Fall in Love on Purpose
Using the Avocado Technique
Some years ago, I worked in an office with a guy who loved avocados.
I tried avocados once and found them bland. I didn’t like the taste, and I didn’t like the texture. I didn’t like the messy job of peeling and cutting avocados. Not to mention they were rather expensive most of the year.
Similarly, I didn’t quite get how people could drink green tea.
I watched my husband drink green tea every morning, carefully putting green tea leaves in a small pot, pouring hot water, waiting four minutes to get the right taste, then stirring it in the pot and waiting another minute. Then pouring it into a cup.
Tea bags? Ha ha, don’t be silly, Mariana, they don’t taste as well as leaf tea does especially when it’s done properly in a tea pot that hasn’t been washed with detergents for years so it keeps the original green tea taste.
For me, green tea — bags or leaves — tasted bland and smelled like fish. My reluctance to follow the sacred long-winded process of making tea in a pot made me feel somewhat unsophisticated.
But that was Okay.
What made me feel even less sophisticated and very annoyed was that both my colleague and my husband got to like those foods as adults. That said, they seemed to be genuinely enjoying those foods and didn’t consume them just because social media said it was healthy to consume them.
The push
As I was going through a minor existential crisis realizing that I obviously wasn’t as strong-willed and advanced in my personal development as I thought I was, my husband zoomed in on me and said in his usual nonchalant manner:
Why are you worrying yourself about it? Just have green tea every morning for six months and then you will get to like it.
Then he zoomed out and appeared to be done with the conversation. I could clearly see that he didn’t have much faith in my motivation and determination.
I remembered that long time ago one of my male colleagues who was much older than me and running 40km a week just for fun, used the same ‘no-faith in Mariana’s determination’ tone to tell me I would never start running.
Just relax and accept that you’ll never do it, Mariana, will you?
So, husband’s tone worked as a trigger. Enough was enough. Yes, I know I’m a very laid-back person, but they don’t have to remind me about that again and again, right?
Yeah, right. How come I can’t do something that another has done?
The green tea challenge
Anyone who ever forced themselves into a habit would know that eating something you strongly dislike every day is a torture.
I can tell you that forcing myself to a smelly cup of green tea every morning for six months didn’t lift my mood.
The following several months, every morning I sat there with a cup of green tea, feeling sorry for myself, being grumpy with the whole world and especially with my husband who sat next to me, calmly and happily sipping his green tea.
And let’s get real: it took me about eight to nine months to go from literally crying when I was drinking green tea to quietly suffering and then to almost not noticing what I was drinking — before I could finally feel something that slightly resembled enjoyment.
The real switch happened one bright Saturday morning, when I was still on autopilot, made myself a cup of green tea and realized I actually loved it.
Nowadays I can’t even imagine my mornings without a cup of green tea.
Back to avocados
Some months later, when I fully recovered after the green tea saga, I used the same process to get to like avocados.
I called that process my Avocado Technique as a reminder of the absolutely bland fruit which I now find absolutely delicious.
My Avocado Technique goes something along these lines:
- Hush the mind (the mind only processes what it knows, e.g. the old biases and triggers).
- Get curious and experimental, but let emotions out (don’t pretend it’s fun, false positivity isn’t helpful).
- Don’t be kind to yourself (skipping a morning or two will only prolong the torture).
These days, I can’t imagine my mornings without green tea and my salads without avocados.
Oh, and I don’t put sugar in my black tea anymore.
Who drinks black tea with sugar anyway, Mariana? Didn’t you know sugar ruins the taste of the tea?
Who knows, my next little challenge might be sugarless espresso.
Those little personal wins did miracles to my self-confidence. But then I thought, why not take this to a higher and more complicated level?
No matter how painstaking it can be to change a lifestyle habit, it’s nothing compared to changing my attitude towards a toxic person.
Avocados don’t talk back, don’t rub me up the wrong way, don’t use my emotional triggers against me and don’t annoy me with strong views and silly ideas.
Disclaimer: A toxic person for me is someone I perceive as toxic. No explanation required. Period.
So, I kept experimenting.
Humans
Once my client invited me to work on an exciting and challenging project. A bit later my client invited — to work on the same project — an old acquaintance of mine.
Some years ago, I had a professional fallout with that person and our relationship went sour. We also had very different, if not extremely opposite, personalities.
I braced myself.
Self-control was vital. People didn’t need to see my true temperamental personality tempted to throw plates at people who drove me crazy. Plus, the person might have changed, right?
I soon realized I was too optimistic about my self-control and about the other person.
We both were stubborn, we left burnt bridges behind, we had hurt egos, different ways of doing things and opposing strong views on everything. We were rapidly heading straight into a brick wall. There was a risk that we could take the team down with us.
I was professional enough to realize that my client didn’t want to deal with two grown up individuals throwing temper tantrums like two-year-olds. I was old enough to know that I couldn’t force another person to change.
So, there was only one factor left in the equation that I could change, and that was my own attitude.
I applied my Avocado Technique to my relationship with that person:
- Hushed my mind. The mind is simply a computer wired to process old mental patterns. Who cares what the mind thinks?
- Stayed curious about the person — asking questions. But let emotions out, in a civilized way, keeping open communication lines. Then let them out in my backyard garden in a not so civilized way.
- Kept persevering no matter how hard I wanted to avoid the person. I reminded myself of the higher goal; surely it was more important than my little loud ego.
No, we didn’t become best friends. But we managed to get the work done without our client noticing the drama.
We also managed to get our relationship to a stage where we’re genuinely happy to see each other and enjoy each other’s company. To this day.
That one was a much bigger win for me than getting myself to like green tea. And sometimes I think, whatever next?
Someone might ask, why even bother? I’ll say, because I can.
