Whisper #19What If This Is All You Get

My first yoga teacher training was in India almost 10 years ago.

I thought I knew what I signed up for.
Asana.
Breath.
A bit of philosophy I could romanticize.

I did not know I was about to lose my shit over a plate of rice.

Sadhana was at 5:30 a.m.

By 8, after practice, my body was awake and my stomach was roaring.
I was used to eating like a machine.
Protein. Volume. Second servings.
A guy my size doesn’t “sample” food.

Except at the ashram, we didn’t eat at 8.

We went straight into lectures.

By noon, hunger wasn’t hunger anymore.
It was agitation.
It was ego.
It was, why the fuck are we still talking?

At 12, there was an hour of meditation.

I sat there bargaining with God,
resenting enlightenment,
counting minutes like a prisoner.

By 1 p.m., it was finally food time.

The plates were small.
Offensively small.

I remember staring at mine thinking,
This is a starter.

I mentally planned my second round before taking the first bite.

There were no second rounds.

The chef didn’t care how big you were.
Didn’t care if you lifted weights.
Didn’t care what your appetite thought it deserved.

You got what was placed on the plate.
That’s it.

There were rules.

No silverware.
Eat with your hands.

Fine.

Then another rule.

Right hand only.
Left hand behind your back.

Day one: shocked.
Day two: irritated.
Day three: pissed off.

There was no coffee either.

No espresso.
No double shot ritual.
No cigarettes.

I’m the kind of man who measured mornings in caffeine and smoke.

By the end of the first week I was convinced this had been a huge fucking mistake.
Grumpy. Distracted.
Trying to absorb philosophy while fantasizing about omelets.

The teachers watched me unravel and quietly laughed.

And somewhere around day ten, something shifted.

Not spiritually.
Not dramatically.

Just a simple thought:

What if this is all you get?

This portion.
This exact plate.
This day.

Are you going to stay offended?

Because that’s what it was.

Not hunger.

Offense.

Offended that reality didn’t match the picture in my head.

I started eating differently.

Slower.

Every grain of rice deliberate.
Every vegetable tasted like it might not come back.

Food time stopped being compensation.
It became attention.

I wiped the plate clean — not because I was starving —
but because I didn’t want to waste what had been given.

Something in me softened.

Not surrender.

Respect.

Two weeks later we were allowed to leave the ashram.
Cafés.
Fast food.
Coffee.

I walked past them.

Not out of discipline.
Not out of pride.

I just didn’t feel like it.

The hunger had changed shape.

Months later — still traveling — I sat in a small café and ordered an espresso.

I looked at my wallet.

I could order another.
And another.

No one would stop me.

And the thought came back:

Just because you can
doesn’t mean you should.

Now when a cup of coffee lands in my hand,
I pause.

Three seconds.

Because I remember the version of me
who was offended by a small plate of rice.

The version of me
who thought the world should adjust to his appetite.

Fasting was never about feeling someone else’s hunger.
It was about meeting your own.

Meeting the irritation.
The grabbing.
The quiet belief that more is owed.

Sometimes less doesn’t make you weaker.

It makes you free.

And when something finally reaches your hands
coffee, food, a kiss, a quiet morning,
you don’t consume it like it’s owed.

You receive it like it isn’t.

So I’ll leave you with the question that cracked me open:

What are you still convinced
you can’t function without?

With Love & Stillness,
Saf