Bread

For it being so cold out, we’ve had a surprisingly fun weekend. The girls and I made bread and it was not as hard as I had imagined. I was grabbing a multi-vitamin, when I saw these packets of active dry yeast that I must have panic bought at the start of everything closing up last year. I’ve never made bread in my life or even thought it was an activity I’d want to try.

Good surprise. And, as often is the case, when kids make something…they adore eating it. Even if it is whole wheat flour and quite thick/solid in texture.

I have been continuing with an online review of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Everything sounds fancier than it is…Cognitive Behavioral Therapy basically means that thoughts affect emotions and behavior. Event….thoughts….emotions. Or I’ve seen it also written as: Antecedent….Belief….Consequence. The actual event/antecedent is the only factual piece. The thoughts/beliefs about the event need to be sorted through like old clothes…which ones of these actually fit the facts?

The best example I’ve witnessed/been apart of was nine years ago. (I might have shared this before).

I was picking my 3 year old up from preschool. His sister was just born, and I was hauling in the car seat with the baby inside. My back hurt, because I’ve never really had much for arm strength. When I set the car seat down and was waiting for my little guy to get his coat on, I was staring off thinking, “This is my life now. Exhaustion.” And as I was feeling truly and fully sorry for myself, my son’s preschool teacher walked up and started apologizing to me.

This was profoundly confusing. I had no clue what she was even talking about. Well, at first I didn’t see her there…then her face started to come into focus as my pity party faded and I realized another human being was trying to get my attention.

She was saying something like, “Oh, I was going to make new ones. I’m going to get to those.” She gestured to paper taped on the wall. My eyes followed to my son’s name and the names of the other students. She was apologizing about paper name labels that were hung above the kids’ jackets.

For once, I realized that someone was reacting to my mope-ing expression. It connected that she thought my sad face was about a chore she wanted to get done. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, from her perspective, would line up approximately: Event/Antecedent: My mope face. Thoughts/Belief: This parent things I’m doing a bad job teaching her child. She’s looking at my crumbly old name tags. I am a bad teacher. Why do I even try? Emotion/Consequence: Feeling sad, anxious, apologizing to parent.

Now, I’ve experienced this type of thing many, many, many times in my life. But that was the first time I recognized that other people go through it just the same as me.

If we let our thoughts just run, unchecked, they can lead us down a negative path. Don’t let this happen. I know this time of year can feel long, cold, and rather bleak. But think of all those that love us, and keep trying to question thoughts in order to find the choices that exist in our daily lives.

Make bread. Call people you love. Use the treadmill or pace around the house or look-up, “walking exercise” on Youtube. Look at the calendar and plan for a garden. Keep going, because good things are coming. Love never dies.

All the best to you!

Terra