What do you do when you get pushed to your edge with sugar? Do you find ways to soften, to care for yourself? Do you give in? Do you push too hard?
Many of us have a part of us who likes to push ourselves past our limits. It tends to dislike our human limits and has a very loud “should” voice – as in, you should be able to go to the grocery store and walk down the baking aisle without wanting sugar; or, you should be able to go to your favorite coffee shop without craving a muffin….
This is especially true if we’re past the first 5 or 6 days of not eating sugar. We may think, “Shouldn’t these cravings be gone by now?”
This “should” part of us argues very strongly against our experience. If our emotional weather happens to include something “negative” that day, like wanting sugar, our “shoulding” part may go ballistic, shoulding all over ourselves (“You shouldn’t be feeling ________.)
What I’ve learned in my decades long dance with sugar is that controlling our emotional weather is not our job. Controlling our limits isn’t our job, either. Our “should” part is trying to do the impossible – control our human, ever changing experience.
Our job – your job, my job – is to care for the weather and the limits in our lives with as much kindness, compassion and wisdom as we can.