I think cravings are pretty much a part of the human condition. I experience any craving as a want that gets amplified and exaggerated when I don’t fulfill it. You might think that fulfilling a craving would then make it go away. But it doesn’t work that way.
Cravings beget more cravings, and the vicious cycle of addiction is quickly born. Is it possible to ever break the cycle? Or will we always be victims of cravings, either fighting a losing battle against them, or joining them in their gluttony?
For me, Cravings Contain an Element of Confusion
That’s what makes them hard to deal with. The confusion is that cravings often stem from an honest desire—maybe even a need of the body for nourishment, or of the heart to be open. But the mind, in its desperation, somehow confuses harmful solutions to its problem with helpful ones.
So instead of finding a way to genuinely open the heart from within, it goes for the consolation prize instead. It reaches for something sweet, which does open the heart a bit, but is no substitute for what really needs to be done.
And because the sweet doesn’t really do the trick, and because the real issues are not getting dealt with, the mind has to keep reaching for more and more sweet in an effort to pry open the heart.
But There’s a More Effective Way to Have an Open Heart
What closes the heart is always some stressful thoughts or beliefs. Different experiences in life get interpreted as bad inside the mind. And that’s what closes the heart. When the interpretation is changed from bad to good, or even just to harmless, then the heart can open once again.
Then the need for props falls away and cravings wither spontaneously. This is a powerful way to use The Work of Byron Katie, and other spiritual practices, to work with cravings. Deal with what closes your heart in the first place. Then cravings leave on their own.
But this Is a Process
It sometimes takes time to deal with what is really shutting my heart and fueling my cravings.
In the meantime, how do you dance with cravings? I’ve witnessed several people in the last few weeks writing Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheets on the cravings themselves. And it can be a great angle to work.
If cravings are the enemy, then write a worksheet on that enemy. What many of my clients have found through this approach is that when they see cravings as the enemy then they try to push them away. But it only makes the cravings stronger. And makes the person feel even more powerless.
Now They’re Experimenting with Meeting Cravings with Understanding
The mind thinks it’s all or nothing. Either I fight cravings (which makes them worse) or I give into them (which also makes them worse). Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
But through inquiry several people are discovering a middle ground somewhere between fighting cravings and giving into them. A more neutral place, where they are neither promoting cravings nor trying to get rid of them. Where they are listening to them, but not fulling believing the rhetoric.
Instead, they are listening to them the way you listen to a crying baby, or a little child. All the child knows is that’s something’s wrong. It doesn’t know what it really needs. When I listen to the cravings, without buying into the craving logic, I often find a balanced way to deal with them.
Balance Feels Right
Seeing the validity of the experience of each craving without giving total control to the craving feels like balance. And so does not fighting the craving while at the same time not promoting it. It’s a very delicate hold. Anything other than this balanced hold seems to aggravate the problem.
In practical terms this can mean questioning the thought, “I want x.” As well as questioning the thought, “I shouldn’t have x.” Somewhere in the middle is the balance point.
Let me know your experience with cravings, and how you’ve found ways to dance with them.
Have a great week,
Todd
“But here’s addiction: A concept arises that says that I should or I shouldn’t smoke, I believe it, and I move from the reality of the present. Without inquiry, we believe thoughts that aren’t true for us, and these thoughts are the reasons that we smoke or drink. Who would you be without your “should” or “shouldn’t”?” Byron Katie, Loving What Is
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