Clear the cutting board first

Are you clearing out lower emotions (like annoyance, melancholy, frustration, grief, regret, etc.) before bringing them with you into the next thing you do?

You know that experience of feeling a little off—maybe frustrated with something, and then you switch contexts and you’re suddenly snapping at your partner about something you usually wouldn’t?

And they’re like, “Whoah, where did that come from?” And you also feel a little surprised by the intensity.

It’s because the frustration felt earlier wasn’t cleared and discharged so it came along into your next activity.

The other day I was mincing garlic for a dish. Then, without thinking, I cut avocado on the same cutting board. When I ate the avocado slices afterwards it smelled like (and tasted like!) garlic. Which I really didn’t like.

If I had taken a few seconds to clear and wipe down the cutting board after prepping garlic, my avocado slices wouldn’t have absorbed the garlic juice. And I wouldn’t have eaten garlic-infused avocado with a grimace.

Insert whatever emotion you’re currently feeling and take a moment to ask yourself if this is what you want to bring with you into the next thing you do.

If not, can you breathe into it and clear it out first? Clear and wipe down the cutting board, so to speak?