How to Mindfully Navigate Cravings
We’ve now spent the last two weeks digging into cravings. We’ve deconstructed our old way of understanding cravings to better understand how they’re working for us and guiding our decisions. We’ve also busted the myths that all cravings are bad, and dug into common causes for cravings. Now with this expanded understanding of how cravings are working for you, and how they’re truly an amazing source of wisdom for your body, let’s dig into how to mindfulness navigate cravings in our daily life.
Remember that cravings are a symptom of an imbalance somewhere in our life or body. It’s one piece of the puzzle, leading you toward the bigger cause or reason for the craving. At the end of the day our cravings aren’t trying to work against us, they’re simply imbalances our bodies is working to bring back into alignment.
Today I challenge you to empower yourself with the ability to choose how you react to cravings. I’ll teach you simple steps to mindfully navigate cravings, and gain understanding of the information our body is sending thru cravings. Below I share 3 simple steps to practice in your daily life, which will allow you to be more mindful about cravings.
Acknowledge The Craving
The fastest way to have a craving take over is to try to ignore it! Think about it…if an idea pops into your head that you really want to head to Starbucks and grab a cake pop, what happens if you try to tell yourself “nah, it’s fine, I don’t need that now, moving on.” I’m willing the guess that tiny idea of grabbing a treat takes over and becomes bigger and bigger until you probably give in and go along with the craving. It’s not just me, right?!
A huge first step in being more mindful about our cravings is to simply acknowledge they exist. Ignoring is a fast track to having the idea take over thoughts. Take a moment to pause and acknowledge the craving.
Nonjudgemental Curiosity
I love this step, because it’s such a shift from our typical way of reacting to cravings. Our instinct is to shut down the craving, try to disagree with it, argue with ourselves why it’s even there. Basically react negatively to the imbalance that’s being shown to us. As opposed to taking this abrasive approach, I encourage you to choose to explore your cravings with nonjudgemental curiosity.
Choose to listen to the information the craving is sharing with you, simply for what it is, leaving judgement behind. By letting go of criticizing the craving we’re able to explore with an open mind, and allow ourselves to be curious. This facilitates empowerment because you’re trusting what your body’s telling you, as opposed to rushing to shut it down and say the message is wrong. This step can serve us in so many areas of our lives, but allowing us to better understand cravings is a great starting place.
Proceed With Empowerment
Now that you’ve acknowledged the craving, and sought to understand it thru a more mindful lens, you’re ready to proceed from a place of empowerment. A place of trust with your own body, where you can make choices you feel strong and confident about. This may seem like a small step, but if you can learn to tune inward in this one area of your life, these steps can be applied to so many different areas of our lives. We’ll dig into this more in the future, so a little something to look forward to, but for now trust these 3 simple steps to help you navigate cravings.
Remember that you are empowered to make the choice of whether you act on your craving or not, and even how you interpret and react to the craving is all in your hands. Having an understanding that cravings are working for you, not against you, is a powerful concept, and one I hope you now feel more confident applying to your daily life. Even if you can incorporate this concept over a few cravings each day, incredible positive change will happen. Instead of berating ourselves over cravings, shifting to seeing that the craving is simply one piece of the bigger puzzle picture is a wonderful place to begin.
If you want to take this concept to the next level, I’d love to connect with you. Simply click the link below to book a free 20-minute health consultation!