Cravings +

A Craving is a feeling that we’ve attached an action to.  The video at the bottom of this article is of former addict, Lucy Bainbridge, and therapist, Elaine Hilides, sharing a 3 Principles perspective on Addiction and Cravings.

For those people who are interested in learning more about Elaine Hilides, … as part of my Diet Hobby, I purchased and read Elaine Hilides book, Mindfullness The No-Diet Diet Book (2013), quite some time ago, before becoming interested in the 3 Principles concept. At the time of my first reading, I judged the book to be okay, but rather ordinary and unimpressive.

Because I was impressed by the video interview below - which I discovered during my current study of the 3 Principles as related to my struggle with dieting and weight control. Because the interview impressed me, I re-read Elaine Hilides book to see if had overlooked something that might be personally helpful.

Upon my second reading, I found that the book starts with an interesting 3 Principles approach to weight-control before it jumps into a presentation of the author’s own dietary personal beliefs - which are presented as factual truths. The author’s beliefs include specific techniques and guidelines involving intuitive eating, behavior modification, and eating primarily “real” non-processed food.

A common 3 Principles saying is that “we feel our thinking”, and of course, my own thinking is often about weight issues. Therefore, I was interested in the following ideas.

You have a story, and idea, about yourself, your weight and your eating and you believe that your story is real, although this is an illusion because YOU created the story.

We all fall into the illusion that the feelings we experience about our weight and food problems are real. But we all experience reality through our own filters and perceptions, and we create our reality moment by moment by whatever we are thinking at that moment.

Yes, the chair you’re sitting in is real, but your experience of the chair might be different to someone else’s experience of that chair. You might think the chair is comfortable but another person might disagree. The chair exists, but it is your thoughts about the chair that creates your experience of it your reality, your story.

Each of us is living in our own version of reality. Think back to your Christmas Day celebration. Each person who was present will have a different story about that event. Once you recognize that you are telling yourself a story, you can see that thought is a vehicle you use to create your story and your reality.

Repeating your old, tired story of why you do what you do, limits you and keeps you stuck in the same place.

There is nothing to re-learn. You just have to remember what you already know. It’s a simple approach. There are no complicated techniques to remember or affirmations to repeat. There is nothing to do or apply, it is “is” in the same way that you walk and breathe.

This new and simple paradigm is not about changing your thoughts with positive thinking and positive affirmations.

It points you to an understanding of what thought is and how you can use the power of thought to free yourself from making unhelpful food choices and then beating yourself up over that choice.

Many have lost their way by thinking that they can’t change and so “why try?”

You have the magic in you. You have free will. Life isn’t happening to you. The more you remember that external situations, food or circumstances have no power over you, the more freedom you have.

You can have the freedom to have a wonderful relationship with food by rediscovering your own innate health, and letting go of the thoughts that are causing the bad feeling you have about your weight.

When you get into a thought storm about your weight, your mind is full and noisy, and clinging to a diet sheet ... as if that is the answer ... only adds to your thinking and muddles your mind even more. You already have the answer. When you allow your thoughts to quiet down, your mood shifts which gives you space to allow new thoughts in.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the book is similar to most diet or "non-diet" books, in that it consists of the author sharing her specific personal dietary beliefs as if they were an Ultimate Truth.

Ms. Hilides’ message is that one can regain health by choosing the “right” foods in order to keep the body running optimally while paying close attention to one’s thoughts, which are the driving force behind every decision made about what one allows oneself to eat.

While the author indicates that people should follow their body's own personal wisdom in order to be guided toward energy and health, that message is contradicted by the prevalence of specific recommendations to embrace and follow the author’s own personal dietary beliefs.

  Despite the fact that I do not personally embrace the author's dietary preferences nor her dietary recommendations, I found the 3 Principle perspectives on Addiction and Cravings, as shown in the video below, to be valuable enough to be included here in my digital scrapbook, DietHobby.