I don't Just Like Feeling

Saturday, February 16th

During morning meditation, I asked my Spirit Guide Somoya what I needed to know for today.  I then heard an internal voice say, "I don't just like feeling."  

When I heard this message, it didn't feel like a good feeling to begin with.  I woke up feeling pressured, instead of excited.  The last couple of weeks I have had the request from my loved ones to make Lebanese bread.  Today was the day.  They love the bread.  I love it.  Everyone we share it with loves eating the bread too.  The process is time intensive, physically demanding, messy, and produces a great deal of heat.  

I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself, cause it is my grandma's recipe.  It is easy to mess up.  Since I want to share the bread with my wife, son, my dad, and my co-workers, I chose to make a large batch that resulted in 40 loaves.  As a result, it took me most of the day to complete this task:  preparing the bread, baking, and clean up the kitchen with my wife's assistance.  

When making future batches of bread, I hope to get past negative feelings.  I just want to enjoy the process of making, rather than worrying about the results or what others will think of the final product.  When I cook regular meals, I have no anxious feelings or expectations attached to it.  I just get lost in the moment and become creative.  My wife and I enjoy the meals I produce.  

With baking bread, there is pressure to uphold my grandma's recipe that has been passed down to me by my father.  As a result of this feeling, I feel stressed, anxious, and angry at times, when the batch doesn't mix well.  (The worst part is it triggers visuals of when I would bake bread with my father as a child.  I would see and hear how frustrated and mad he would become.  He too put a lot of pressure on himself for the loaves to be perfect.)  In the end, today's batch ended up being one of my better ones.  Every loaf rose, which is a difficult task to accomplish.  

After mixing the batch, my wife validated my feelings and concerns and reassured me it would turn out just fine.  I was very doubtful and stressed out.  Naturally, she was right.  I hope with time I will be able to approach baking like I do cooking:  let go and just have fun!