The Peaceful Sound Of A Blender

Last week I was meditating as part of my morning routine but this time was a little different. I usually meditate before my wife is up and about for the day, but this time I went on a run with a friend and did my morning routine later in the morning after I had returned.

I’m about 3 minutes into my meditation and I hear the patter of some footsteps coming down the stairs heading into the kitchen. Then about 30 seconds later I hear the loud rumble of a blender.

Accustomed to quiet while I meditate, this was pretty disruptive. But I noticed my mind instantly assigned an empowering meaning to the blender. Unconsciously I naturally thought “How peaceful to have the white noise of a blender.”

This reminded me of an incredibly powerful truth to life: Our perception is not what we experience but the story we tell ourselves about it.

One of my favorite frameworks is Jack Canfield’s E + R = O. Event + Response = Outcome. What it suggests is that given any event (good, bad or otherwise), it’s our response to it that ultimately determines how we feel about it.

That’s what happened here. The event was - The silence of my meditation was disturbed by my wife making her breakfast in a blender. 

To that, there are many different responses. 

Everything from feeling like starting a blender during meditation is a really inconsiderate thing to do… To feeling neutral about it and accepting the circumstances… To actually using it as a trigger to find deeper layers of peace.

We are in control of our response, which means we can choose the meaning of any given event. The interpretation of this event happened unconsciously, but it encouraged me to consciously reframe events for the rest of my meditation. 

When the white noise of the blender stopped, I recited to myself “wow, the silence is so peaceful”. And when I heard more footsteps from my wife in the kitchen I recited to myself “How lucky am I to share a home and life with such an amazing person.”

When people talk about seeing life through a certain lens, this is what they’re talking about. We can influence the perspective we see the world through, consciously by being aware of the story we’re telling, and unconsciously by working on our mindset.

And my best recommendation for beginning to do that is 1) Cultivate a growth mindset by reflecting on your choices every day and understanding how you could have done better, and 2) Begin a practice of gratitude journaling to start shaping a more positive outlook on the world.

If you want my help doing both of those things, check this out!

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