In yoga theory there's a concept called Ahimsa. It means "non-harming". You can work on this yama, as it's called, on many levels. It's about nonviolence, peaceful thinking, compassion toward others.... and it's also about being kind to yourself.
When my mother was growing up in upper middle class Taiwan, she was blessed to have a lot of household help. That was the norm in the culture she was raised in. She literally never had to learn to cook, clean, drive or even to style her own hair; there were always servants around to do those things for her.
When I was 5 or 6 (we were still living in Taiwan), my grandmother decided that my mother needed to learn to be better at running her own house. She set out to teach my mom to cook.
If you are picturing a nice friendly pot of rice and some vegetables simmering on the stove, think again. My grandmother jumped right into the project. She came home from the market with a live chicken, and ordered my mom into the kitchen. They shut the door.
I lingered, and it wasn't long before I heard a blood curdling scream from the kitchen. The door flung open, and my mother ran out, crying hysterically. The headless, bloody chicken was flying around the kitchen. This is an image I will never get out of my mind.
Needless to say, my mom did not learn to cook that day. But she did eventually learn not only to cook, but to drive and style her own hair. She just did it on her own time. When we moved to the U.S., she quickly realized that she wasn't going to have a lot of servants anymore. My mom is a strong, sink-or-swim type of woman. She swam. And she became a really amazing cook, by the way.
The moral of this story? In my mind, it has nothing to do with the chicken. It has to do with my mom learning to take care of herself and her family. To me, that's ahimsa.
PS As soon as all of her kids moved away from home, my mom stopped cooking. I'm pretty sure she's never cooked a meal since! She eats out pretty much every meal, and she likes it that way.
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