Purely Nourished

We all have them — crav­ings that sneak up out of nowhere, con­sum­ing our thoughts. We indulge in the crav­ing as a means to calm our nerves only to find we’re just as dis­con­tent from the tem­po­rary relief. How do we resist those crav­ings and return to a state of balance?

Note: There is a dif­fer­ence between an neg­a­tive crav­ing and a basic sur­vival crav­ing. We will dis­cuss the unfavorable.

To reverse any crav­ing or dis­com­fort it is always ben­e­fi­cial to deter­mine the root of the prob­lem. What exter­nal or inter­nal fac­tor forced you into a state of  minor panic? Dis­com­fort comes in many forms. Any­thing from sleep-deprevation to and uncom­fort­able inter­ac­tion with a friend. Think back to when the crav­ing set in and try to con­nect it to a recent inter­ac­tion or sit­u­a­tion. Dis­cov­er­ing the root will help you ward off future crav­ings.

Whether you deter­mine the root or not, notice that you have a crav­ing and sit with it. What you resist will per­sist — There­fore, let your­self fully focus on the crav­ing. Try agin to deter­mine the cause and you should be able to come up with an idea of where it emerged. Switch the focus to where the crav­ing stemmed from and con­sciously exam­ine why it made you uncom­fort­able to build inner strength. Let your­self dwell on the sit­u­a­tion until you’ve made peace with it. Tell your­self that it’s com­pletely nat­ural that you would feel that way; Use your breath to slow your heart rate and find a state of calm. The crav­ing should slowly lose its strength.

If the crav­ing is inter­nal from sleep or diet depra­va­tion then you will have to work on sat­is­fy­ing your basic needs. Inter­nal crav­ings are usu­ally eas­ier to relive. They can be as sim­ple as get­ting to bed ear­lier or allow­ing your­self a less strin­gent diet. If you are hun­gry eat, if you are not don’t. Your body knows what its wants; Use a lit­tle intu­ition to observe which crav­ings serve you and which do not.  A crav­ing has a much harder time influ­enc­ing you if you under­stand it.

Breath is the life force that car­ries us through exis­tence. It is never far behind: act­ing as con­stant com­pany. The sim­plic­ity of con­scious breath­ing can teach you a lot about your­self and can place you in touch with the present moment. When you are con­scious of  here and now, you have the abil­ity to live your life to the fullest and make the best deci­sions for yourself.

You are in con­trol of your life and it is you that knows what is best for you. Learn to breath con­sciously and notice the shift in your think­ing. You will be able to make bet­ter deci­sions that are focused on where you are cur­rently rather than where you think you will be in the future. You have instincts that will tell you what works best for you now, and breath­ing con­sciously will help you lis­ten to those innate instincts. Breath not only sus­tains you, it teaches you how to con­trol your emo­tions. It has the abil­ity to reveal  your cur­rent state. Breath speeds up when you are feel­ing stressed and slows down when you are at peace.  By being aware of your breath you have the abil­ity to trans­form your emo­tional state.

Breath calms you down and pushes you through chal­leng­ing exercises.

Con­scious breath­ing can help con­trol your moods and feelings.

Breath is a life..?

Go for a long walk and focus on deep breath­ing: in through the nose and out the mouth. The sim­ple act of breath­ing can trans­form your life. The major­ity of humans only use 10 per­cent of their lungs; they take short shal­low breaths that do not even begin to reach the belly. This type of breath leaves stale air in the lungs.

Med­i­ta­tion is learn­ing to become one with your­self while find­ing a higher state of con­scious­ness and cen­tered­ness. Med­i­ta­tive prac­tices range from silent still­ness to loud repet­i­tive chant­ing.  Although the prac­tice may seem intim­i­dat­ing or awk­ward at first, the brave souls who give it a try find it to be incred­i­bly rewarding.

Why Medi­ate?

• it relieves stress
• slows the heart rate
• helps one dis­cover answers from within
• calms the mind
• gives you more confidence
• brings sat­is­fac­tion and gives you a place in life
• decreases anx­i­ety
• reverses depres­sion

The more you med­i­tate, the more you will find a flu­id­ity in the way you exe­cute com­mon tasks.

How to Meditate

Sit com­fort­ably in a cross-legged posi­tion. Make sure that your ver­te­bra are aligned, main­tain­ing good pos­ture. Rest your hands gen­tly on your knees palms fac­ing upwards. Close your eyes and begin to breathe deep. Inhale through your nose and out through your mouth. Bring your focus between your eyes and con­tinue to breathe deep. Try to let go of all thoughts out­side of the present moment and focus on your body as if you were watch­ing your­self from a dis­tance. Con­tinue to breathe as you focus on the path of your breath.  If other thoughts try to work their way into con­scious­ness slowly push them away and come back to your breath. Even­tu­ally a state of eupho­ria will emerge and you will feel more in tune with your body.

Med­i­ta­tion helps us become extremely grounded, giv­ing us the con­fi­dence to face the world and accom­plish what­ever we set our minds to. Once deep in med­i­ta­tion, visu­al­iz­ing the things we want to accom­plish in life will help us reach our goals. Remem­ber that med­i­ta­tion is not always easy and may take a cou­ple times before you feel com­pletely com­fort­able. Stick to it, the ben­e­fits are vast!

Check out Deepak Chopra’s Med­i­ta­tion Tech­niques to learn to basic med­i­ta­tions and get your­self on the path to skill­ful med­i­ta­tion. Also, stay tuned as Purely Nour­ished goes into more depth about spe­cific med­i­ta­tion tech­niques in future posts.