Recipes For Inner Peace; Storytelling

Storytelling is a uniquely human trait. It’s how we learn about our world and ourselves, and how we pass on to others the lessons of what we have discovered. In Recipes for Inner Peace, Jenny’s coach Nicolas asks her to write two stories. The first is the story of an object that Nicolas brings her, in this case a rock. He invites Jenny to write from the rock’s point of view.

When she reads her story to Nicolas, Jenny realizes that she has written about herself. The qualities and experiences she described in the rock coincide with her own. When she makes the connection between a boy in her story who had thrown the rock into a river and having been thrown over by an old boyfriend years before, she is amazed. “I didn’t know I was writing about that,” she says.

Her second story is more directly hers. Nicolas asks her to write about an incident from her childhood. She recollects a time when, at six she discovered the magic of painting and finding that when she mixed two colours she got a completely different third one. When she shared her story with friends later on, they all wanted to write one of their own.

The act of creativity, combined with the beauty of rediscovering a lost or hidden part of ourselves, is another of the recipes that will help to find more inner peace. You can try this yourself. The recipe is below.

RECIPE FOR STORYTELLING

Ingredients

1. Select an object that you have around the house, or wherever you happen to be. It can be one that you pick at random, or one that attracts you for some reason.
2. Take two or three sheets of paper, or a journal, and a pen. (If you prefer, you can use the computer.
3. Find a quiet place where you can sit and write, or make sure that you won’t be disturbed at your computer.
4. Time yourself: you have ten minutes for each of the two stories you are about to write.

Method

1. Look at the object you have selected and write its story as though you are the object.
2. Read the story out loud, preferably to someone else.
3. Ask yourself what the story you have written tells you about yourself.
4. Next, write a story from your childhood memories.
5. Read the story out loud.
6. Ask yourself how the story connects to who you are now.

Jenny cooks up a great recipe to go with her stories. Try her chicken and apricot curry, which you can find on our website. Get cooking now with your own Recipe for Inner Peace, and a dish to go with it. Visit www.synchronicitymagazine.ca to enter our contest. Winners will receive signed copies of two of Warren Redman’s books: Recipes for Inner Peace, and the award-winning The 9 Steps to Emotional Fitness.

Warren Redman © July 2006

Here is a recipe to go with your Storytelling created by chef Robin Harnish for Recipes for Inner Peace.

CHICKEN AND APRICOT CURRY

Ingredients

2 tb. peanut or olive oil
½ cup shallots
2 tb. thai red curry sauce
2 tb. ginger, minced
1 tsp. sea salt
½ tsp. pepper
4 chicken breasts
2 14-oz. cans coconut milk
½ cup dried apricots, cut in half
¼ cup mango chutney
¾ cup fresh cilantro, chopped fine

Method

1. Heat oil in a medium-large skillet with lid. Sweat shallots until translucent.
2. Add curry paste, ginger, salt and pepper. Stir until spices are fragrant.
3. Add chicken breasts and brown.
4. Add coconut milk, apricots and chutney. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Chicken should be tender.
5. Stir in fresh cilantro and serve over hot, steaming basmati or jasmine rice.