A Little Ego Before Breakfast

"True wealth is the ability to let go of your possessions."

--Yogi Tea tea bag

The other morning I was sitting on my yoga mat doing my meditation thing when my husband got up and started to make himself a little breakfast.

He was rustling around in the kitchen, opening packages and clanging dishes and I started to feel the annoyance rising. 

Not, as you might assume, because he was making noise, but because I thought he was helping himself to some of MY special granola.

Ever since finding Thrive I have been trying to eat raw foods a little more often because I like the way it makes me feel. The other day at Whole Foods I saw this raw food granola that looked amazing. I decided to treat myself even though it cost more than twice as much as I usually spend on a box of cereal and is about a third of the size. I did not anticipate that anyone else in the family would want anything to do with my raw food granola.

Yet, there I was - trying to meditate - and there he was, in the kitchen, eating all of MY cereal.

I was completely out of the zone at this point, my mind going crazy with this idea that he was eating my granola.

I think he’s eating my granola.

Why does he have to eat my granola?

Can’t he just eat the other cereal in there?

I’ll bet he’s going to have a HUGE bowl and there will be hardly any left for ME.

He doesn’t even like raw foods.

Can’t he just leave my granola alone?

This went on for awhile before I caught myself.

Oh. Wait. He’s not eating my granola. He’s eating the mini box of Wheaties I got at the half marathon earlier this month and told him he could have.

Whew.

And then I really caught myself.

WHAT am I doing?

I am begrudging the man I love a bowl of granola.

A BOWL OF GRANOLA.

I started to list for myself all of the reasons that this was completely absurd:

1)       The bag was still three-quarters of the way full;

2)       If he did happen to eat all of it - as unlikely as that was - I could go out and buy myself another bag;

3)       As the primary bread-winner in our household he should be able to eat a bowl of the granola he worked to pay for if he wants to;

4)       I am planning on spending more than $8 on his Christmas present this year. Maybe I should just get him his own bag of raw granola instead;

5)       It’s just cereal. It’s not like he ate the last dark chocolate-covered mint joe-joe (he knows better than that...).

But not even one thing on this list is the real point.

The real point, of course, is that this kind of thinking is exactly the opposite of what I am trying to achieve by sitting there in meditation. And a bowl of granola is such a silly thing to get my mind in a twist about.

But my ego is tricky like that. It likes to catch me off guard in just this way, at just these times.

There I was, sitting in meditation, feeling all at peace with the world and suddenly it’s the Raw Food Granola Crisis.

It’s laughable really.

So when I was done meditating, I went into the kitchen and told my husband about it and we had a good laugh.

(And he promised never to eat my special granola....)