Drink While You Pour
Drink while you pour.
It’s another of my favorite takeaways from my teacher, at home in Atlanta, that also happens to resonate at the personal level for those of us in the wine business.
It’s part of a yogic concept called chidakash, and it turns out to be a cool metaphor when you work in wine.
That’s because we spend an awful lot of time pouring out – giving our time, giving our energy, giving our resources. But we also need to drink while we pour, so that we have something to pour in the first place.
“Drinking” here doesn’t mean actually drinking alcohol, of course. It means doing the things we need to do, in order to continually replenish our personal reservoir. If we don’t, that reservoir will run dry very quickly. If we don’t drink, there won’t be anything to pour.
Here are five ways that I “drink,” in order to be able to pour:
Time alone every day to meditate.
Enough sleep.
Reading, both for pleasure and for information.
Journaling, or free writing.
Travel, for work (usually solo) and for pleasure (usually with my family).
It’s true that most of those things mean time away from my desk, from my husband and from my children. It’s also true that every minute of my time “drinking” makes me better able to “pour” the best of myself, into my family and my work.
It’s a deal that I make every day, to help maintain my own balanced glass.
How about you? I’d love to hear how you manage it.
Namaste,
Cathy
