My whole body demanded I have that KitKat.
My mind told me I deserved it, I’d earned it, it would be a great way to cap off the day and that maybe I should get a second bar too, just to really celebrate.
My mind also told me that I didn’t need it, that I was weak for wanting it, that it was disgusting to want it so much, that this was exactly the behaviour I’d been trying to stop for months.
The battle for control was on…
It had been a long, beautiful sunny day.
My daughters and I had woken at 5:45am to jump in the car to the Gold Coast so they could try their first ever water polo tournament.
It had been hectic but they’d enjoyed the day and loved playing with their friends and cousins. I’d managed to squeeze in a swim with a couple of the mates in the middle of it all and then it finally wrapped up with presentations at 2:30pm.
My sister took my girls home. I was heading off in my own car to catch up with a friend who’d flown in from Sydney.
I was tired and happy.
I pulled into a petrol station to fill my tank.
I walked inside to pay and that was when I spotted a twin-share KitKat sitting just below the cash register.
Full body cravings kicked in. There was no way I was going to share this thing. My mind went into overdrive.
As I got close to the counter, I reached out and picked up the KitKat.
Then I tried something I’d never tried before.
I acknowledged what my mind was telling me.
I acknowledged the emotions of craving, disgust, frustration, desire.
I acknowledged the physiological experience of my whole body wanting to pick up the bar and eat it.
I connected to my body and tried moving my hands. I twisted the bar to the right. I twisted it to the left. I realised I still had control of my limbs.
I engaged in the world around me. I actually looked at the detail of the grey cigarette cabinet behind the counter. I looked at the woman serving me and noticed her earrings. I noticed the sound of the traffic outside.
Then I put the bar back down.
I paid for the fuel.
I walked out.
I got in my car.
I drove away.
All while still experiencing the thoughts, feelings and sensations of craving.
Dropping Anchor
While this KitKat example may appear trivial, the crux of all behaviour change lies in the tiny choices we make each day.
I’d been trying to reduce my sugar intake for over a year. It’d been hard going. Nothing had really stuck.
The key insight was not me knowing more about how to “quit sugar”.
A lack of information or knowledge is very rarely the obstacle.
Instead, it is our thoughts, feelings and sensations that hook us and pull us away from the action we already know we need to take.
The key insight was about how I handle the experience of craving.
The technique I used is called Dropping Anchor. I’d learned it a week earlier from Dr Russ Harris, one of the world’s foremost experts in psychological flexibility.
The pattern is simple:
- A – Acknowledge your thoughts, feelings and sensations. What is your mind telling you? How do you feel? What do you feel in your body? Where do you feel it?
- C – Connect to your body. Move your hands, legs, arms, stretch a little. Notice that even with these thoughts, feelings, sensations present in your body, you still have control over your limbs.
- E – Engage in the world around you. What can you see, hear, smell, touch, taste?
The purpose of this exercise is not to make the craving go away, but to make room for it. To expand your awareness of the craving and your body and the world around it.
In fact, the title of this article is way off.
Rather than fighting the craving, it was acceptance of the craving.
Rather than feeling hooked by the craving, dropping anchor allowed me to gently unhook and make a different choice.
And of course this doesn’t just apply to dealing with sugar cravings.
I have a client currently using dropping anchor to help them stop drinking on week nights.
Dropping anchor is a meta skill of psychological flexibility that applies wherever and whenever you find the challenging internal experiences that are holding you back in your health, work and relationships.
And other tools in the toolkit of psychological flexibility have helped my clients lead organisations, deal with performance anxiety at work, difficult conversations, breaking through a 17 year phobia of running, negotiating $1B+ deals, navigating domestic violence and many, many more instances.
The question is would you be willing, in the midst of your next challenge, to give it a go?
If you’d like a quick way to identify challenges where Dropping Anchor might be useful, I’d encourage to grab this free 3 min assessment >>
