We All Have a Hunger by Shelley Brown

Yes, I probably misled you with that delicious giant hoagie sandwich into thinking this post was going to be about weight, body image, dieting, fabulous food of the 70’s…You’re welcome, It’s not about any of those things although I could probably write a fairly scholarly, well in a layman’s sort of way, article on any of the aforementioned topics.  Nope, you’re going to have to curb your appetite.  This article is not about food however; it is about craving (grasping), craving and aversiont o be more specific. You may be thinking “Holy Hunger! Why is she using adjectives typically related  to food to not talk about food“? Either that or you stopped reading to grab some free snacks in the open area near the ping pong table where you have an unobstructed view of one of your “most likely to cry in a call room” colleagues in a call room. Oh wait, wait, yes, she’s crying.  

As you mindlessly snack, have you actually ever stopped and wondered, “How did I end up with food in my mouth? I wasn’t even hungry”.  Did you subconsciously grab those chips out of stress? Did you grab them and have an internal argument with yourself and the chips won? Did you berate yourself for eating the chips?  Oh wait, this is not about food.

Maybe you’ll see the similarities with this example: 

You send an email to your colleague asking to shadow them on a demo or a proposal walk through because you admire their work and want to learn from them. A week later, your colleague hasn’t responded.  You send him or her a message “I don’t understand your lack of response”.  Maybe you feel ignored.  Maybe you feel resentment.  Maybe you feel frustrated.  In any case, responding with harshness can either make you feel proud, as in “I’ll show her and make her feel bad for not responding” or maybe cause you to feel bad in this case for causing the recipient to feel attacked. Did you make the situation any better, probably not.  Was the intention to get what you wanted?  On the surface it’s wearing that disguise but no.  The purpose was because you were in whatever story you were in that caused you to crave something that most likely has to do with your own ego. More than likely your simply reacted and didn’t stop for long enough to think about your motivation.

Through the study of Mindfulness, I’ve learned the reason we react in such ways has to do with craving and aversion.  In Buddhism, craving or grasping and aversion are the base cause of all suffering. Now, I am not a Buddhist, I have done yoga maybe 10 times in my life and I love dogs but not dogma however; I do practice Mindfulness and understanding this principle has helped bring quite a bit of perspective to my life and now I want to pay it forward as best I can.  Simply put, when we feel bad feelings we want to push those feelings away and when we feel good feelings, we want to feel them all the time and never let them go.  Emotions are impermanent.  They pass and change.  They are not who we are.  The same goes for thoughts.  

“When we’re lost in craving, or we’re lost in expectation, anticipation of a result, clinging to a result, we’re actually not very happy. And it’s also true that when we’re lost in aversion, when we’re very afraid, when we’re very, very angry, we’re usually not very happy either…” Sharon Salzberg – sharonsalzberg.com

Sound familiar?  If not, please check here the box next to the “I am not a robot”.  We are all human.  You, “Great, we know that.  Now what Sensei”?  Well Grasshopper, in my opinion, one of the biggest gifts to practicing Mindfulness is that it can help one identify the space between stimulus and reaction, between a hoagie and an empty plate, between chips and an empty bag or in the case of the email, between thought/emotion and the “send” button.

Example of craving and aversion in action:

Thoughts:“She should have responded.  She must think she’s better than me”.   “I am not important”  

Aversion:I don’t want to feel these feeling, Irritated, frustrated, dissatisfied, powerless

 Craving- I want to feel important, I want acknowledgment.  

Aversion:“What a B&**&”, “She only cares about herself”

Aversion: “I totally feel like I suck” 

Craving:I need to eat a hoagie so I can feel better” 

Wow – an unanswered email caused all this suffering and then the pay it forward domino effect of hitting the “send” button hoping someone else will feel like crap and you will feel better ends up ricocheting right back to the sender. 

Not getting a response to the email was not the cause of the “suffering”.  It was all of the thoughts and feelings attached to what happened, the craving and aversion that caused the reaction.

“It took me a moment to untangle the “me” from the “thoughts” but once I did, a natural feeling of peace and ease arose”. – Sean Fargo – Mindfulness Exercises.

What if we could see the thought as just a thought like a cloud passing by in the sky? What if we could simply notice the thought and notice the feeling we attach to that though and what it feels like in our body? What if we could sit with it a moment? We may think the thought, feel some energy rise up in our chest or stomach and when we notice, we have the opportunity “space” to breath into.  More than likely that negative energy will pass and we can either do nothing or practice emotional regulation.  

The recipient of the email will most likely respond and through the practice of Mindfulness, we can practice cultivating patience, curiosity and kindness and we can also ask a question in new and more skillful way to help get our needs met or to understanding without believing our own narrative.

We create our own suffering with craving and aversion.  What started out as “Hmmm, I didn’t get a response to email” turned into I saw the big hoagie and somehow I ate the entire thing.  Now you have another choice and opportunity to put space between stimulus and reaction. Put the knife you used to cut the hoagie away whether you want to use it on yourself or someone else.

“Do not feed the monsters” – Chade-Meng Tan – Search Inside Yourself.  The “monsters” he is referring to are the ones that are  “occupying the mind and wreaking havoc on our emotions”.

Take a breath.  We all have a hunger.  No need to press “send” or eat the entire hoagie. It will pass.  Let it go.

You can start the practice of learning to create space between thought and reaction by simply taking 2 minutes to sit, feel your feet touch the ground, pay attention on purpose to your breath in your nostrils or in your belly, where ever you feel it the most.  If your mind wanders, no need to judge yourself good or bad. This is the magic part – bring your attention back to your breath…

Breathe

I aspire to help people change the experience of their lives one breath at a time

I love dogs not dogma

I love to create collage art Insta: frodosgirlfriend