Curing Emotional Addictions

[shelley]

The protocol for removing an addiction to anything - food, ciggies, drugs, coffee, chocolate, gossip, jealousy, guilt, self-abasement, obsession, includes the following steps. I’ll use chocolate as an example:

1. Give yourself 100% total permission to partake of chocolate.

2. Every time you want to partake of chocolate, acknowledge that you want it without judgment, but wait until you get really hungry for chocolate so that you enjoy it more if you choose to have it. Savor the desire, desire can be a wonderful thing, a sign that we’re alive and still sensual beings. Glory in the fact that there is chocolate in the world, give thanks to the Universe. Do this until it seems boring, but do try to get into it.

3. Before you partake of chocolate, perform the water-drinking ritual, or simply drink a glass of warm or room temperature water. While detoxing we often get cravings for what is being released from organs and tissues and make it past the blood brain barrier. Drinking water helps flush them out faster and thus remove the craving.

4. Remember that you can have chocolate. Affirm that you both want and can have chocolate. This tells the frustrated child ego that she/he is not being denied or disowned, there’s no judgment, nothing bad or wrong with desiring chocolate.

5. If you still want chocolate, have it and celebrate it. Affirm that you are making a choice, using Free Will. Concentrate on it. Do it with your full attention, no distractions like television or reading a book. Just eat it. Try to memorize every bit. You may also choose to not have it, and affirm that, and do that. But either way, don’t reward or punish yourself, just know and accept that you are practicing Free Will.

6. Stop when you’ve had your fill.

7. Do NOT try to mitigate your “cheat” with something healthy. If you have a Snickers bar for dinner, just have a Snickers bar for dinner. Don’t follow it with something else.

In a nutshell, you are removing the compulsion by removing the “thou shalt nots” and saying “yes you may.” As long as you are really hungry and stop when you are full, have the cheat. You may find yourself actually craving a salad. When you do, have one. Celebrate it. But don’t feel like a failure if you want chocolate on the next day. Just have it.

[harmony]

What a great post!
Clarity, freeing and focused.

Thank you