Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're

getting a little better at life. I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's

episode we're going to talk about the mindful way to work with urges. More to

come on that in a moment. First let's settle in together with the sound of the

bells.

Okay, so the mindful way to work with urges. First let's just talk about what an

urge is. Well I'm defining this broadly and an urge can be any sort of sense

of volition toward something and impulse. I want to eat this food. I want to say

this thing. I want to do this instead of that. We experience these throughout the

day many many times and in many different contexts and a big part of personal

growth, personal development, living a life in alignment, living responsibly,

even authentically, requires being able to manage these urges that might

take us off our path or cause us to do one small thing that's out of alignment

that can become a snowball effect or just manage different unhealthy urges

throughout the day such as wanting to eat that extra piece of dessert when

I probably don't need it but I just really want it. It's often that feeling of

like I need to do this. Then it could be in relationship to an addictive setting

as well such as for a cigarette or something else that you struggle with on a

day-to-day basis. So this is what I'm talking about when we're talking about urges.

And our usual way of thinking about working with urges is one of willpower

and self-control. We feel this urge in the body and then we try to override it.

The predominant feeling is like okay we engage the prefrontal cortex which is

...