Craving Love Craving Chocolate

We all crave love. Whether we have a special love in our life or not, many of us seek a deeper, more encompassing love. Often we reach for chocolate out of a desire for that love. But the chocolate, no matter how comforting, will never satisfy our deeper desires.

In order to experience deeper, unconditional love, we need to be ready to receive such a love. Ask yourself, “How receptive are you to love?” If your answer is disappointing, realize that you have the power to change that, regardless of any past hurts or doubts concerning true love. To make this inner shift from feeling a lack of love to experiencing an abundance of beauty and bliss, begin by using your imagination.

Create an image of the perfect love—what it feels like, looks like, sounds like, tastes like. Make it real, in full color, enhancing your visual image with sound and feeling. Imagine how you’d breathe (deeply) how you’d look (what you’d be wearing) and how you’d sound if you were already experiencing the perfect love. The key is not imagining someone else out there to fulfill you, but creating the feeling (the vibration) within yourself of that in-love, blissful feeling. What we imagine, we bring toward ourselves.

The subconscious mind does not know the difference between what is real and what is imagined, so when you take the time to create an inner state of love, joy and fulfillment, your inner mind begins to act as if this were indeed true for you. When you radiate love, you begin to attract to yourself the same positive, delightful experiences you do when you are actually falling in love.

You can create a loving state and feeling within yourself by changing both your physiology and your mental focus. You know how when you hold your body in a slumped position, with your shoulders forward, and breathe in a shallow way, thinking worrisome thoughts, you tend to feel slightly less powerful and optimistic?

Well the opposite is true as well. Watch what happens inside yourself as you breathe deeply and fully, filling your body with life-giving oxygen, stand tall with your chest out, and put a smile on your face. You can’t help but begin to feel positive when you hold this pose! You can enhance that pleasant state and encourage exhilaration within as you couple your erect posture and full belly breathing with images of love and beauty.

If there was ever a time when you fell in love, imagine how you felt at that time now. Remember your wedding day or the birth of a baby, or the happiest time of your life. Use all your senses. Was there a particular song playing in the background? Were there any fragrances that you recall? How bright and vivid were the colors around you?

As you stand tall, with your mouth in a full smile from ear to ear, breathing fully and deeply, imagining a time when you were experiencing total bliss, increase your connection to your inner power by visualizing that you are standing in a ball of white or golden, radiant, illuminating light.

Create a simple phrase to make the image even more real for you, for example, “I am love,” or “The perfect love dwells in me”.” Remember to continue to bring your awareness to your posture and gently correct it so that it reflects that inner “in-love” state. Give yourself the following challenge. For 24 hours pretend to be this love. Make believe that you are already receiving and experiencing this deep level of love regardless of your 5 senses telling you otherwise.

Act as if it were so and see what happens. It can be very empowering to realize that our outer experience in the world is often a reflection of our inner state. So if we want to improve our outer circumstances and experience deeper levels of connection, love and beauty, it’s necessary for us to take charge of what’s going on inside ourselves.

With compassion for the stress and concerns we have accumulated in life, we can still very tenderly bring ourselves back to a more desirable state—perhaps similar to the state of love and openness we entered the world with. This can be accomplished with breath, movement, posture, facial expression and imagery. What we imagine, we create.

You’ll no longer need to reach for chocolate to experience love and comfort once you make a habit of invoking a loving state within yourself. Though there is evidence that there are health benefits to be had from eating chocolate—especially dark chocolate—there is also a great danger that indulging in too much chocolate could lead you down a slippery slope.

One or two pieces melting in your mouth can be quite satisfying, however, beyond that you could easily find yourself in the throes of sugar addiction and compulsive eating. If you can have a little, then enjoy, however if you mindlessly find yourself overindulging, it’s important to realize that the chocolate is triggering your blood sugar causing you to spiral into a state of wanting more and this is a physical reaction to the sugar in your body.

When you find yourself bingeing, it’s also very likely that there is a deeper need wanting to be filled. Return to your love image and phrase. Remember to act as if you actually are already living from the inner state invoked by that illuminating, inspiring image and phrase. If it feels false, remind yourself to fake it until you make it.

Your inner mind truly does not know the difference. It is simply responding to your feelings whether they are induced by “outer reality” or your new, more positive “inner reality” that you are conjuring up. In either case it is this current moment here and now and your reaction to it that will determine your future moments.

Your thoughts and feelings precede and influence all your actions. Whether you are craving love or craving chocolate, you can affect which direction that desire will lead you to, by selecting your inner state. If you choose love—congratulations!

This choice will make it much more likely that your future moments will be filled with that which you desire. If in this moment, you do not make that higher choice to change your state to one of beauty and bliss, know that the option is always there for you. It’s never to late to change the inner pictures that we hold.

All you have to do is imagine that it were already so by nourishing yourself with the sights, sounds, feelings and smells of being happy and in-love. Stand tall, put your chest out and put a smile on your face. Tell yourself the loving phrases you long to hear. Wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself some appreciation and acknowledgement for all that you do and all that you are. Open to the possibility of your life filled with love and see how your desires manifest the life that you are longing for.

By: Rena Greenberg