Cravings…What Do I Do?

Most people assume cravings are a problem.

After all, we've spent years trying to manage them — suppressing, distracting, bargaining, controlling. Using willpower, rules, plans. Sometimes succeeding for a while, sometimes not. Usually feeling like we're one lapse away from losing the plot.

So when I say this, it can sound a bit alarming:

You don't need to do anything about your cravings.

Cravings show up when the mind is stirred up. They quiet down when the mind settles and the mind is designed to settle on its own — the same way the snow in a snow globe settles once you stop shaking it.

What tends to keep cravings alive isn't the craving itself. It's our thinking about the craving.

What do I do about this? How do I make it stop? What's wrong with me — I know I'm not even hungry? Why won’t it just go away?

Each question adds another layer of thinking to an already busy mind. Completely innocently. But it's like revving the engine when what's actually needed is to idle in neutral.

For years, I tried to fix my eating by doing more — more control, more willpower, always more effort. Each time I was hopeful and each time I came away disappointed. And with that came more thinking, more analysis, more time spent trying to find the answer.

Looking back now, it's because I didn't understand how the system worked. Nothing needed fixing.

Once I began to see that cravings were made of thought — temporary, fleeting energy moving through the mind — the whole experience changed. It didn't happen overnight, but once I really saw it, I knew the change was permanent.

Change doesn't come from trying harder. It comes from insight. And insight tends to arrive when we stop trying to control the situation and get curious instead.

Cravings are part of how we're built. They pass on their own — and the less we wrestle with them, the faster they do.

If this is landing for you, I've written a short free guide that goes deeper into what's going on underneath every food struggle.

It's called Hiding in Plain Sight: What's Really Underneath Every Food Struggle — and it's a five-minute read that might start to make a few things make sense.

Or get in touch and let’s talk.

And if you’re struggling to allow urges currently, you can always surf the urge. It’s what helped me before I understood things on a deeper level.