Are there moments when you find yourself thinking only about food? You are going back and forth in your head on whether or not to eat something…
Then you move into the mindset of feeling fat or recalling the moment that you didn’t work out when you said you were going to…?
Maybe you gave into eating that special treat and now you’re feeling guilty, fat, bloated and calling yourself vicious names. The internal dialogue of nastiness has become so normal you likely don’t hear it anymore.
Sound familiar?
Are you done with the struggle?
You want life to be fun and so you give up and ignore the issue only to find the guilty, cravings and thoughts about food are still sticking around the next day.
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Last week I wrote to you about common cravings –explaining why you crave what you crave. Read that if you haven’t yet.
This cravings concept is key to get because cravings are often emotionally connected. Without knowing the emotions, you will never know how to focus your attention so you can change the behavior.
I’m a lot like you.
I spent years craving and giving in when white carbs, sugar, coca cola, dr. pepper, chocolate bars and potato chips were in my life.
I used to think that the problems would go away if I could just lose some weight and work out more.
Loving yourself naked.
I found a solution to food addictions, emotional eating and cravings.
It’s not just about losing weight and working out to look hot. Yeah, ultimately you want to Love Yourself Naked… you want to feel the emotional feelings of wholeness and feel wonderful about what you see in the mirror too.
When we are in craving mode we are in a constant state of need and it’s impossible to Love Yourself Naked when you feel like you need something.
Years ago, I realized that I couldn’t keep the solutions I learned to myself because sugar, specifically was so addictive and it took a lot more than a cleanse to let it go.
Know this, letting go of cravings will help you lose weight… no doubt about that. It will also help you to really Love Yourself.
It takes a bit more than a perfect bicep curl, 50 deep squats, killer abs and drinking lots of green juice. You can do all of those things, have a kick’n body but still be a food addict who craves in an unhealthy way.
There were quite a few big paradigm shifts that woke me up to my cravings. Today I share the first with my sugar cravings, which emotionally was an indication that I desperately needed some more purpose and sweetness in my life…
Story.
I’m a passenger in a huge van on a skinny road going up hill with hairpin turns and curves climbing to the top of the summit of Montserrat. There are people who are car sick around me and I’m chomping away on my Big Red gum to avoid the altitude pops in my ears. I’m near Barcelona, Spain, where I’m staying and today was the day to go visit a Benedictine monastery called Montserrat. It’s 2002 and at that time it is the home of about seventy monks.
At that time in my life, I am just waking up to the relationship I have with food and I’m at the height of my sugar addiction. I likely spent the night before overindulging in countless glasses of sangria and I’m a little annoyed to be going to a monastery. Although Spain is pretty sweet, I can’t understand what all the fuss is about with this place, not to mention I realize at the time I have a judgment on monks.
There I said it.
At that time, I was just discovering what spirituality meant to me personally and my judgments were completely due to being naïve and not understanding. I couldn’t grasp how a monk could stay up on this mountain and not interact with others, avoid having relationships with the opposite sex and eat restrictive diets. None of it made any sense to me at the time…
This trip up to the top of this 4000-foot mountain of Montserrat turned out to be very spiritual for me and I would later realize life changing in terms of understanding my cravings and habits. I remember these moments like they were yesterday as I write this now a decade later.
2 specific moments.
First, I went into the Basilica, which is the home of the La Moreneta (Black Virgin Madonna) and I saw her holding Jesus on her lap. I remember feeling the anticipatory energy of the room while we were waiting to see Her (The Black Madonna) and I remember not feeling worthy since I never considered myself very religious. I decided to appreciate the experience anyway and to act as if, so to speak as I moved my way up the line.
I was taken aback by what I saw and as I walked up to Her. She was behind glass and her hand was sticking out through a little hole in the glass. I was told that I could kiss her hand and it was a tradition. So I did… I leaned down and kissed her hand and I recall three things that happened to me.
I became really emotional out of nowhere, completely overcome with deep sentiment and I got chills. I then immediate became aware of the candy I had put in my mouth a few minutes prior (I was always sucking on hard candy). Something inside me at that moment as I walked away from the Black Madonna told me to spit it out. I kept turning back to look at her as I walked away carrying a sticky candy in my hand.
The second moment was sitting in the abbey listening to the monks and boys choir of Montserrat sing.
I have never in my life heard something so beautiful in my ears. It is beyond words and impacting me on such a deep level. In this moment I am overcome with tears and feelings that I don’t understand. I sink back into my seat and I realized I had judged so harshly of this place, these monks, this experience. I feel remorse and I forgive myself for I see it differently now. I feel myself open up with appreciation and awe.
The music fills my soul. It was in this moment that my husband, at the time, leans over to me and recommends that I spit out the gum I am chomping away on. {He later told me that he learned that it was a sign of disrespect to chew gum in a church}
I spit it out and I was slightly annoyed at this idea and being called out but I couldn’t deny that I immediately saw a pattern as I was thinking of spitting out my candy out of the blue in front of the Black Madonna earlier that day.
I became aware of my NEED to mask my ‘use’ the candy and gum constantly. For the remaining time, I sat there {without sugar} and I took in the sounds within that abbey and I felt pure peace. I knew in that moment that I didn’t need the gum and candy to make me happy anymore and most importantly I was beginnig to see a belief I had created around those substances.
At the time I couldn’t have put it into words fully, but I knew enough to stop eating the candy and gum continuously for the rest of my trip throughout Spain. I decided in Spain, to figure out what it would feel like to not have those little sweet treats to rely on for my happiness.
I learned to step back and see the bigger picture of life after leaving that mountain.
I learned I could take those feelings I had captured there everywhere I went in life and that they would fulfill me far more than my Big Red gum.
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Honesty.
There is said to be a biological and psychological reason for every food we crave so the key is to pin point the emotion.
If you want to feel a certain way, you may begin to crave a food that you think will get you to that state of being. I’m here to tell you that you don’t need the food to get there. {This is assuming you’ve eaten a well balanced diet that day}
Gum and hard candy was what I was ‘using’ to try to bring more pleasure, satisfaction, connection and purpose into my life. I was really craving a connection to my body and to a power greater than myself. I was craving love, fun and pure sweetness.
I trained myself that the gum and candy provided those desired feelings.
The good news is you can un-train ourself, just like I did.
Without the cravings we can still find the connection, pleasure, passion, love, spirit connection, fun and satisfaction and in a much more rewarding, life-changing way.
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Feel it all.
The problem we encounter is that we have become so accustom to ignoring how we are feeling that we don’t even know where to begin. We are like these cute little mice running around our lives craving something and then gobbling it right up without stopping to consider the feeling we are having first.
I have the opportunity to work with a colleague who is a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner and it’s quite amazing to see the links between ancient Chinese medicine theories about cravings and the energy of food, appetites and cravings we experience today. Nothing has really changed.
Cravings are emotional and until we stop blaming the craving on the food and make a choice to understand the emotion, we won’t be able to change the habit.
“The temptation to quit will always be the greatest right before you’re about to succeed.” ~Chinese Proverb
I want to understand your cravings with you. Share what you are craving in the comments below and any discovery’s you’ve made about them.
Oh yeah, I’m the hostess to a really hot call on sugar cravings after the New Year and it’s complimentary.
Lots of sweet goodies that you’ll love that will fill you up much more than food will. We are going to have fun, promise! At the end, I’m going to share the details of my program called Winning The Sugar Game too.
Register here to join me and everyone else who desires to win at sugar.
Devoted to your love yourself naked journey,
Renee
xo
