Ep #164: Focusing on Urges

Hi! Are you having a wonderful day? Mine’s been pretty good. Typical Monday for the most part, no complaints.

So next week, starting on Monday September 27, 2021, I’m doing a free 5 day training and you absolutely must join me. It will be packed full of useful information, mindset shifts, helpful tools, and answers to all your questions.

I’m going to dismantle some of the beliefs you have around urges, yourself, and binge eating that are stopping you from being successful at stopping binge eating.

You’re going to learn all the fundamental things you need to be doing in order to stop binge eating.

If you listened to my interview with Sabrina last week you heard her mention how impactful the 5 day training she attended was and I have no doubt you will be impacted by this one.

Every time I do these trainings they get better and better so I’m so excited for this one.

And if you’re hearing me say it’s a 5 day training and you’re like, “I don’t have the time to commit to 5 days!,” register for it anyway. Even if you’re only able to watch one or two of the trainings it’s better than watching none. You’ll get something valuable from each day of the training so watch what you can. And, they will be recorded and the replays will be available for about a week after the training is finished so you will have some time to watch them.

To register for this free 5 day training, go to coachkir.com/training and you can also find a little more info about how it will work on that webpage as well.

Go ahead and do that right now. Pause this and register so you don’t forget and miss it.

Done? Okay great! Now onto today’s topic.

Focusing on urges.

There’s this idea out there that what you focus on grows and I agree with this concept.

You focus on something and it becomes more prominent in your mind.

So some people hear about this and sometimes it makes them hesitant to do the work I suggest for learning how to allow urges instead of eating to avoid them.

They start to think that if the spend all this time focusing on their urges then it’s just going to make them bigger and more intense and make them more prominent in their mind. And that’s of course the opposite of what they want!

They want to have zero focus on urges and bingeing so they can focus on more important things.

So they avoid thinking about their urges and put their mind on other things.

Until an urge shows up. Then what are you supposed to do?

When it’s there, it’s hard to ignore it.

It’s like a crying baby or laying next to someone who is snoring. You can try to ignore it but, it’s going to be challenging.

So there you are, feeling the urge and you don’t know what to do because you haven’t prepared for this because you didn’t want to spend time focusing on urges because you were concerned that it would just make them into a bigger deal in your life.

Preparation is important because if you don’t prepare yourself to think and do differently than you have been each time you felt an urge and binged, then you’re just going to default back to what you’ve been doing.

Prepare for your urges. Then when they are there, instead of avoiding or trying to ignore them, focus on them.

But, how you focus on them matters.

As I said, and as many other people have said, what you focus on becomes bigger and more prominent in your mind.

But it’s not the urges themselves that become more prominent, it’s your thoughts about them that do.

The thoughts you think over and over become your prominent, stronger beliefs.

So, the thoughts that you’re turning into strong beliefs, are they about how much you hate urges, how scary it is to feel them, and how annoying they are?

Or are they about how urges are just sensations you’re feeling, feeling them doesn’t mean you’re going to binge, and they will pass eventually?

How are you choosing to focus on your urges?

What’s going to happen is that you’re going to either strengthen your belief that urges are terrible or that they’re not a big deal.

It’s your belief that’s going to grow.

And with that belief that grows, you’re either going to make the urge more intense or less intense since its your thoughts and beliefs that cause your feelings.

How you think determines how you feel and if you’re thinking thoughts about urges being terrible then you’re going to feel terrible on top of feeling the urge.

People get concerned about the urge but it’s really your thoughts that you need to be concerned with.

If you’re thinking argumentative thoughts, then the urge will argue back and the discomfort will increase.

If you’re thinking acceptance and calm thoughts then the urge will decrease and flow away.

So focusing on the urge itself doesn’t grow anything until you think about it and your thoughts are what grow.

Then your thoughts are what will create more discomfort or comfort for you.

So, please please please prepare yourself for your urges and spend time working on your beliefs about them as well as your beliefs about your ability to feel them all the way through.

You gotta work on your mind when you’re in a clean emotional space and when you can take advantage of the amazing neuro plasticity that your brain is capable of. For those of you who have never heard that term, put extremely simply, it refers to our brain’s ability to change.

You’re going to change how you think about your urges and yourself before you even feel an urge so that when you actually do feel one, it’s easier to think differently than you used to. You’re retraining your brain to think differently so you’ll feel and act differently.

You’re going to intentionally focus on your urge rather than trying to ignore it, which about half of the time, maybe more, you won’t be successful at ignoring it, like I talked about with the crying baby.

So when you are inevitably focusing on it, because you’re feeling it, how are you focusing on it?

With resistance or with allowance?

That’s what really matters and that’s what will really grow.

You’re going to grow your resistance or your allowance and those are what will increase or decrease the intensity of the urge.

So don’t be concerned about focusing on urges.

Don’t stop focusing on them, thinking that if you don’t focus on them then they’ll just go away because there may come a time when you do feel one and you will just revert to making it go away by bingeing because you haven’t done any practice or preparation to help you handle it differently.

It’s not just the focus, it’s how you focus.

Focus with intention in the way that you want to naturally be.

If you want to naturally have it just not be a big deal if an urge is there then start, right now, focusing on why an urge isn’t a big deal so you can start shifting your mindset about it.

This is something we’re actually going to do some work on in the free 5 day training next week. There’s a whole day that’s devoted to allowing discomfort so if you want help making this mindset shift about urges and working toward not being so afraid of them, then join me in the training by going to coachkir.com/training. And just so you’re aware, I mentioned that there will be replays available for about a week and if you want to access them you must be registered.

Okay, so I hope this episode has helped you to get on board with spending more time focusing on your urges and how you’re going to think about them and handle them.

You’re not going to make your urges bigger by intentionally and usefully focusing on them. You’re going to make your belief in your ability to allow them and overcome them and your belief in urges not being such a huge problem bigger. That’s the direction you want to go in.

So focus your mind on getting you there.

Alright, I can’t wait to see you in the training next week! We start on Monday September 27, 2021! So excited. Coachkir.com/training. Bye bye!