The Story in My Head

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I am married to a chef. He can make some amazing meals. My absolute favorite is his mac and cheese. I am so thankful to be married to him because it takes some of the pressure off me to always have hot food on the table. I hear all the time that I should be so happy to be married to a chef because of all the wonderful food he must make for me all the time.

Welllllll, yes, and no. While I have some amazing food made for me, I do not get it all the time because the last thing he wants to do when he comes home from work is to stay in the kitchen and make another meal. That’s a whole other blog post though.

My attempts at cooking

This post is about my cooking. About how everything I try to cook ends up burnt, over seasoned, under seasoned, inedible, or just not good. Mike and I have a running joke that my cooking will one day either put us in the hospital or kill us. I am beginning to learn how to tell when something isn’t good. He will try a few bites and then put his plate of food on the side table and try to engage me in conversation in order to distract me. Sometimes, he won’t even give the dog my attempts at dinner.

This morning I attempted to make bacon, eggs, and toast. I had the bacon in the oven, the eggs were just finishing up, and the toast just popped out of the toaster. When I checked the bacon it was still a bit limp and needed just a little bit more time. I finished up the eggs, buttered the toast, and check on the bacon again. It was beyond burnt. Smoke filled up the kitchen as I took the pan out of the oven. The smoke detector starts going off, the dog starts barking, and Mike comes into the kitchen with a HUGE grin on his face, “Breakfast ready?”

I want to be a good cook, I really do. I follow accounts on social media that give step by step instructions and I think to myself, “I can make that.” The dish ends up being a complete disaster. I will research a dish for hours. I will look up different recipes online. I will watch videos on YouTube. I will call and endlessly text Mike about what ingredients to buy or how would he cut the chicken so it cooks right. Side note, cutting chicken on the bias while it is slathered in olive oil is not something I would recommend for those who have never done it before.

I have been working on making chorizo chicken for three days. The first delay came after I didn’t get the right kind of melting cheese. Then I went back to the store for tortilla chips and enchilada sauce. Mike: “Why did you get enchilada sauce, are we having enchiladas?” I still haven’t found that right cheese, but I did get two cans of nacho cheese. Today I made it my mission to go out to ALL the stores to find the right kind of cheese. A hurricane/tropical storm was not going to stop me from, but then Mike had to stay on base and I ended up having chicken tenders and fries. Maybe we’ll have it tomorrow night.

The story in my head

The story in my head is that I am a bad chef. When I burnt the bacon, this story was reinforced. When I buy the wrong ingredients or also slice my hand open this story is reinforced. It would be so easy for me to give up and stick to microwaving hot pockets when Mike isn’t home. Our brains like to focus on a piece of information and create entire scenarios around that single bit of “facts.” If I tell myself that there are too many white cars on the roads, every time I see a white car that story becomes part of my story. I begin to only focus on white cars and ignore all the other colors of cars. Nevermind that my husband drives a black car, we had silver and red cars before.

I have so many clients meet with me and present so much information and “evidence” that they are bad moms. Maybe they are tired of playing supermom who is trying to juggle being full-time caretaker, work from home, referee, chef, chauffeur, teacher, playmate, house cleaner, and all the other tasks that we give ourselves. Maybe they snapped at their kids or fussed at their partner when they lost their patience. Maybe they are tired of dealing with the uncertainty of what is going to happen with school and how are they going to make the impossible decision about what to do.

I am going to encourage you to really pay attention to the story that you are creating about your life. What is the “evidence?”

Me burning the bacon is just one piece of information. I can take it and run with it and create the story that I can’t cook and just give up and eat hot pockets for the rest of my life, or I can lean into the discomfort and keep trying. By now, I’m pretty good about scrambling eggs. We’ll deal with the bacon another day.

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Amy Jackson
Amy Jackson is a Licensed Professional Counselor and is the owner of Sweetgrass Counseling (www.sweetgrasscounselingsc.com). Amy works with moms and moms to be to realize that while being a mom is hard, it doesn’t have to suck. She provides a safe space to talk about mom guilt, how to manage expectations of being mom, and provides practical tips that you can use when you are awake at 2:47am scrolling through social media imagining how you are going to screw up your kiddos. Amy and her husband Mike have 4 kids ranging from 7-18. She enjoys all things Bravo with a glass of wine while half-heartedly listening to the youngest chatter about Minecraft and Fortnight.