My favorite spot to walk is at a beautiful state park, particularly in the campground area. Off season, the campground is closed, and there are TONS of paved roads available to walk. I walk here almost every day, and I usually take a similar route.
A couple days ago, I was rounding a corner near a huge pine tree. I was listening to some audiobook or podcast, passively absorbing the content. Then, a thought popped into my head…
💭 “A Pop Tart would be good.”
I actually shook my head and laughed out loud at that. How absolutely random! I shrugged, knowing that thoughts come and go of their own volition, and refocused my attention on the content I was listening to. Pop Tarts were forgotten.
Today, as I was rounding that same corner near that same huge pine tree, a thought popped into my head…
💭”What about that Pop Tart?”
Now, in the past, I would have listened to my Left Brain Narrator as she made meaning out of that…
🧠 “Wow, I must really want Pop Tarts! This is the second time I’ve thought of them, so it must be a craving. I should buy a box of Pop Tarts next time I go to the store so I don’t have to worry about this thought popping up again.”
But here’s the thing I understand now:
⭐️ There IS NO MEANING to be made from a passing thought/urge. REALLY!⭐️
⭐️ Following through with an urge probably will not stop the urge from coming up again in the future. In fact, following through with it will reinforce the neural pathway and make it MORE likely to show up again. ⭐️
All that’s happening here is an efficient, habit-loving mind working in a perfectly normal, healthy way. A Pop Tart thought showed up in that same spot a couple days before, so why not again? Food thoughts are incredibly habitual for my mind already, so in the name of efficiency, why not play the same one?
When the thought replayed today, I smiled and laughed again. Then I checked in with my body in the present moment. Do I actually want a Pop Tart right now? No, I don’t.
So I kept walking.