Mindset and Influence Over a PB&J

My husband has had a nut allergy all his life, so it’s not much of a surprise when he was open to trying an alternative peanut butter that we discovered a few years ago. We went to the grocery store and got a jar of Sunbutter. Then, what I thought would be an activity of fun discovery for my husband, ended up also being a firsthand, eye-opening reminder of a lesson.

A simple PB&J showed me two major things: the challenge of rewriting a lifelong mindset, and that society’s influence on us knows no bounds.

As someone who has been working on mindset and combating society’s influence for the past decade, and then being an advocate of the topics toward others, the concepts are not new to me. However, what was new to me was the extent others go through when overcoming negative mindset and influence, and also, that those negatives can truly come in all shapes and sizes. In this case, it was the shape of a sandwich.

When we got settled from our errands, he made himself a sandwich. However, when it actually got to the moment that he would take his first bite, a heavy intensity filled the room. He stood still, facing the sandwich in his hands.

I watched as his body began to visibly shake. My hand on his back for support felt his temperature rise, and I could see the cold fear in his eyes that were locked onto the food. His mind and body had gone into an utter panic. He sat there in silence, working to be composed. Yet I knew that internally he was having a debate.

“This looks exactly like a PB&J, therefore it is. If you eat this, you are committing suicide.”

“No, it only looks like peanut butter. It’s not peanut butter. It will be fine.”

Because of his nut allergy, there was so much conditioning that he had to fight. He was spending so much time and energy just to tell himself that things are different. The only thing that made him slightly more comfortable was his EpiPen in one of my hands, and my phone ready to call 911 in the other.

When sweat started to gather at his forehead, that’s when he finally took the bite. It took him a long five minutes to overcome (back then) twenty-seven years of “no.”

He chewed slowly. I could tell he was still expecting an allergic reaction. Ten seconds passed in silence. Twenty seconds passed with me asking him what he thought about the food. Thirty passed with him taking another bite, and still chewing in silence. By the time he was halfway through the sandwich, relief and exhaustion swept over him, and that’s when he began speaking. However, he looked like he went through the most frightening time of his life.

Never had I actually witnessed the challenge of rewriting a lifelong mindset at work such as this. As many self-help books and other guides state, your “old self” does everything it can to go back to the way things used to be, and to keep you settled in your “normal state” no matter how much it sucks, and no matter how beneficial the new norm you are trying to create is. This is why people have issue with getting into a normal workout routine. This is why people don’t quit the awful jobs that they’re stuck in. This is why something “bad” happens right when a fantastic opportunity falls in your lap, and you feel forced to ignore that opportunity and your desires to focus on the bad, just so that the bad keeps you in the cage of your current norm.

It also takes time to fully get over that old mindset, especially one that has deep roots tangled around your soul; ones that have been watered and growing throughout your whole life. The next day, my husband made himself another sandwich as a snack. Even though there was no visible panic attack that time, he took his first bite and told me that his brain was still screaming at him.

“But obviously it’s fine and I’m not dead, so I’ll just keep eating and tell my brain to cool it.”

It’s just like with anything else you try that’s new in life, like a new business or career. You won’t die from it, and it’s better to try than not at all. Therefore, keep going. If you also take the necessary actions to try something new “with preparation,” even better.

This mindset challenge that my husband went through wasn’t all that widened my eyes during that experience. There was also the conversation that came as my husband finished the sandwich.

When the relief and exhaustion came over him from the mental and physical panic that he experienced, he started the conversation by explaining what thoughts and feelings were going through him during that panic. I smiled and tried to switch the focus to something a little more positive.

“But hey, look at you. You are having your first peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

My husband nodded with a smile. Then tears welled up in his eyes and he sniffed. The smile immediately pressed itself into a firm frown.

I was shocked to see this reaction, stroking his cheek and asking him what was wrong.

“… Everyone else had this “first” in childhood. Here I am, at 27 years.”

He continued to recall his experiences of childhood. He was isolated in school lunches, because his friends wouldn’t be allowed to sit with him if they had a PB&J packed for lunch. As PB&J is such a staple food for lunch, no matter at what age, I want you to determine how often that happened. His family would also control and determine what and where he ate, with a lot of: “No you can’t eat here. You can’t have that. They can have that but you can’t. You have to eat something different.”

Many friends of ours in college were obsessed over the homemade peanut butter that our campus made. Almost every day he was told that he was missing out. When he and I started dating in college, I too was a culprit of this influence. I stopped having Nutella and other nut related items because of him, as it was easier to pretend I had the allergy too for the sake of his safety. Yet there were many times where I told him how delicious Nutella is, and that he was missing out.

During all of this time, my husband had acted like he never cared he was missing out. After all, how would he know if he was missing out when he never actually had nuts and peanut butter? But it turns out that he did care. He acted strong publicly, but in the end, he has been sensitive about being left out. That’s what has been happening to him his entire life thanks to society’s treatment and influence on his food allergy.

My heart was already breaking to watch him go through a panic. At this point, it had shattered.

Even up to recently, my husband’s own family brought nut related foods back into their homes after he moved out. And this makes it very awkward during gatherings, holidays, and even giving gifts. His own brother and sister-in-law had ordered desserts for a party, and gifted him and I a food item, both processed or baked with nuts, knowing he couldn’t eat them. Thus everyone else enjoyed the gourmet cupcakes, and the Christmas gift of mulled spices were clearly meant for only me to enjoy. He was left out.

His own mother once bought bread from a grocery store that she set out for him to try with a dip, but he didn’t because he checked the nutrition facts label and saw the dreaded “Processed in a facility containing nuts” statement on it. Instead of receiving an apology about forgetting to check the label, his mother scoffed with “Why can’t you have it? It’s only bread!” The ignorance boiled my blood into a rage, but it is not the ignorance that is my point. It is the influence.

This influence ultimately has had him feel abnormal as a human being in society. He has felt different, left out, and like something is wrong with him.

Thus, a few years ago, I didn’t just witness someone change such a lifelong and conditioned mindset, just to try the alternative solution to the problem. I also witnessed someone’s negative childhood and present influences show their ugly faces all at once.

All of this was in the shape of a sandwich.

If there is anything that I want you to take out of this story, it is to first note the lessons that I learned in this process, and then to be mindful of other individuals.

I want others to spread positivity. To acknowledge what others are facing, be it an allergy or something else, and instead of isolating them for being different in a negative manner, find a way to include them and not treat their difference as an inconvenient problem. Society has only been treating this as an inconvenient problem because of our human habit to isolate and dislike what is different from us.

We can do better.

I understand the reasoning for the actions done by my husband’s school and his family when he was younger. After all, I don’t want him to ever have an allergic reaction either. However because of this, he has an insecurity that has affected who he is as a person, and his fears, all these years; and he will need to overcome it.

There are others in this world that are in the same boat, whether it’s in regards to a food allergy or otherwise. As long as we are mindful of them, and treat them as other human beings, this whole situation could improve. In the end, each person has their own specific way of eating and doing things regardless. No human being is the same; so being different is actually normal, and therefore being different shouldn’t be treated so negatively.

If you made it all the way through this story, I greatly appreciate your time and hope you get something out of it. And in case you are wondering, my husband does enjoy Sunbutter, and he has been having a PB&J quite often since he tried it (which we now dub as an “SB&J” in the house for “Sunbutter and jelly”).

At first, there was fear and isolation in the shape of a PB&J sandwich. Now, it is love and growth. For his sake, and everyone else in this world, let’s keep it that way.

Let’s be better.