The Physical & Spiritual Meaning Behind Your Cravings

By Ciel Grove

Food cravings are an everyday thing for most of us, and when we approach them as an intricate language between the body, brain, and spirit rather than something to be resented or ignored, they can be extremely useful in improving health.

The challenge with cravings is that you have to know how to translate them, and this doesn’t come easily. The majority of us have spent our lives ignoring the internal cues coming from our bodies, told even from childhood that a headache meant that we needed a Tylenol, not much more. We likely weren’t taught to consider that perhaps we were eating something our bodies didn’t like, or that we needed to drink more water; that the symptom was an intelligent and meaningful signal coming from our bodies.

The fantastic thing is that the signals are always there, and can be accessed at any time should we choose to listen, even if we’ve ignored them for many years.

Healing the rift between body and mind is challenging but doable, and thankfully, there’s tons of information out there that will help your cravings make sense on a physical level. There’s always a spiritual component to our desires as well, however, and sometimes the task of connecting the physical to our greater life experience and emotions is huge.

When we consider the spiritual message in our physical experience, cravings are unfortunately not always what they seem. Desires that appear to be honest—that our bodies are telling us what they need to operate well—may actually be the opposite of what we need to heal. Cravings can show up when our vulnerability is triggered, or to appease self-negating eating habits and insecurity, for example. The body may also issue cravings for food as it would for a drug, seeking a temporary “high” from the chemical components.

It’s complicated, to say the least.

While yearnings for individual foods have meaning unto themselves, here’s a breakdown of three basic (and commonly craved) flavors that may help you to discern the physical, mental and spiritual meaning behind what you reach for:

Sweetness

A craving for sugary things relates on a physical level to the cells of the body not getting enough energy.Sugar is a quick source of energy, and the body knows this. Reduced cellular energy production can occur because of a lack of minerals necessary for proper insulin secretion and sensitivity (chromium, magnesium and zinc are often low in nearly everyone, and can really help reduce your desire for sugars and other carbohydrates), or a fatty acid deficiency resulting in faulty intracellular communication.

Sweetness as an emotional experience is often craved when we are unable to process sadness; when we’re hoping to temporarily cover up our low points with a little burst of sugar high. Whether we view this experience on a biochemical level (relating the experience to a lack of serotonin, a pleasure-oriented neurotransmitter that is low when we’re sad but stimulated by sweet flavors) or a more spiritual view (that we are quite literally looking for “sweet” experiences in life, which also stimulate serotonin release) makes all the difference in the world. On a physical level, we must eat something, while spiritually that craving could be satisfied by any number of enjoyable life experiences. The challenge is to see whether the craving could be satisfied by taking a hot bath or getting a massage, or by sitting in natural settings and letting the beauty of the world sink in.  

There is a difference between sweetness that heals and sweetness that temporarily bandages.

Salty

A craving for saltiness is often physically associated with the kidneys, adrenals and the water balance they control in the body.

When stress is present and intense for long enough, the adrenal glands become exhausted and reduce the creation of aldosterone, a hormone that helps to retain sodium. Individuals with high stress levels will therefore often crave salt because their body is attempting to replenish what’s lost. Adrenal support in the form of bioavailable vitamin B5, adaptogenic herbs (Rhodiola, Siberian Ginseng, Holy Basil and others) or even adrenal glandulars may help to repair and rebalance the neuroendocrine system and reduce salt cravings, as will stress reduction and yoga. A hankering for salt may be related to iodine deficiency as well, as it is the body’s way of calling out for natural sea-based minerals.

Excess and constant life stress that leads to adrenal exhaustion, however, is often a sign of resistance to “flow.” Salt cravings indicate that we are trying to “solidify” ourselves because we are overwhelmed and afraid; we are using salt as a kind of mineralized fortification, thinking that hardness and strength are what we need in order to deal with whatever experience is presenting itself. The problem is that while salt may temporarily fix the water balance and bolster our stress reserves, it does not work in the long term, and the hardness we want to develop only ends up creating resistance, not healing.

At the root of this craving is the potential to find acceptance without making our stance on life more barricaded or controlled; to find the strength in trust, in flexibility, rather than enforcing our walls even more. Cravings for salt can be appeased by affirming our trust in the process of our life; by working on mindfulness and acceptance, and fortifying ourselves with fluidity, not hardness.

Fatty

Cravings for nut butters (a common one amongst us yogis, for some reason), oils or fried foods often relate to a calcium deficiency. The craving is often for saturated fats specifically (even if we can’t quite articulate it), as they are necessary to help maintain bone density and keep calcium in the body. It’s quite incredible to see changes in clients as they balance their mineral intake and soon find that their cashewmacadamianut butter lasts longer than two days in the house. Fatty cravings may also be quite straightforward in their motivation, and indicate a physical desire for good quality EFAs for hormonal balance and cellular stability: the oily fishes, borage oil, fresh seed oils.

There is a difference, however, between a gentle craving for good fats and the ability to inhale a tub of almond butter in three days…

Fat digestion occurs in the presence of bile, which is manufactured by the liver. When we tend to eat too many fatty foods because we’re constantly craving them, and then find that our upper abdominal area is bloated and uncomfortable, we have challenged the liver too much. As the liver is the physical seat of personal power—the third chakra—it is as though we are eating these difficult foods because we have yet to accept our own importance, and feel the need to keep the full reality of our power squashed down by physical discomfort. In this instance, our cravings are coming from our wounded ego, looking to perpetuate old hurts and a reduced sense of self worth.

Accepting our own authenticity and importance frees our power, but we have to want it, demand it. Going against social norms that cultivate insecurity more often than not, we can know ourselves to be worthy and incredible not because we fit into a particular box, but because as authentic individuals we are a necessary contribution to the whole. Through articulating our experience and understanding ourselves better, it’s possible to see how beautiful we really are, and how much we have to give the world. This releases restrictions on our sense of personal power, on our liver function overall.

And our addiction to nut butter.  

Published October 2, 2012 at 7:00 AM

About Ciel Grove

Ciel Patenaude, MA is a Holistic Health Practitioner and Certified Wellness Coach in Berkeley, CA. While she has studied Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, holistic nutrition, and a few hundred other modalities in the search for greater healing and understanding of life, the majority of her practice now centers around getting people connected to a sense of trust and their own power to heal, accomplished through shamanic practices and appreciation for the natural world.

Website: CielGrove.com 

Twitter: @cielgrove 

Photo: Ann Cutting

5 Pieces of Advice Everyone Ignores (but Shouldn't!)

Martha Beck shares her best words of wisdom—which could change lives if only people bothered to give them a try.

She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it)." That's what Lewis Carroll wrote about Alice, and it's true of most people. We go through life generally getting good counsel about what's best for us—and then vigorously ignoring it. This explains why I never run out of clients. It's amazing: Intelligent adults pay me for advice so obvious worms can follow it (this, as we'll see, is no exaggeration), then fail to act on it, then pay me to advise them again.

Here and now, out of sheer guilt, I've decided to spell out the best—and, mysteriously, most ignored!—advice I possess. If you follow it, I guarantee the results will be positive. If you don't, at least you won't be alone.

1. What leaves you feeling bad, do less of. What leaves you feeling good, do more of.
This one suggestion is all you really need to find your destiny, form loving relationships, achieve optimal health, and have the best life story in the bingo parlor during your golden years. And it isn't hard to remember, judging by the fact that worms easily take it to heart. Put a worm at the bottom of a simple T-shaped maze, with food in the left side of the top and a mild electric shock in the right, and it will develop fervent leftist inclinations. Yet many clever humans turn repeatedly to the very things that ruin our health and happiness: artery-clogging junk food, alcoholic lovers, soul-crushing jobs.

We do this because, unlike worms, we convince ourselves that there are good reasons to do ourselves harm. We say things like "I had a hard day; I deserve this industrial-size bag of chips." Or "You always hurt the one you love." Or "But I need the paycheck!" Yet I believe all human beings—even politicians—are born with the capacity for suffering and joy for a reason: so that we can navigate the world as well as a worm.

Notice that I'm putting the emphasis on how something leaves you feeling, not on how you imagine it will make you feel. Worms have to experience a maze several times before they start making optimal decisions. Once the experience registers, however, they trust it. Not so with us. We overthink experience—and end up bedazzled by the same electricity that Tasered our last relationship, or disdaining the simplicity of things that reliably nourish us.

Today, try pausing before any action you take and recall how that action made you feel in the past. For example, writing often seems frightening or burdensome to me before I start, yet as many writers before me have said, I love having written. On the other hand, while nothing seems more appetizing to me than baked goods, I know that both wheat and sugar leave me feeling droopy and queasy. Just pausing to vividly recall the past result of each action helps me choose writing over procrastination and bananas over cookies. If you think through how each action leaves you feeling, you'll find yourself more and more able to choose those that add up to your best life.

2. To achieve bigger goals, take smaller steps.
As a teenager, I often injured myself trying to run mountain trails. Then I noticed that bikers downshift to climb hills. I began mimicking them, taking steps so tiny they felt inconsequential. This allowed me to run uphill quickly without getting tired, winded, or hurt. The one race in which I actually placed was on a mountain trail where I scurried along like a mouse on a mission, zipping past runners whose gazelle-like leaps were taxing their lungs and ruining their knees.

It turns out that the tiny-steps approach applies to any difficult thing, from schoolwork to parenthood to career. The bigger the task, the smaller my steps. If I feel myself tiring or avoiding tasks, I cut my steps in half, then in half again, until each step feels easy. Between steps, I give myself a reward—nothing huge, just a ten-minute nap in the sun, a smoothie, some online window shopping.

My clients find this shocking. They want to achieve big goals, and they love those spectacular, gazelle-like leaps. One client I'll call Roberta planned to start getting up two hours early each morning, running to the gym, and lifting weights before work. She'd had this plan for five years. She hadn't acted on it once. I suggested that, instead, she get up five minutes early, put on gym clothes, then have coffee—full stop. She thought this ridiculous (they always do), but it worked (it usually does). Roberta's five minutes in gym clothes grew to ten, then to 15, then to a Zumba class she loved. She's still increasing her fitness, one tiny step at a time.

3. Lie down and rest for a while.
Speaking of health regimens, there's a big piece of getting fit that most of us shortchange: rest. The majority of my clients who complain of depression, anxiety, irritability, and weight gain are actually chronically tired. The problems caused by lack of rest can feel so intricate, but the solution is so simple: Lie down, dear. Just lie down.

If you've ever attended a meeting after lunch, you know the mild coma endocrinologists call postprandial dip, which makes you want to lay your head down and drool during your boss's PowerPoint presentations. And why not? Totally relaxing for just ten minutes can reenergize your body, sharpen your mind, and make you much less likely to weep when you can't find a stapler.

In many cultures, it's customary to lie down during the day. In ours, it's emphatically not. To get used to the idea anyway, try a yoga class or the Alexander Technique, which you can do on the floor—any floor, even at work (instructions available online). If all else fails, just channel your inner worm.

4. When you don't know what to say, try the truth.
I won't lie: Investing in resting can cause social awkwardness. For example, an acquaintance I'll call Jill recently asked me to drive an hour (each way) to meet her for dinner. I was exhausted, and though I like Jill, I've learned the hard way that when I put politeness over basic needs, I end up feeling resentful, which damages the relationship.

When I suggested that Jill and I take a rain check, she frostily asked what could possibly be more important than a chance to connect with her. I tried to invent a fictional business trip or convincing symptoms of bird flu, but my perfidious mouth blurted the truth: "I want to lie down."

I felt Jill's outrage as she absorbed the fact that on my priority list, getting some rest outranked dining with her. Truth often has this effect, but despite the initial sting, it makes for stronger relationships. If I'd lied, I'd have misled Jill and angered myself. I want friends who want what's best for me, and Jill can either accept that or find someone who's willing to dine under duress.

No matter what your truth may be—about political views, movie preferences, the desire to live "off the grid" eating roadkill—calmly expressing it cuts a clear path through the jungle of social connection.

5. Free yourself from dysfunctional people by refusing to try to control them.
You don't even need to say it—I can already hear you thinking: If I tell the truth in every awkward situation, there will be hell to pay with my mother/husband/sister/coworker/book club! I get it: There are people in your life who, for various reasons, don't want your truth. You may think you have to change those people to live in total authenticity. Don't even try.

I labored for decades to make sad people happy, rigid people flexible, aggressive people empathetic, and so on, before finally noticing that (1) this never worked, and (2) it drove me insane. Then I read codependency expert Melody Beattie's advice on how to deal with dysfunctional people: "Unhook from their system by refusing to try to change or influence them." This felt totally alien and absolutely right, and it works. The key, I've found, is to stay the heck away from the idea of "making" someone do, feel, or think anything. This is not your job. Your job is to maximize your own happiness, kindness, and health. Let others choose whether to follow.

At this point, I should note that Alice in Wonderland did take some of her own advice. She remembered, for example, that "if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later."

You've already had enough life experience to notice when a situation, a person, or a task is marked "poison." Remember how much that situation hurt the last time, and choose one that feels better now. Take small steps, lying down often along the way. Tell the truth and stay in your own business. Anything else is poison. And if you actually use this seldom-followed advice, you may one day wake up and realize that your life has become a wonderland.