Monthly Archives: February 2021

Overcoming Mageirocophobia – My fear of cooking

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“No one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.” Julia Child

All my life I suffered from Mageirocophobia. The fear of cooking. My mind moved into panic mode whenever I knew I had to cook anything. According to my research about the subject, I had two of the underlying fears associated with this phobia: the fear of serving inedible food and a fear of recipes. I worried so much that my food would be tasteless even if I followed all the steps, I either missed something or added it twice. The social consequences were devastating. I was embarrassed to bring the paper plates or Pepsi to a potluck because I wasn’t able to cook anything. While my children were growing up, anxiety and guilt burdened me since I couldn’t provide a variety of healthy meals for them. As you can see, this problem can be quite debilitating.

I have been dealing with my cooking phobia for as long as I can remember. I am tired of thinking about it. The bottom line is: I hate to cook. I avoid looking at my reflection in the oven door and I have been telling friends and family for years that it just isn’t my thing. And it worked! They knew I couldn’t be in the kitchen, so everyone else cooked for me. In addition, my cooking disasters were well-known (mostly because I spoke of them so often). There was the time when I was in high school…a friend and I decided to make brownies from a mix to welcome back a classmate after a year-long absence. Somehow, I added too many eggs and stirred. Well, too late to take that extra egg out and the brownies came out hard as a rock. I remember standing there in disbelief that I could even mess up something as simple as a mix. We ended up going empty-handed to the reunion.

Over time, my cooking phobia colored all of my kitchen experiences. I was sure before I even cracked the first egg or fried the onion that the dish would be a total disaster. I dreaded the whole idea of it before I started and then was in a frenzy while I was doing it. I didn’t want anyone to help me, including my children. They did involve themselves in the process, but I made it so unpleasant it’s a wonder they ever helped me again. I could sense the exasperation and eye-rolling from them whenever I complained of my lack of prowess with spices. Actually, my family is lucky we live in Kuwait and are able to have a cook, otherwise, they would have starved. Sounds very dramatic, but that has been my “modus operandi” for most of my life. Until recently. I realized that I had been able to overcome so many other obstacles in my life and just my kitchen phobia remained, so it became my newest life challenge. I had to stop hiding under the kitchen table and face my fears head-on.

As always, I analyzed my situation. First, I had to get to the root of it all. Basically, why did I believe so strongly that it was my mother’s fault? She was the one that dominated the family kitchen while I was growing up, that’s true. She did hover and direct me whenever I attempted to bake or cook anything. But my little sister had turned out alright; she loves to cook. I guessed she must be a natural or lucky-she got the cooking gene from my mom. Then again, that couldn’t be it because when the spirit moves me and I am in the mood to cook, everyone says that my food is delicious. During the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, my family was in Spain. I learned to cook Kuwaiti dishes and made English muffins and Lebanese bread in the oven. It was out of necessity since my husband only cooked one meat and rice dish and the children and I were so bored of the same food every day. Maybe I wasn’t a natural at it, but when I tried and my heart was in it, I did alright. That led me to the realization that maybe I had created the problem, not my mother, not my genes. It was my lack of self-confidence that hobbled me. Constantly comparing my cooking to my mother’s and sister’s dishes didn’t help. So, after more than 50 years of blaming my poor mother, I admitted my own failings. As soon as I did, my confidence began to build.

In 2008, I spent Ramadan with my parents in the United States. After 60 years of marriage and almost daily preparation of meals, my mother had stopped cooking every day. Since I was fasting and needed to have more than a salad to break my fast, I realized I needed to cook my own meals. I felt so much more relaxed in the kitchen. When my mother tried to direct me, I was able to steadfastly hold my own. When she hovered, I realized she was trying to see how I was doing things since the food was different. I didn’t take it as undermining my ability. When I added the meat before the tomato paste, I didn’t throw the spoon and get frustrated. I kept on stirring and when I was finished and sat down to eat, I made mental notes about how I could improve the dish the next time I made it.

Last Spring, I was living with my mother for two months while I waited to find a way to return to Kuwait during the height of the pandemic lockdowns. We decided to buy an instant pot, a pressure cooker that made making meals much easier and quicker. For the first time in our lives, my mother and I were cooking together. We figured out a way to divide up the tasks and have fun while we were prepping our meals. When I finally returned to Kuwait at the end of April, I had more confidence in my ability to cook a variety of meals. Cooking has been my distraction from sitting in front of the computer screen, and it’s become enjoyable! I bought an instant pot and am making apple sauce, cottage cheese, soup, and look forward to making other recipes. I have also made lasagna, cheesecake, ice cream, granola, and chocolate chip cookies. All turned out delicious according to friends and family. I am grateful I overcame my Mageirocophobia! In a year of uncertainty and not being able to travel to see my children, mom, sister, brother, and friends, cooking has become a lifesaver for me. It has taught me that reflecting on why I’m feeling a certain way that is negative, I am usually able to focus on how to overcome the feeling. I do wish I could have figured this out when my children were younger and still at home; however, my eldest and youngest love to cook, and my middle child prefers others to cook for him, but he doesn’t have any negative emotions connected to cooking. Hopefully, I will have a chance to visit them soon, so I can cook with them, happily.

Love story – How we met

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Buncee depicting my sweetheart and me on a boat in Dubai. Hearts and lovebirds surround us. Kuwait Towers, symbol of Kuwait and Niagara Falls symbolizing Buffalo, NY

In March 1978, I met my soulmate and the love of my life. He was a Kuwaiti graduate student completing his intensive English requirement before starting his graduate studies in Oral Pathology when we met by accident at our university’s student center. I had already been accepted into an MBA program in Miami, Florida which meant I was moving from Buffalo, New York where I grew up and we met. At the time, I definitely wasn’t looking to meet a life partner. Little did I know…

I often met my girlfriend, a fellow student at the university, in the student center on the North campus. She tutored foreign students in the intensive English program at the university in her free time and on that particular day, as we walked by one of the tables, she stopped to say hello to some of the students she knew. This group happened to be mostly Arabic speakers and were soon joined by a short, rather shy young man who looked older than the undergraduate students we’d been chatting with. It turns out, he was a graduate student and also taking the English course before entering his full-time Oral Pathology degree program. He shyly said hello to everyone and mentioned he was heading home in his car if any of the students needed a ride. As they left, my friend and I said goodbye. We didn’t think anything else about the encounter until a few days later when we bumped into some of the same students at a Lebanese restaurant near another part of the campus. After greeting each other and sharing which foods were our favorites, the short grad student invited my girlfriend and me to his apartment for a gathering of some friends. We told him we’d try to attend since we were looking for a bit of socializing in our free time.

The gathering was small and it was only six more weeks before I moved to Miami, Florida for grad school, so I was social but not very involved in a conversation with any of the guests except my friend. Then the shy, short grad student came over to me and asked me if I was enjoying the party. I didn’t want to seem unfriendly, so I told him I was interested in knowing more about where he was from. As an undergraduate history major, I enjoyed learning about different places, the culture, and customs. In my new friend’s case, I knew where Kuwait was on the map, but I didn’t know much more than that. In rather broken English, he told me about Kuwait and asked questions to get to know me. I still wasn’t interested in any kind of relationship but was happy to have someone to chat with. As a shy 22-year-old, I felt awkward in social situations, but there was something about this shy Kuwaiti that made me feel less awkward. Before we left the party, he invited my friend and me to an international student activity the following week. Suffice it to say, by the time I left for Miami we were more than just friends.

The year I spent in Miami was filled with studying and working part-time to support myself. It was also a year of long-distance phone calls and snail mail including postcards. I had decided I didn’t want to travel during my December holiday because I was working and also hated the snowy, cold weather in Buffalo. Instead, my boyfriend flew to Miami to visit me. We enjoyed our time together and became closer. I admired his caring towards me and compassion towards others. He told me he had two more years to complete his graduate program and then he would move back to Kuwait. Although I had deep feelings for him, I couldn’t imagine myself moving so far away from home, something that was always in the back of my mind. Moving forward in our relationship seemed out of reach.

Towards the end of my degree program, I began looking for a job. I preferred to stay in the southern United States where it was warmer and there were more opportunities for employment. I settled on an offer from a bank in Atlanta, Georgia. My boyfriend visited me there and we continued to keep in touch on the phone. After about a year in Atlanta, my boyfriend, who was close to finishing his degree, proposed to me. He initially said he could make a life in America but it would make more sense if we were both in the same place while he completed his degree. At the time, I wasn’t very happy at my job, so even though I said I would never move back to Buffalo, I resigned from my job, took a job in a bank in Buffalo, and headed home. Within a year, my fiance had completed his degree and moved back to Kuwait. In spite of thinking he could manage life in America, he returned home. His mother became ill and he needed to be back in Kuwait to travel with her to Germany for treatment. I had already quit my job and packed my worldly possessions to follow him and get married there, but plans were put on hold until he returned from Germany. In the meantime, many of my friends told me I shouldn’t trust him to follow through on his promise. However, I believed him and in the six years we had been together, he’d never given a reason to doubt his promise.

At the end of September 1984, he called me from Kuwait and told me he was arranging a flight to London where we would meet up after almost a year apart and spend a few days before heading to Kuwait. I appreciated the chance to break up the trip and to see a place I’d always dreamed of visiting. Our days in London were spent enjoying live theater, visiting museums, and eating yummy food at wonderful restaurants. Then it was time to travel to Kuwait to get married and settle down. It wasn’t the first time I had been to Kuwait. My fiance invited me to see his home and meet his family in 1980 to make sure it was a place I would be happy. Truth be told, I would have been happy anywhere as long as we were together.

It has been more than thirty-six years since I moved to Kuwait and I have never regretted my decision. My husband and I have had our ups and downs like all married couples, but our friendship and love for each other has carried us through every difficult situation. If you had told me in February 1978 that I would be living in Kuwait and returning to Buffalo, New York in the middle of winter to visit my family who still lives there, I wouldn’t have believed you. But that’s exactly what happened and because I feel a sense of belonging in both places, I feel fulfilled and so blessed.

Fact: Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not a pyramid

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Abraham Maslow and Transcendence

Guess what? Abraham Maslow didn’t create a pyramid to symbolize the hierarchy of needs because he didn’t believe the needs were linear steps. If you’re interested in a more detailed description, stay tuned for my book that will be published by EduMatchⓇ later this year.

The phrase Maslow Before Bloom has become very popular in light of an increased focus on social and emotional learning (SEL) and trauma-informed pedagogy. Educators believe that focusing on, and following Maslow’s hierarchy will support children’s need to feel safe and will set them up for success in their learning. However, while educators might know about Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they might not be aware that Maslow did not visualize his theory of motivation as a pyramid. According to Scott Barry Kaufman, in his book, Transcend (2020), the pyramid and hierarchy of needs were created by a management consultant in the 1960s and became popular in organizational behavior courses at business schools.

Kaufman spent years researching Maslow’s work, including unpublished letters and papers. Maslow understood there was no linear path to achieving self-actualization. His notes show his belief that people flow in and out of the different levels depending on their life circumstances and experiences. Maslow was the founder of the humanistic psychology movement that focuses on the whole person and includes self-efficacy, maximizing our potential that leads us to wellbeing. Unfortunately, what we learned in our Introduction to Psychology course about Maslow’s theory was not exactly what he wrote about or believed. Due to his death at age 62, Maslow never completed his research, so Kaufman searched through his published and unpublished writings to make sense of Maslow’s theory. Below is a table that compares general misconceptions about Maslow’s theory and what Kaufman (2020) found out.
 

The hierarchy of needs is step by step; we need to reach one before we can go to the next There is no hierarchy since we can go back and forth between different needs throughout our lives. 
The ultimate goal in Maslow’s hierarchy is to reach self-actualization, defined as living to your highest individual potential Maslow believed those who were most self-actualized pursued their life’s purpose; something they are devoted to, a goal that is very important to them. 
The  needs were individualistic as the ultimate goal Maslow believed humans seek connection and community and what humans have most uniquely to contribute to this world.
The needs are mentally prioritized in order of importance Maslow didn’t create a pyramid. It was created by business school professors to help students understand humanistic psychology as it relates to organizational behavior. 
We begin with a deficit mindset: The first four needs (physiological, safety, belonging, self-esteem) can all be considered deprivation needs. If these needs are not satisfied, those shortcomings will motivate people to focus on meeting their highest-priority needs. Maslow realized the needs were not independent of each other since people can work on needs simultaneously. 
Maslow’s theory was not based on much research, it was more of a philosophy Maslow’s work was very well researched including his interest in the work of Carl Rogers, Alfred Adler, Ruth Benedict, and Max Wertheimer. He also conducted numerous studies and spent time learning about indigenous practices from the Blackfoot Confederation in Canada. 

Maslow did not believe human needs are hierarchical or isolated from each other. According to Maslow, “The human needs are arranged in an integrated hierarchy rather than dichotomously, that is, they rest one upon another. . . . This means that the process of regression to lower needs remains always as a possibility…” (Kaufman, p. xxviii) For example, children whose parents were affected by the adverse economic situation during the pandemic in 2020 were fed, clothed, and had a roof over their heads until their family was unable to purchase food for the month after their father lost his job. According to the World Food Program (WFP), (t)he coronavirus pandemic will see more than a quarter of a billion people suffering acute hunger by the end of (2020)”. Perhaps they had food security prior to the pandemic so their basic physiological needs were satisfied, but now they are worried about where their next meal will come from or going without food for several days. In this case, their basic needs become the focus even though they were already feeling secure and had self-esteem before the crisis.

A closer look at the first three tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy shows they are all part of feeling safe and self-confident which is essential to belonging and the basis for wellbeing. He also believed people are motivated to reach self-actualization. This has always been understood to be an individual endeavor; however, Maslow’s writings towards the end of his life mention transcendence. Transcendence relates to what is known as being in the zone or a state of flow that leads to peak experiences like an altered state of total absorption in what you’re doing or creating with effortless concentration.

Transcendent experiences are the focus of such a wide variety of world cultures — notably Eastern cultures and shamanistic traditions — that it would be an omission to ignore such a pursuit from any model of human development, like the hierarchy of needs. In his later thinking, Maslow realized how to reconcile the Western, individual-centric idea of self-actualization and the Eastern traditions of altered states or meditation. (Big Think, 2019)

According to Kaufman,

(t)ranscendence… rests on a secure foundation of both security and growth, is a perspective in which we can view our whole being from a higher vantage point with acceptance, wisdom, and a sense of connectedness with the rest of humanity. (p. xxxiv)

Not everyone reaches transcendence. There is an elusive nature about being in flow, unaware of anything happening around you. Kaufman (2020) explains, “Self-actualizing people are, without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin, in something outside of themselves. They are devoted, working at something, something which is very precious to them—some calling or vocation in the old sense.” In the last years of his life, Maslow described transcendence as the peak experience of being “fully human.” We can only reach it if we find our purpose and passion; that is, our personal self-actualization and the ability to see how our endeavors connect to and support our community and the common good.

Sources:
Anthem, P. (2020, April 16). Risk of hunger pandemic as coronavirus set to almost double acute hunger by end of 2020. World Food Program. https://www.wfp.org/stories/risk-hunger-pandemic-coronavirus-set-almost-double-acute-hunger-end-2020
Davis, M. (2019, September 9). What does self-actualization mean in different cultures? Big Think. https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/cross-cultural-self-actualization?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2

Kaufman, S. B. (2020). Transcend. Penguin Random House, LLC. https://leen.loc.gov/2019055448

Kaufman, S. B. (2019, April 23). Who created Maslow’s iconic pyramid? Scientific American. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/who-created-maslows-iconic-pyramid