Real talk: I’m sitting at my kitchen table right now staring at the cyclone of dishes, pots and pans, food that needs to be put away, and enough crumbs on the floor to feed the entire cast of Ratatouille.

I’m so tired. Not just “I had a long day” tired, but the “my work/life balance is off and I’m a piece of burnt toast” tired. Not even the gluten-free kind, I’m talking about the kind that hurts your stomach and constipates you.

Right now I’m not practicing what I preach and it’s showing up in more than a few places.

My back hurts.

My sleep sucks.

I want to smother my husband. (He just made me tea but he let our daughter play with a dirty sponge in the bath tonight so while she baths herself in E. Coli I will be plotting my pillow smothering revenge.)

Lastly, I don’t feel super inspired to cook.

I just made a smoothie for dinner. Someone save me.

I find it hysterical that today I picked up my book and re-read the chapter on self-care. We all need reminders from time to time. Shameless plug ← buy the book here.

In the book, I talk about the 5 Pillars of Self-Care, and cooking is one of them.

• Cooking: the last thing anyone who is tired wants to do
• Cleaning: out of the question

As I was reading the chapter called Time To Do You, Boo, I remembered how inspired I was from an episode of Chef’s Table (on Netflix). Season 3, Episode 1 is called Jeong Kwan.

Jeong Kwan is a Buddhist monk who is also a chef. The way she prepares food is awe-inspiring. I promise after you watch it you will be re-inspired to cook, to slow down, and to start taking care of yourself. You will even want to wash the dirty dishes.

So, my commitment to you (because we all need a little accountability) is that I’m going to crawl into bed and re-watch the episode. I want you to watch it too. Don’t have Netflix? Just steal your sister’s account information, as I do!

PS.

I’m also doing a five-part self care podcast series with the great Mary Baird-Wilcock, host of The Simplifiers podcast. Our podcast on cooking aired a few months back, and if you haven’t heard it yet, you can catch it here.