By Dina Aldabbagh

I’ve been curious about my cravings for food. These urges feel like it’s really important that I do something RIGHT NOW. But then I think to myself, “There’s no end. This life just keeps going. So I don’t need to do anything right now.” I don’t need to have this specific thing right now, or before the day ends. It’s all connected. The whole point of food is to carry you until the next moment with energy. 

So, it’s not like it NEEDS to happen right now. If I just wait a little bit, I can have it — and still feel good. Whatever thing I’m thinking about, I can have it all. But at least once I’ve let the food I had earlier settle, then I won’t be overeating. I’ll still feel good. I won’t feel too full.

Why does it have to happen right now? I’m going to get hungry again. I’m going to need food again. Time just keeps going on. There’s no lack of time or opportunity to eat what I want. I can wait. That’s all it is. It’s not “Don’t have it,” it’s: “Wait.” Just wait until your body asks you for food again. 

One crucial difference here is the importance I give to the moment. The importance. If I think that just because I want something right now, it has to happen right now, I’m giving this moment a lot of importance. But I can just let the desire hang in the balance, and tell myself, “I will. But it’s not important that I do it right now. It doesn’t have to happen right now.”

Taking the importance away from it happening right in this moment is huge — because it also recognizes that the importance is a falsity. Realistically, I am a living human being who will get hungry again and will need to eat. I will need food again soon. Take the importance away. For what reason does it have to happen right this moment? The only real importance that ever comes with eating food is when you’re hungry and need food to keep going forward with strength. That doesn’t mean it’s the only requirement to eat — people eat all the time without being hungry. But, it does mean that in all other cases, it’s not actually important that it happen right now. Needing fuel is the importance. 

I can kill time. I just have to get to the next moment. Can I get through this moment without ingesting more food? Like, will I survive? “Will I feel my best?” is really the question. If I don’t want to overeat, but I’m sitting here with a desire to eat more food, then I can ask myself, “Can I just get through this moment? Can I wait until the next moment?” I realize, there’s just not an urgency. 

In training for my marathon, at mile 12, I couldn’t think about the fact that I had 8 more miles to go for that day. I couldn’t allow myself to entertain the thought, “Can I really run 8 more miles?” No. But I could ask myself this: “Can I take one more step? Can I run .25 more?” And thus, I just took it one step, one quarter mile at a time. 

Thinking about the “ultimate,” far goal you have for yourself is too much. It’s too big. You don’t always have to think about “how you want to be this kind of person” miles down the road. You don’t have to make the identity so weighty, so large. You just have to get present in this moment. Don’t make it this big thing of, “well, I want to lose 50 lbs.” Make it small. “In this moment, is my body actually hungry?”

I may feel an urge, but…what’s the urgency? I’m laying in bed writing and watching Disney Plus. I’m laying down. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not partaking in a lot of exertion. I’m laying down. Is it crucial that I eat right now to feel my best? No, actually. Actually, I can kill time. I can wait a little. I can fill my time with something else I want to do. And wow. Before you know it, another two hours have passed. Now it’s been four hours since I ate. It makes me realize, I didn’t actually need the food when I thought I did — when I got the urge. Just by staying in the stillness and not rushing off to do anything, I found out that I was fine without the food and there were other things I cared to focus on as well. 

There are other things I care about that somehow pass time like it’s nothing. That’s where I want to be. Because, yeah, I like food — but not enough. Not enough to feel horrible in my body from overeating just so I can prolong the process of eating. It’s not the kind of hobby I want. Cooking? Maybe. Scrapbooking? Yeah. Baking? I’m in. But not eating to no end. Hobbies are supposed to get your mind off of things, sure, but they’re not supposed to hurt you. Overeating hurts you. When really, all you have to do is…wait. Just prolong the time between the last time you ate and the next time. 

That’s it. That’s all. Just prolong the time and fill it by doing something else you like. And when the time passes so quickly because you, at some point, forgot that you were “waiting to eat,” you will see that the whole point wasn’t just to eat and it wasn’t that important that you do it then. I’ve noticed times I thought I should eat, but decided to just wait until I was actually clearly hungry, and then seven hours later I get actually hungry. “Oh, I guess I didn’t really need it then.”   

It all comes down to how important you make it. If you say that the second you even think about food, it’s so important that you eat, then you will make it feel like something is wrong within your spirit and nervous system when you don’t eat in direct response to that thought. But if you allow that thought to come, and say, “Okay, let’s see,” you can sit in it a bit. You can allow the different bodily sensations to make their way in, and you can become inquisitive, rather than reactive. Instead of saying, “Any twinge of uncomfortability in my body means I have to eat,” you can say, “I felt this in my body, does that mean I’m hungry? Let’s see.”

“I felt a twinge in my stomach, was that a hunger ping? Does that mean I’m hungry right now? I felt a little light headed when I stood up, does that mean I need energy? Does that mean my blood sugar is low? I felt some dissatisfaction in my body and spirit even though I just ate. Does that mean the meal I had wasn’t fully satisfying? Does that mean I need more food? Or does that mean there’s some emotion I’m trying to avoid facing and it’s a mental/spiritual dissatisfaction manifesting itself as physical?”

Becoming inquisitive takes away the cruciality of action. Instead of being reactive, you become curious, and thus, patient. “Let’s see” becomes your life’s motto. This doesn’t just relate to eating. You can only say, “Let’s see,” if you feel safe. If you feel in danger, at risk, or threatened in any way, “Let’s see,” is dumb. It’s a permittance to get hurt. Instead of standing in front of the door and blocking the danger, you’re saying, “Well, let’s see what he does if he comes inside.” But the latter is only possible if you trust you’ll be safe no matter what.

You ever notice how men will just let anybody into their house? Someone shows up at their door and they’re welcoming them inside. You don’t see a woman doing this. Why? Because the men feel safe enough to be able to protect themselves if this random person ends up being a threat. The women, on the other hand, need to be prudent and careful. Even opening the door is a risk. “Let’s see,” is not what a woman says when a strange man is standing in front of her door, asking to be let in.

“Let’s see,” means “I trust that I’ll be safe no matter what happens here. I trust myself to keep me safe. I am safe right now, and I can step into the unknown because I trust I’ll be safe there too. And if something were to happen that would put my safety at risk, I trust myself enough to be able to bring safety back to me.” 

Urgency communicates, “I need this thing RIGHT now or I will not be okay in the moments to come. My future safety is at risk if I don’t get this thing right now.” Being in a rush to do something or to get something screams “lack” to your nervous system. But going about things unrushed — even in times where maybe you or others would benefit from you picking up the pace — calmly tells your nervous system, “I’m good. Either way, no matter what happens, I’ll be fine. If I miss this thing because I’m not rushing, I’ll still be good.”

I think about this at the metro on my way home from work. There’s one escalator up and there are stairs, and there are simply way too many people clashing to get onto the escalator. It would stress me out every day trying to funnel into this very much overloaded machine. So, I started taking the stairs. Sure it was a little extra work, but nobody ever took the stairs — and that extra space, that feeling like I don’t have to fight my way in — that brought me peace. The only thing to consider was that I may very well miss the train at the top of those stairs because I’m going slower than I would on the escalator. But when I asked myself if I really cared, the answer was no. “Do I really care to wait for the next train if that means I don’t have to sardine myself onto an escalator?” No, I don’t. “Is making the earlier train really worth the daily stress of fighting for a spot on the escalator, and the anticipated stress beforehand?” It’s really not. 

I’d be climbing up those stairs and hear a train come and go, and I’d think to myself, “That’s okay, I’ll get the next one.” Without intentionally doing it, this action took me from a lack mindset to an abundance mindset. There will always be another train. As it turns out, most of the time when I take those stairs — at my own pace, away from the crowds — I get to the platform and right as I arrive, a train is pulling in. “Perfect timing,” I say to myself, and smile. There was never any rush. Because the pace I was coming at was the perfect pace. 

And for those days where I just miss a train…well, all I have to do is wait a minute or two and wallah! There comes another train. I didn’t miss the train, I missed a train. There’re no lack of trains to take me home, and there’s also no rush. What’s the difference between getting home at 4:36 or 4:38? My body doesn’t know. Whatever that watch says could be lying and I’d believe it. My body just exists. There’s no crucial action that needs to take place. But the sensation my body is very aware of, is stress.

So where does the importance come from? What pain is doing this thing right now saving you from in the future? And is that pain as bad or destructive as you think it is? More likely than not, your nervous system just needs some recalibrating and you need to teach yourself that you actually are safe right now. Maybe some things happened in the past that’re causing your body to remember what unsafety feels like, but the threat is no longer in front of you. The person standing at your door is not the person who hurt you, it’s just a guy. The bubble of constant stress you feel around you is not because the threat still lingers in the space, it’s because it still lingers in your mind. You look forward and see that threat through your eyes, in your mind, but it’s not actually in front of you. The threat is gone. You are safe. Can you teach yourself that?

When we make things important, when we give them that weight in our life, we make them seem like they are the condition to us being okay in the moments to come. But they’re often not. They may be additions to our life satisfaction, but they are not necessary to our core well-being.

The same applies to all potential inputs for sustenance — love, friendship, validation, attention, encouragement, being witnessed, recognition, etc. The inclusion of these things absolutely adds to our thriving, but our strength comes from the acknowledgement that we don’t need them. In a sense, we do. Over the course of our lives, we need to feel some sense of fulfillment of these things at times. But, we don’t need them in every single moment to be whole. If you’re not getting one or some or all of these inputs at this moment, you will still be okay in the moment to come. Your inner strength is derived from being sustained from within, rather than dependency on external things at all times. 

I want to make another distinction here — of course we need these things. We need food, water, sleep, movement, sunlight, but we as human beings aren’t as needy as we think. We need some of these things to be sustained, but we don’t always need the amount we anticipate. Finding the balance is key, because going from the one extreme of complete absence to complete excess is not good for us either. 

And when you are so afraid of complete absence, sometimes the only thing that will make you feel safe is complete excess. The messy bit comes in when what we’re seeking is not directly correlated to the need we truly want filled. You may be seeking more food, but a lack of food probably hasn’t been what you’ve truly needed resolved for a while, if ever. It may be the lack of autonomy…ownership…confidence…purpose. It’ll be different for everyone. 

The next time you feel that strong urge to do something, anything, just ask yourself, “Do I really need this in this moment?” Take a look around. Are you safe? Is there a very current threat? Does this exact moment call you to action, or does your anticipation of a predicted future moment do so? Do you actually need to do anything right now?

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15, NIV). I know you are seeking safety, but for just a moment, can you say, “Let’s see?” Let’s see if the threat comes. Let’s see if you are too weak to handle it. For just a moment, be still, and rest. The “important” thing is not as crucial as you believe to your sense of safety. And in your independence from the world to provide you safety, you will become the most powerful version of yourself. You will trust. So for one moment more, take a rest. Do not spring to action. Just wait.