The Magical Kitchen and How It Will Change Your Life

At the end of my book, First Comes Self-Love, Then Comes Marriage, I list a series of books and websites that helped me in my journey of self-discovery and self-love. Had I known The Mastery of Love by don Miguel Ruiz existed, I would have put this book at the top of the list (well, depending on alphabetical order 😉 ).

This book, in my opinion, is majorly groundbreaking. And the Magical Kitchen metaphor is one of the reasons.

The Magical Kitchen metaphor:

Don Miguel Ruiz paints a picture of a kitchen with endless food, from which you can give to whoever visits your home. Someone stops by offering you pizza, but you have so much food, that you do not need the pizza. Then he illustrates the opposite scenario, you are starving and have very little food. Somebody comes by offering you pizza, and you voraciously accept!

Here’s where the metaphor comes in: The pizza is love.

In the magical kitchen, you have all that you need and more and you do not need love from an external source to satisfy you. In the starving scenario, you lack self-love and when someone comes and gives you love and/or positive attention, you eat it up—you’ll even let the person control you if it means getting the love, since you are so starved for it.

Don Miguel Ruiz goes on to describe how we have all the love we need within ourselves, but we do not know this, and instead seek out love from others. The irony is that we are seeking love from others who do not love themselves, so how can they provide us with love?

The moment we recognize that happiness can only come from within, from having self-love (ah, my favorite word!) is the moment we free ourselves from chasing after others for their approval and love. And it is the moment when we can unconditionally give forth love to the world, since we have accessed our inner wellspring of love, and from there we can give from the overflow to others.

That is the Magical Kitchen metaphor in a nutshell! But don’t take my word for it—go out and buy the book yourself! It’s full of so many insights. And if you’re like me and seeking to enhance your self-love and have greater clarity in your relationships and how you relate to the world, this will jump-start your journey and guide you along the way!