Written by: Marija Dobratic, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Have you ever wanted chocolate so bad that you turned your whole house upside down for a candy bar? Are you one of those people who can’t drive past DQ without picking up a blizzard? Wait, maybe you do not have a sweet tooth like me, but instead, you crave salty and savory, and you have gone to the gas station in your pajamas in the middle of the night just to get that salt & vinegar chips?
This is what we call cravings.
We think they are uncontrollable, but as I will demonstrate shortly, cravings are a creation of our mind.
I don’t know about you but all this talk about cravings makes me want some chocolate. The creaminess and gentile sweetness, hmhmhm, melt in my mouth goodness. I don’t chew my chocolate, I melt it, square by square, with that 1st square bringing the most flavor. My mouth is watering. I float to the cabinet and leave this writing…
How about you?
Can you feel the taste of your favorite chocolate in your mouth right now?
Did you stop reading to go and grab it, or are you thinking of stopping somewhere to buy it?
This is how cravings are created, or more specifically, how desire for chocolate is created. And no, it is not as simple as it looks – just reading about a food will not in itself create a desire for the food. Dinja. How refreshing and delicious. The smell itself transports you to a light summer day under the tree, and the 1st bite has the juice flowing down your chin.
Nothing is happening, right?
Well, of course. You don’t even know what this dinja thing is. You’ve never tasted it. You don’t have a whole drawer in your mind devoted to it.
On the other hand, we all have our favorite chocolate that we know well. We also have stories that connect us to chocolate, like, “Oh I have a sweet tooth”. Or “I am someone who has always loved chocolate”. Plus the commercials that describe chocolates as rich and creamy and decadent, have the ability to transport us into a time when we had our 1st or last piece. And on top of this all, we have developed habits, like having a piece of chocolate after lunch. Or when PMSing.
What I am saying is, all of these things are wrapped up in our brain and once the word chocolate comes up all those things suddenly come to the forefront of our attention and we can sense the desire in our body.
“ The creaminess and gentle sweetness, hmhmhm, melt in my mouth goodness.”
In my body, this desire feels like a pull at the solar plexus, as if I had one side of the magnet and the chocolate the other. My body becomes alert, my jaw is set, mouth watering. And all of the attention is on the chocolate and getting to experience those sensations for real.
I want chocolate and I want it now!
It used to feel quite uncontrollable for me – if I wanted it, I had to get it or I’ll keep wanting it until I do get it or, get very crabby (hengry) if I don’t.
Except, studying the human mind has proven time and time over that nothing we do is uncontrollable, and neither is this.
Have you ever heard of redirecting? Well, I have 3 kids so I hear it plenty. It is what teachers do with small children when they start acting out. They redirect their attention to something else.
Same thing can be done with our cravings.
Finding something to interrupt that chocolate focused train of thought and we will stop feeling all those sensations. A simple “ I’ll have it once I’m done”, or “Let me just finish this”, work great with practice, what works even better is simply going for it.
Enjoying a piece of chocolate when you want it makes you very satisfied and you move on with your life. The only thing is, many of us have been conditioned into believing that chocolate is bad for us and eating sweets/snacks is bad, so we keep resisting, which in many cases leads to crazy desire that results in a binge, because we are not all mighty and powerful, but just humans with free will.
Marija Dobratic, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Marija Dobratic MS CLC, is a pediatric cancer scientist and a certified life coach. She was born in a country that no longer exists, and at age 19 has decided to leave everything behind in pursuit of a dream. Once she achieved the dream at 30, and was still not happy, she turned her attention inwards. Marija has worked through decades of self hatred and body image issues, and on that journey she fell in love with life coaching. These days you can find her on TikTok sharing all her knowledge about body image, socialization and brains, and coaching her clients inside of her coaching community Untangle.
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