Meet Udenie Wickramasinghe

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Udenie Wickramasinghe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Udenie, thanks for taking the time to share your lessons with our community today. So, let’s jump right in – one of the most essential skills for unlocking our potential is self-discipline. Where does your self-discipline come from?
I have often suffered within set rules of life; repetitiveness, routine or having to follow others. My life was successful as a woman, a mother and a wife in today’s social standards and my religious upbringing forced me to “be happy with what I have” and bury any unhappiness because if you do complain you are just being ungrateful. I wish I was taught to be open, people around me were forgiving and accepting. When I was sinking in depression I wish they at least noticed me, not depend on what I give or drain me even further. I was deeply unfulfilled and felt unloved. This was a war I fought spiritually while I kept at my responsibilities, I was home to everyone. I was structured, disciplined even as a child. There was a life to be lived in my head. Somewhere in a new form.

I have tried to understand this miraculous formula of success that worked on highly successful people in my life.

They all had a few things in common. They could make it look easy, their work never seemed like work, they are less bothered by society, they are free in ways ordinary people never experience freedom. They have impeccable work ethics. They willingly skipped holidays, missed family time. They were happy and complete without any regrets. The world around them didn’t matter at all. I know it sounds quite extreme but these are the reasons why they are high achievers. I don’t see myself in such extremes but I learned that I have to live and breathe what I want, what I love, and work on it every day, consistently. No matter how small these efforts were I moved with enthusiasm, courage and hard work. In order to find that life purpose I was forced to remove everything that held me down, I taught myself to be extremely disciplined.

In this journey, there was criticism, hatred and guilt caused by family and friends, however, what I most felt was spiritual bullying people were so good at in my culture. Just because I wanted something different or being the opposite of the norm, I was brutally dissected in layers of humiliation and inhumanity. People in my life portrayed their “righteous” self while living a lie and I understood that it was crucial to focus on myself to beat such phoniness. In order to battle in such a spiritual warfare, I stood still in my beliefs. Negativity, openly directed hatred and jealousy became a driving force to succeed which eventually helped me build stamina and grit. It was such a life experience. Once I trained myself to work on what matters it eventually disqualified the noise around me. Having goals for myself every day and work on an idea is how I keep up with creativity. Passion is extremely positive energy, what drives me excites me. When your life flows in its natural form, things are easy. I do not live to please others anymore. I am extremely disciplined in my new found freedom because I really fought to get there.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am the creator of Mindful Eats Table. It’s a vegan/vegetarian cooking service only caters for private clientele. This is still my day job. Then I moved onto hosting a monthly vegetarian supper club which is transforming into a pop up event starting from this month.

I promote vegetarian food not because I am anti meat. I grew up in a vegan, vegetarian home and this is what I know best. Living in this great country for two decades has given me so much in life. You are allowed to be who you are as an artist and I feel that I am blessed with this never ending flow of inspiration and opportunity.

After the pandemic, our way of eating has changed. A group of people took the time to cook a meal, share with family and really engage with each other. That created core memories and a new way of life. And the other group realized that eating habits got worsened with this extra time given. A lot of sitting around and life came down to sitting in front of the computer for hours, a bag of chips and then movies till early morning. This wasn’t just stress eating, mainly it was boredom. I felt that promoting a plant based diet will have a crucial role in this new transformation. If we eat better we have less health concerns, our overall outlook for life is much healthier. Mindful Eats Table was embraced by the clients and we had time to talk about ingredients and experiment creatively in the kitchen.

I host a vegetarian supper club every month at home, you can join me via Meetup. It’s only for 15 people a month, It’s a home cooked meal I prepare using locally sourced ingredients and the menu is based on seasonal produce. Guests gather around my community table, share this meal, build lasting friendships and leave feeling revitalized. We are losing this kind of human interaction so understanding how food is inherently impactful is a key to build an amazing brand.

I am hosting my very first pop up restaurant in February and it will also continue monthly. I have formed my very first team for this event. I hope to fully explore my South Asian roots as a cook and introduce exotic flavors to the public. I feel Miami is ready for a brand new way of eating. This will run as a creative lab for a year. Join my Mindful Eats Table pop up on Eventbrite and Meetup.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I feel that resilience, self-discipline and hard work is vital in my journey. I have built something out of nothing. When people lost their jobs, I could make a brand new living. It was about looking at big failures, stepping back and facing these new realities with a new set of eyes. It’s really hard to focus when there is so much noise around you so you need to eliminate negativity and criticism at very early stage. If you keep comparing yourself with others you will never get where you want to be.

Whatever the area of your interest must feel like play. I have tried many creative outlets but cooking was always in me which is the biggest reason I never acknowledged it as a skill. Cooking comes to me effortlessly, feeding people is what I have always done, wowing a crowd with a great meal and making people welcome was in my blood. I took a lot of detours in life to finally isolate what I was so good at. Once I found it I grew organically. I learned to build and I found a way to sell my skill, this is why Mindful Eats Table is growing consistently.

I never give myself a title because I feel the moment I restrict myself in a role I limit my creativity. More than a cook I call myself a creator or an artist. Not having a formal culinary education has given me freedom to make all the mistakes and also the space to come up with new ideas. I don’t have to follow anyone, what’s hot and trendy out there or focus on “fine dining” is never my thing. I want to create an experience, encourage intellectual conversations, a fantastic meal that makes you feel nourished and people must feel that they are taken care of when they leave my table.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
The biggest area of growth in me was understanding how my identity plays a huge role in my strengths or hinder seeing reality in life. Our ego is a killer. It wants the “best” for you, this creates tension and stress in our body. We pick up certain habits along the way as a result of living an ego driven life “my name is Udenie and this is who I am. I like a life that is organized, predictable, routine based, no surprises, and more than anything I want results!” This way of thinking has put me in so much stress. I was stressed when I couldn’t feed my kids on time, if they didn’t read the required hours for the day or days spent doing nothing wasn’t even considered productive. I suffered so much because of this regimented life I was in. I was made to yield results. Everything around me reinforced this behavior. This took away joy from my heart, I was stagnant and stifling for a long time. I was suicidal. I was suicidal because there was so much hope and creativity inside me waiting to see the daylight but the structured life said no.

Cleaning up myself from this rigidity and have fluidity was everything: enjoying a day without any work, going on a holiday without kids, and be truthful and honest about trauma and lessons learned restructured my life in a way I have completely let go of the woman I was and accepted this free spirited woman who was buried inside me for a longtime. Balance is the key. I work on myself tirelessly so rather than accepting the life the way it is I changed my ego drastically. “I want to be happy and I will find a way” this is my mantra. This is enlightening. I enjoy parenting more than ever, I have time for friends and family, I have time for myself, my creativity has given me a future that is filled with hopes and dreams.

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Udenie Wickramasinghe

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