CRAVINGS are our ego driving an urge, fuelled by the myth that an external solution can fix our internal problem.
Passion is our heart driving a magnetic calling, fuelled by the truth that if we become willing to express our internal authenticity it will address our external problem.
Instant gratification and seductive CRAVINGS go hand-in-hand. Having been clean and sober (no booze, drugs or ciggies) since 1995 a few days ago my old CRAVING for cigarettes surfaced again.
But was it cigarettes?
Or was it the emotional connection, stress release and a sense of belonging they represented?
When we water down all human emotion we are aware that we end up in one of two places. A place driven by love or a place driven by our fears. Passion and love are a happy, intimate marriage. CRAVINGS and fear are a bitter, empty, co-dependent marriage.
I deliberately visited the loo to address my state of overwhelm after observing a surge of CRAVING within myself. You see I had been spending the afternoon with the sisterhood. An amazing group of women I love for they are all so very different with their physical style, but all so very similar on an internal level. They are loyal, intelligent, wickedly wonderful and warm-hearted. The bottomless pots of tea and the champagne was flowing freely (for them, not me), as were the juicy, interesting conversations.
Waves of deep gratitude kept washing over me as I sipped my 25th cup of tea while nibbling on my 54th piece of cake. Some days life is all about moderation, in moderation if you ask me. I was feeling love and a genuine heartfelt passion as the afternoon passed. However, in the final hours as some of the guests had to leave three of these gorgeous women remained. All of these three are casual cigarette smokers. One of them in sheer naughty delight dug out of her bejewelled designer handbag a packet of fags. Like naughty schoolgirls they all squealed and laughed as they lit up. Observing them inhaling slowly with closed eyes and pure sensual bliss washing over them as they slowly exhaled their forbidden lover’s breath was seductive.
OMG, I remembered the delicious escape I once savored with the divine cigarette!
Now unlike these women in my drinking and drugging days I never had just one or two ciggies like a lady at the end of a function like this. I was a three packet of ciggies a day, yellow nicotine-fingered shipwreck.
But since 1995 not one puff has passed my lips. But I still sometimes dream about secretly smoking them and wake up feeling like I have been unfaithful. Yep, screwed around on myself.
I use the loo as a room that provides a quiet opportunity to re-centre whenever I am overwhelmed. Sometimes an old CRAVING seductively winks at me signalling the opportunity for me to be a deliciously “bad girl” again like I used to be. I relished in being a messy, socially inappropriate rebel. I used to love it. Until the next morning that is.
So as I rebalanced myself in the loo I noted the CRAVING was not for the ciggies.
It was about being included. Not feeling left out. Belonging. As an adult I know I belong with these women and not for one moment were they leaving me out. But it hit an old familiar wound and it started to bleed, just a little. Old fear wept out of me and the CRAVING for a quick band-aid, another knee-jerk reaction, kicked in.
My cure for any CRAVING these days now is not instant gratification. However, I literally ached as I watched these three women I adore huddle together like naughty schoolgirls puffing away. But instead of reacting with …
“Oh fuck it, I will have just one.”
An addict bullshits themselves with this line often. Us addicts never have just one or two like my girlfriends can. I used to have the whole pack then drive down the shop pissed and often stoned to buy a carton, and another bottle of tequila just in case while I flirted with the guy in the bottle shop.
Instead of reacting in rebellion and feeding the CRAVING, I was able to respond.
I included myself in the moment by offering to take a photo and we all laughed together. I then went to the loo and attended to my internal weeping wound privately. It is my stuff you see, not theirs. I would not want them to ever edit their behavior around me. I love them all just as they are. Our CRAVINGS are all about our internal wounding needing attention. Not other people’s attention. Our own attention.
We all desire love. In the loo, the grown woman in me needed to chat to the upset rebellious teenager and the abandoned little girl within me. I reminded these fragile dimensions within myself that all was OK, and that I was now there for me. I self-parented with love, took some deep breaths, held my own hand and just sat in silence for a minute or two. My shallow, anxious, fearful breathing needed to be slowed down into deeper, calmer breaths. I had lost my centre of self just for a moment. When I felt reconnected to myself again I went out and rejoined the fun. Feeling emotionally safe, sane and sober.
If we find ourselves CRAVING anything, underneath it is what we are all looking for, love, validation, connection and healing. However, seeking to satisfy that CRAVING via instant gratification from an external source sets us up for disappointment. It is unsustainable and emotionally malnourishing long term.
It’s no-one else’s responsibility to ensure we remain true to ourselves. No man, no friend, no substance or thing, nor family member should be burdened with the responsibility of managing our fears.
That is our job as adults.
So these words are simply a little reminder to separate our CRAVINGS from our passions. CRAVINGS are not wrong, but simply an alarm that we need to attend to an old, deep fear. If we will not go within ourselves and look at our stuff in relationships we go without. Without the capacity for our long-term quality relationships to continue to be a win, win healthy union.
CRAVINGS are ego-driven urges trying to sell us the bullshit that an external solution like a lover, cigarette, drink, food, money or social circle can fix an internal wound we refuse to attend to.
Let’s remember that our true passion is a message from our heart calling us to ignore the ego’s seductive bullshit and not sell ourselves out for a short-term quick fix. When we remain loyal to ourselves and communicate our internal truth without fear or shame, external problems then start to dissolve. Plus the real kicker is we wake up the next day with our self-respect intact.
When our heart’s passion replaces our ego’s CRAVINGS, only then do we get a shot at our birthright. Yes, the fairy tale ending in life we all passionately desire. To live happily ever after in our own skin. Our marriage to ourselves is the only one we are guaranteed to still be in when we take our last breath.
So what’s it gonna be for us?
A bitter, co-dependent marriage emotionally empty, but full of relentless CRAVING and fear?
Or a passion-driven happy, intimate marriage?
Lotsa love Cynthia xxx
© Copyright 2016 Cynthia J. Morton Emotional Fitness™
This Word Vitamin is an excerpt from my latest bookset “The Four Seasons of the Heart”. If you would like to order your own full set of Daily Word Vitamins one for each day of the year, in book form for yourself or as a gift just click on the SHOP tab and place your order.