I’ve been asked to talk abit more about Urge Surfing, given its wide application for managing all urges not just those of the food craving fraternity. Indeed Urge Surfing was originally developed to help people manage alcohol and other substance cravings (could it have been that there once was a surfie with a marijuana problem – what would be the chance of that?!). Successful Urge Surfers are to be found in all walks of life – usually at the top end of their game ??? resisting the seduction of all kinds of problematic urges.

What to do?

So what does being a cool urge surfie look like? Imagine your desires to be like ocean waves. (Which also means there’s no shortage of them and they just keep coming – that’s the human mind for you.) You’re a cool surfer dude/ss and you catch this nice-sized wave and start riding it. As soon as you’re on the wave you start to pay it close attention – your safety and well-being depends upon it. You realise this wave is a dumper, stick with this wave and there’s a good chance that you could be eating sand, or worse, end up on the rocks just over there. What to do? Exit. Pull a turn up the face of the wave, slide over its back and let it go. Let’s paddle back out and wait for the next wave. Take too long to make the call and you won’t have a choice as it turns into a vertical wall of green mashing power and takes you down. In effect, we thank mother nature for all the waves, but we only stay on the ones we want to.

In the same way, we will find ourselves with a desire that’s a problem – a craving for an unhealthy food, drink or smoke. The trick is to see it for what it is and decide early on: Are we going to ride it all the way home or let this one go? You might decide to eat that donut or have that glass of wine. Fine, but on just one condition – you’re going to mindfully savour it and enjoy it to the max. If you decide to use this urge surfing strategy, you will let the craving roll on without you. We???re not going to do battle with it, just, in a Zen way, notice it and let it move on.

First, acknowledge its fullness by saying to yourself, “Thank you mind for that old strategy for dealing with my current emotions, but I would like to see if I can come up with a healthier solution.” You do this, in essence, by giving yourself something healthier to do that will occupy your mind e.g. work on a project, go for a walk, watch TV, take a shower, read a good book/magazine or distract yourself. Make a list of what you can do at these times and keep it in your purse/wallet and refer to it – we often can’t remember what we’ve decided to do when our cravings cloud our mind. Check back in fifteen minutes later. If the craving is still rampant then you may decide to give into it. Remember when it comes to food, the mantra is “I can have it if I really want it, but is it worth the calories?” ??? but then note the one condition above, if you???re going to ride that bad boy all the way up the beach then do it on your terms and enjoy the hell out of it!