Courage Is Like Cauliflower…
By: Murphy Brittany Gould
Tags: Food, Mental Health, Courage, Reflections, Decisions

By Brittany Gould – Extract from my blog

Cauliflower, the tiny white tree looking vegetable who seems to live as a rip-off version of broccoli. It used to be presented in front of me at the dinner table. Without hesitation I could clear every item left on my plate… except the cauliflower. It didn’t matter that I had drowned it in tomato sauce, even just the sight of it made my nose scrunch up and mouth pucker up like a cat’s bum. Finally after letting it go stone cold and exhausting my options of tantrum, begging, acting sick and negotiating, I would take a deep breath and chomp down while plotting my call to child services because surely being made to eat something other than chicken nuggets would be considered child abuse. As I look back now I realise that I may have been slightly dramatic in my views on this vegetable, and that believe it or not it has become one of my favourite foods now as a grown up. Roasted, mashed, steamed and baked… oh and let’s not forget cauliflower rice which has taken the world by storm. This once rejected veggie has now risen to the top as it flaunts itself in its many forms.

Before I go on for too long about ways to eat cauliflower, let me get to my point and expand on yet another one of my analogies. Over the past few weeks, I have been faced with the adult-life version of choosing whether or not to chomp down on some cauliflower. In this circumstance, it came down to some decisions about my career path and it brought on a lot of anxiety because, well we don’t want to make the wrong decisions in life, and it’s hard sometimes understanding which option classifies as the wrong one. It was a classic conundrum between my head and my heart. One option was to go back to the job I had lost previously due to the virus, which I really considered because it felt comfortable and ranked higher in the list of most practical and financially secure. The other option was purely based on my heart, choosing options that feed my passions and force me to push harder on the things I love like helping others, and of course writing.

As I sat at the table, laptop in front of me, I typed a letter outlining my plans to not return to the office. I kept it open on my screen for what felt like hours, the screen itself watching me, watch it. It took a glass of wine (okay two) and multiple pep talks to hit the little send button that would shoot it off in a neat little email. My predicament felt a lot like when I would be looking at the cold piece of cauliflower mocking me from my plastic Barbie Princess plate. The options were clear, if I didn’t eat the cauliflower, I wouldn’t have to feel the discomfort that comes with eating a food you don’t like. I also wouldn’t be setting myself up to eat future cauliflower by showing that I could indeed eat it without dropping dead. The other option involved swallowing the pride I would lose, being the one to cave first in the dinner table war, along with literally swallowing the worst thing on the planet (at that time). But if I summoned the bravery to eat it, I would finally be excused from the dinner table, and I could maybe still score some dessert with some good grovelling.

It’s comfort vs. discomfort and even still as a fully grown woman, I sometimes struggle with picking comfort because hey, it’s less anxiety most of the time. And as I sat here wondering if I should pick passion over practicality I realised that I needed to grow some courage, and eat the damn cauliflower. Which in this circumstance was to advise that I wouldn’t be going back to my standard job in administration. I felt uncomfortable and anxious in doing so, the literal act of sending an email sent me into a complete panic spiral and I contemplated just going back to my desk job and turning a blind eye to my dreams and goals, purely so I didn’t have to feel the anxiety of taking a huge chance in changing my direction. As the anxiety calmed down and I digested the above mentioned metaphoric cauliflower, I realised that the reason why I felt so anxious and uncomfortable when making the choice to pick my heart, was because it took courage. It takes courage to push yourself to do something you feel that you can’t because of a list of reasons your own brain created. It takes courage to acknowledge what you want, and it takes courage to take steps towards it. Most of all it takes courage to push through a task or a moment, despite the anxiety that points you in the other direction. So if anyone is facing making tough decisions that fall into comfort vs. discomfort I urge you to trust yourself and pick the choice that excites you most, even if it is uncomfortable. Anxiety shouldn’t mean you live a life with no excitement, risk or chance. So I urge you to eat the cauliflower, because you might end up loving it.