

Per Dr. Remen: “People can learn to study their life force in the same way that a master gardener studies a rosebush. No gardener ever made a rose. When its needs are met a rosebush will make roses. Gardeners collaborate and provide conditions which favor this outcome. And as anyone who has ever pruned a rosebush knows, life flows through every rosebush in a slightly different way.” (p. 22)

2. “People who don’t care are rarely vulnerable to burnout.” Think about this for a minute. Dr. Remen is right, and the implications are huge: Those of us who are most sensitive, are most likely to fizzle out.