Bringing Mindfulness to Habits of Wanting or Craving

This meditation provides practices to bring awareness to habits of wanting or craving (food, drink, drugs, etc.) so that we can abandon behaviors that lead to suffering and unhappiness.

Transcript

This is a meditation on working with habits of wanting or craving.

It's a meditation on riding the waves of craving.

This meditation can be used when we're working with a strong feeling of wanting or other difficult urges or emotions that can lead us into unhealthy habit patterns.

So to begin,

Find a comfortable,

Relaxed sitting posture with your back straight,

Your shoulders relaxed,

Your eyes gently closed if that's comfortable,

Or if you prefer to have your eyes open,

Looking ahead with a soft,

Unfocused gaze.

Take a few deep breaths and invite a calming of the body and the mind as you breathe in and a release of tension as you breathe out.

Bring awareness into your body and moving attention down the body invite any area of tension in the facial muscles,

The eyes,

The shoulders,

The chest or the belly to release.

Sit in a way that's relaxed and alert.

Now bring to mind a situation or experience where you felt a strong urge or craving for something that you know will not be healthy or a wise choice.

It might be something that you're currently dealing with that's present right now.

Allow yourself to feel and open to whatever you're experiencing with the commitment to stay with the direct feelings rather than pushing them away or acting out the urge or the emotion or craving.

Bring awareness to your bodily sensations and feel what's present.

If there's tightness or tension in your chest area,

Open to these feelings.

Breathe into the feelings.

Say yes to the feelings.

It may be helpful to name the feeling or energy that is present.

Tightness,

Squeezing,

Heat,

Tingling,

Collapsing.

Pay close attention to the feelings and notice if they change.

Do they get stronger or weaker?

Do they go away for a time?

Do they morph into other kinds of feelings?

Tightness into pulsing or throbbing for example.

Can you experience these sensations as like waves that build up,

Crest and then subside?

Can you open to the space around the feeling and experience the feeling floating within this larger space?

Bring the same kind and accepting attention to the energies of strong emotion.

Fear,

Sadness,

Anger or feelings of wanting.

Recognize how these energies also come and go.

Rise and fall,

Crest and subside.

Often bringing with them strong urges that you might typically respond to by acting on the urge or pushing away a painful experience.

If it's helpful,

Visualize the intense urges,

Cravings or emotions as like waves and see yourself riding the waves.

Feel the energy of wanting,

Wanting something or wanting to do something and ride the waves of these experiences.

Feel the space around these strong emotions and if it's helpful,

Send a wish of happiness or ease to yourself and perhaps put a hand on your chest or belly and wish yourself well.

Bring awareness to your thoughts and see how these too come and go if you don't act on them.

Continue to ride the waves of these challenging experiences saying yes to whatever arises.

Continue to practice opening to your experience by riding the waves as long as the urges or the cravings last.

If and when they subside,

You can rest in the experience of breathing or in the sensations of the body here and now.

So take a couple of quiet minutes to open to whatever feelings are present.

See how it is to ride the waves of challenging emotions,

Sensations,

Thoughts,

Urges.

Thank you.

You can also ride the waves of craving or challenging emotions in daily life when you're in the midst of a difficult or painful experience.

It will normally require you to be able to pause whatever you're doing and take some quiet moments to open to your direct experience as we've been doing.

Thank you.

Reviews

Thanks. Will continue this journey with self compassion

Really helpful, thank you. It’s something I’m actively working on at the moment.

This is a great experience in dealing with unwanted cravings.

Thank you. I was wondering if listening to books counts as an addition, that's what came into my mind.
Anyway it's a thought

I’m going to bookmark this and use it the next time I’m aware of a food craving. Thank you!

Will return. I need to pack in fags. Madness. How many meditators smoke?!! Image going to a retreat and having a cig?!! My 7th year of daily practice and I actually took up meditation and started smoking at about the same time as there was a massive trauma and I was suffering PTSD. About time to get over it. Life is good now. Ommm 🙏🏼🙏🏼❤️

There are so many wonderful meditations on Insight Timer and I'm trying to explore them all! But this piece is one that I keep coming back to. I love the visualization of waves as a means of staying with a thought or urge and then letting it go. 🌊 Thank you. 🙏

Always wonderful
Hugh. Thank you.
Steven.

I loved this meditation so much! I had never thought of applying mindfulness to cravings and I can see now how helpful it will be. Your meditations are always so empowering, comforting and effective. Thank you 🙏🏼

So helpful to me. Riding the wave of craving is such a good image. Thank you.

Very helpful. Love the waves analogy

Thank you for this helpful and calming experience🙏

Really a fantastic meditation. I just played this this morning as I was having urges to eat in order to procrastinate my work, but after having done this, I know what my body and brain need. Thank you for helping me to listen better to myself! Meditation is a beautiful path towards healing

Great meditation with great new perspective!

Fascinating... I’ll be returning to this. Thank you.

Identified direct experience prior to a food binge. Sadness loneliness disappointment, and discouragement, were the billings prior. Sensations of contraction and pressing down. Glad to have found some spaciousnessWhile riding the waves. Hopefully this might help me to pause next time. Thank you kindly.

Another helpful meditation full of humanity and compassion. Let's all forgive ourselves for being human and gently begin to break our unhelpful conditioning and reprogramme. I'll keep coming back to this. Thank you Hugh. Namaste 🙏🏻

Wonderful, brief meditation... Very relaxing while using envisioning during the meditation. Thank you.

As always he comes through with calm support for my unwanted habits. Thank you Namaste🙏☀️

Thank you for a challenging but wonderful resource.