4th of July Cravings: How to Feel and Deal
We all have desires. We have cravings too, those excessive feelings of need that make you run for a fix, or maybe not so hastily, quickly walk, toward a filler. Everyone at one time or another desires something. Over time if we feed this need, we create, in our minds, the want for more. It is not wrong to want things. If wanting to do something positive, that places you in the center of yourself, overcomes you, and makes you run to it, do it! Do it often! It is those things that move us away from our center, that I’d like to take my scope to here.
In an awesome TEDx, Emotional Mastery: The Gifted Wisdom of Unpleasant Feelings, Dr. Joan Rosenberg encourages the audience to feel their cravings (unpleasant feelings) for the huge length of 60-90 seconds, which is how long feelings typically remain before passing on. I am exaggerating here with the word “huge”. As she mentions, you can withstand 60-90 seconds of most things, even the big monster feelings. So, why do we continue to do the things we do not want to when the cravings get intense? As Dr Rosenberg, purges, we think if we feel our feelings, we will not be able to shut them off. When the truth is quite the opposite.
So, with cravings, when our want starts to control our going and our coming taking us out of our seat of peace, we experience more than we bargained for. This is temporary happiness or comfort attached to shackles. When having more or wanting more of this filler becomes more important than current moment peace, we are lost. It is no wonder as Martha Beck shares in the June 2017 Health Magazine, “We live in a culture that tells us we should be euphoric all the time, but that feeling isn’t sustainable.”
In my humble opinion, we all have what we ask for, and what we think about most becomes what we see in our experience. Some of us see food, or sex or cigarettes because that is what we think. That is what we have trained ourselves to think about most. We believe it to be helpful. Moreover, the thing(s) we crave is/are very often what we saw our parents or caregivers using as a false remedy to an assortment of human states/ feelings. Some of us see substances, relationships, more of this or that. We see these things as a means to something else, happiness.
Most of the things we desire that we believe will bring us happiness are temporary. They appear to fill a gap that can not be truly filled by temporary means. So what is the answer to our cravings? What is it all REALLY about? Beck, author of Finding Your Own North Star suggests that “[h]appiness- real happiness is quieter and calmer, but that sense of peace is deeply satisfying and can sustain you through life’s challenges.”
Become aware of our feelings, starting with sensation, felt first within, around and on the body. The physical feeling of warmth or tingling is one of our first life lines toward this quieter, calmer reality of happiness. The problem is, many of us have been taught not to sit with our feelings. We've been taught how to avoid them, to shove them, push them and pull them down into the vat of never-to-be-found-again. On the contrary, it is okay to feel however it is that you feel at any given moment.
To begin to feel again, we must take the time to breathe into our feelings. Therefore, breath is the second life line. Instead of breathing against these feelings or holding the breath when feelings arise, we breathe into them so that if tears are needed, we feel them come to the surface and pour out. If a smile emerges, we take time to breathe into the good feelings too, exploring all feelings and seeing what is there.
As we begin to feel again, the next line to deeper awareness is through our ability to be grateful. Our gratitude for what appears as we breathe allows us to see what we have unconsciously asked for and to be present in the moment with thanks for ourselves, others, the occasion, and ultimately, the lesson. What we are really desiring, true happiness, or even beyond that, joy, can come as we release our will and take on the bigger picture scope of “I am really okay, right now, even if I do not like the circumstances that are being presented”. This takes cultivating a right attitude, study, and practice. So, let me make this practical.
1. The next time you are craving your go-to, stop in your tracks.
2.Take a couple moments and a couple breaths to breathe into the space within your body where you feel the need appear. This can be in the belly or shoulder, or your heart center even. If felt in multiple places, focus on one place at a time.
3.Place your hand here with light pressure and allow the whole feeling to emerge. Continue to breathe. Let the feeling eat you alive if it can, which it can’t, even if it feels that big and scary. Keep breathing.
4.Experience the vastness of the breath as it calms the intensity. Be prepared to ask the feeling, “what is it that I really want?” Let the truth be revealed to you. You do not need words to uncover the truth. Whatever comes, an image, relief, maybe even a word or phrase, acknowledge it.
5. Then, thank the feeling for showing you what it is that you really want. Thank it, specifically, for its presence. Without it, there is something you would not be aware of.
6.You might even write down all the things you are now aware of as a result. Attempt to locate the positive here. What good has come out of this feeling? At the very least, you will be able to say you have been able to have a moment with yourself.
The craving won’t necessarily disperse for good, but for now, you have found valuable information and moments of possible solace. You may still head wherever you were initially headed, but you will have slowed down this habitual process for a chance of self discovery.
As you continue to practice this process, you will see the temporary fix for what it is. You will see your ability to refocus and to take time to know yourself more, time and again. You will have more awareness as to what it’s all about each and every time you come seeking to understand more of who you are and what you are REALLY wanting.
In an awesome TEDx, Emotional Mastery: The Gifted Wisdom of Unpleasant Feelings, Dr. Joan Rosenberg encourages the audience to feel their cravings (unpleasant feelings) for the huge length of 60-90 seconds, which is how long feelings typically remain before passing on. I am exaggerating here with the word “huge”. As she mentions, you can withstand 60-90 seconds of most things, even the big monster feelings. So, why do we continue to do the things we do not want to when the cravings get intense? As Dr Rosenberg, purges, we think if we feel our feelings, we will not be able to shut them off. When the truth is quite the opposite.
So, with cravings, when our want starts to control our going and our coming taking us out of our seat of peace, we experience more than we bargained for. This is temporary happiness or comfort attached to shackles. When having more or wanting more of this filler becomes more important than current moment peace, we are lost. It is no wonder as Martha Beck shares in the June 2017 Health Magazine, “We live in a culture that tells us we should be euphoric all the time, but that feeling isn’t sustainable.”
Most of the things we desire that we believe will bring us happiness are temporary. They appear to fill a gap that can not be truly filled by temporary means. So what is the answer to our cravings? What is it all REALLY about? Beck, author of Finding Your Own North Star suggests that “[h]appiness- real happiness is quieter and calmer, but that sense of peace is deeply satisfying and can sustain you through life’s challenges.”
Become aware of our feelings, starting with sensation, felt first within, around and on the body. The physical feeling of warmth or tingling is one of our first life lines toward this quieter, calmer reality of happiness. The problem is, many of us have been taught not to sit with our feelings. We've been taught how to avoid them, to shove them, push them and pull them down into the vat of never-to-be-found-again. On the contrary, it is okay to feel however it is that you feel at any given moment.As we begin to feel again, the next line to deeper awareness is through our ability to be grateful. Our gratitude for what appears as we breathe allows us to see what we have unconsciously asked for and to be present in the moment with thanks for ourselves, others, the occasion, and ultimately, the lesson. What we are really desiring, true happiness, or even beyond that, joy, can come as we release our will and take on the bigger picture scope of “I am really okay, right now, even if I do not like the circumstances that are being presented”. This takes cultivating a right attitude, study, and practice. So, let me make this practical.
1. The next time you are craving your go-to, stop in your tracks.
2.Take a couple moments and a couple breaths to breathe into the space within your body where you feel the need appear. This can be in the belly or shoulder, or your heart center even. If felt in multiple places, focus on one place at a time.
3.Place your hand here with light pressure and allow the whole feeling to emerge. Continue to breathe. Let the feeling eat you alive if it can, which it can’t, even if it feels that big and scary. Keep breathing.
4.Experience the vastness of the breath as it calms the intensity. Be prepared to ask the feeling, “what is it that I really want?” Let the truth be revealed to you. You do not need words to uncover the truth. Whatever comes, an image, relief, maybe even a word or phrase, acknowledge it.
5. Then, thank the feeling for showing you what it is that you really want. Thank it, specifically, for its presence. Without it, there is something you would not be aware of.
6.You might even write down all the things you are now aware of as a result. Attempt to locate the positive here. What good has come out of this feeling? At the very least, you will be able to say you have been able to have a moment with yourself.
The craving won’t necessarily disperse for good, but for now, you have found valuable information and moments of possible solace. You may still head wherever you were initially headed, but you will have slowed down this habitual process for a chance of self discovery.
As you continue to practice this process, you will see the temporary fix for what it is. You will see your ability to refocus and to take time to know yourself more, time and again. You will have more awareness as to what it’s all about each and every time you come seeking to understand more of who you are and what you are REALLY wanting.
Sat Nam
