What pizza teaches us about self actualization for women.
Today’s mess: Digging in to a freshly delivered pizza only to have all the gooey delicious cheese slide right off.
Any other impatient eaters out there?
In my haste to eat the gooey-goodness, I neglected to let the melty cheese settle and reform. The result was eating a cheese-less pizza slice or scooping up the molten cheese and attempting to piece it back together while carefully navigating it to my mouth.
The Science of Cheese
Intrigued by this phenomena, I researched the science of melting cheese. I’ve got to say the process behind cheese cooking is complex. I learned that cheese is an emulsion of dairy fat and water held together by proteins. When it warms the fat reaches a liquid state making the cheese more pliable and liking to slip off the sauce covered pizza dough. When the cheese cools, the fat becomes solid and holds in place better on top of the pizza.
Rushing Through Life without Self Actualization
It was at this moment of my research that I wondered how many other things in my life I have rushed and caused to be cheese-less due to my impatience. I feel that one of the most challenging parts of personal development and self actualization for women is being patient for it to take place. When we find ourselves being transformed and made pliable by high heat situations, we want to move on immediately. We don’t want to sit basking in the high heat and wait for the cheese bubbles to settle. We want to move on. We want to eat. We want to enjoy the deliciousness.
Self actualization for women looks different throughout the seasons of women’s lives but the overall definition rests in the realization or the fulfillment of one’s talents. Women desire different forms of self-fulfillment in different seasons of their lives. Sometimes our schedules are busier than we want them to be. Check out my post on that fiasco here.
Delayed Gratification of Self Actualization
Consider the college graduate, who is hungry to start her new career and make her mark in the world. She is young and idealistic. Her work experience is limited, but her work ethics are strong. I’ve been that young woman before. I yearned to shake up the world of education and make students who hated learning, love my classroom. I wanted to eat my pizza right away, but first I had to endure the fire of my first year teaching. I didn’t believe them when they told me that my first year of teaching would be hard. I worked diligently in my Master’s Program to hone my skills and understanding of teaching my content and developing classroom management. None of that however prepared me for the intricacies of what I took to be a phenomenal teacher.
Settle In and Cool
I had to settle in and cool for the next few years before I was able to reach the fulfillment of inspiring young teenage minds. Fun teaching fact-it takes five years to become a great teacher. That’s roughly 5,000 hours of teaching. Time. That was the only thing that could get me to keep the cheese on my pizza.
Now pizza, even without cheese is still good. It feeds a hungry belly. It gets the job done when you are starving. I did a good job in my first year; nobody died; no fights broke out in my room; no students cursed me out…minimal crying occurred. A couple of students failed, but that was beyond anything I could do in the classroom. I did pretty good, but it was until years later that I hit my stride. Every year I sought to improve one of the great, many nuances of teaching.
I wanted to have better classroom management. More creativity in my lessons. Better contact and communication with parents. More rich content that acted as mirrors and windows for the lives of my students. A stronger professional relationship with my fellow teachers. A leadership position in professional development to inspire other teachers to reach their full potential.
While every day in teaching has the potential to bring a new fire, I eventually found myself settling much faster because I was reformed. I was no longer a college graduate, making my mark in the world. I was a teacher. Self actualization achieved.
The Transformative Power of Heat
Heat, much like difficult messes in life, has amazing transformative powers, but we have to wait for the cooling process to be complete before we are solid again.
If you’ve read about my past, you know I walked away from teaching to be able to give my best to my own children. Initially it greatly improved my mental health. I could breathe again without the weight and worry of other people’s children. My body calmed from the flight or fight mode that I had been living in for the better half of a decade. I got caught up in the swell of transferring my skills to a new profession and I finally settled.
I settled, but I hadn’t yet reformed because something is missing. Teaching took a toll on my mental health and pulled me away from my family, but it also gave me fulfillment. It was my passion. The majority of my day was spent fueling creativity and inspiring teenagers, a hard to win over audience. It made me feel confident and powerful. I’m great at my new job too, but it does not bring me fulfillment. Hence why I started writing down this rabbit hole of blogging.
Keep Cooking, Babe
I am still in the oven. Even as I write this, I know I’m not quite ready. I can feel the cheese sliding off the slice with every word I type. Scary as it might be, I know to be truly delicious, I have to keep stepping into the fire to be reformed. I have not hit 5,000 hours yet of blogging, not anywhere close to five years, but slowly I’m finding my way.
I don’t know what fire you have walked through lately, but give yourself the time you need to cool and become solid again. Be patient with yourself. Don’t give in to the temptation of impatient consumption.
Self Actualization and Finding Fulfillment
Maybe you’re a mama with a brand new baby, frustrated that you can’t get back to yourself again. Perhaps you’re a young woman in a new state and you are struggling to find the community and support you used to have. Maybe you are not in a tumultuous change in your life. Maybe over the course of your regular everyday life, you have just become gray. Work toward self actualization in this transition period in your life.
Even the hottest fires dull into coals and gray into ash before new growth starts to appear. If you find yourself in a season of gray, lean into your passions. Find what makes you feel fulfilled and pursue it until you are reformed. You will find self actualization.
So, wonderful woman, what lights you up inside? What step can you take today to ignite that fire?
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