| Our thoughts create our feelings.
Our feelings (emotions) create energy.
That energy creates a sensation in our body that is meant to move us into action or move through us.
Emotions such as determination or inspiration typically move us into action. Other emotions like sadness and grief need to move through us.
An urge is a strong desire or impulse to do something. It’s an intense emotion created by a thought.
Next time you get an urge to snack, drink, check social media, or shop when you don’t really need to, stop for a moment and notice how the energy of that urge feels in your body. Notice the sensation it creates.
Look at it with curiosity.
What sensations do you feel in your body? Does the urge create a sensation that feels tense, fidgety, tight or something else? Describe it in great detail.
Next, see if you can allow some of the energy of the urge to move through you without taking action (without eating, drinking, shopping, checking social media, etc.). See if you can sit with it, in full curious awareness, for just 2 to 3 minutes while keeping your focus on the sensations in your body.
After a few moments, ask yourself “What was I thinking just before I felt this urge? See if you can pinpoint the thought or thoughts that created the urge. Then ask yourself, “Is this thought serving me?” How do I want to feel instead? Perhaps you’d like to feel relaxed, content, or at peace instead?
Often we give into the urge because of the uncomfortable sensation the urge creates in our body.
Allowing and not resisting those sensations is our point of power.
It’s like a pause button.
It allows you to pinpoint the unhelpful thinking patterns that are creating the urges in the first place, and it gives you the opportunity to choose better ones instead. When we do this over and over again, it creates a new track in the brain that creates better results.
I’ve been working and practicing with urges lately. A few days ago I set a goal to not snack after dinner at night for 30 days. I knew this would force me to look at and sit with my urges. Yes, the sensation the urge creates is super uncomfortable at times. I remind myself that emotions and their corresponding sensations are like the weather, they come and go. And they do so more easily, when I don’t resist but rather allow them to move through me like the wind through the leaves of a tree. Honestly, sometimes the urge is more like a hurricane, lol, but even that too passes, if I allow and don’t act on it.
Acting on an urge creates a dopamine hit in the brain, which perpetuates the urge/reaction which in turn creates a habit. Not acting on an urge interrupts the cycle. Do this over and over and you break the cycle. |
