Chapter 16: Crisis = Test. You Can Cross This Hurdle

In a certain sense, what I am going to speak about now is one of the most essential topics in the entire process. It is essential for integrating the Creative Hunger Formula, for introducing it into your life, for befriending it, and for embracing the broader worldview that surrounds it, far beyond the specific matter of overeating, recovery from overeating, eating correctly, eating healthily, nourishing the body, emotional eating, or anything else related to food.

What I am going to speak about now touches many other aspects of life. It is deeply relevant to processes of change, growth, and healing. It is important to emphasize that not every attempt at healing succeeds. Not every time we go to therapy, take a course, enter a training program, follow a book, or join a group process will things turn out the way we want them to.

Even if the tools are excellent, even if they truly can generate healing, they do not always succeed. And what I am about to introduce now is one of the core reasons why processes sometimes fail. When the concepts presented here are integrated properly, especially the understanding that a crisis is a test and that the test can be passed, the likelihood of creating that necessary “click” between you and the Creative Hunger Formula increases dramatically.

As I said earlier, when the click finally happens, when the brain remembers something it had forgotten, something it had drifted away from because of life pressures and habits, we suddenly have one hundred percent success. Because the body begins to operate differently. It learns to live well with hunger, to enjoy moments of eating, to separate between the two, to connect them correctly, and to deal more wisely with the situations that trigger negative emotional eating, the misplaced urge to eat. We learn to handle it better, and it becomes part of life. This is why eventually the formula reaches full success when the click occurs.

So what is our story now? The story is the story of crises. A crisis inside this process, and of course it can also be a crisis in other areas of life.

What do we do with a crisis? Let us imagine that we began this journey with enthusiasm, as happens with many processes. Alongside the skepticism, we still gave it a chance. And then, at some point, something does not work. The craving returns. We have no strength for the hunger. We cannot hold on. Something happens. Stress, criticism, a relationship crisis, a family crisis. Something significant pushes us into a corner, against a wall, and we find ourselves returning to negative emotional eating, rushing to fill ourselves, to push food in quickly, to calm the stress, to quiet the inner noise. It happens, it has happened, and it will happen again.

The essential question is not whether crises occur, because they do, and they occur for a reason. The question is how we relate to them. How we work with them, and how we receive them.

It is important to understand that beyond the external circumstances that may lead a person who has not fully recovered from smoking back to a cigarette, or a recovering alcoholic back to a drink, or a recovering overeater back to unnecessary eating, there is also something else happening quietly behind the scenes. It is something we must recognize because it almost always appears in some form.

Whenever we move toward real change, not just removing one item from the diet or eating a little less, but toward a global change that reorganizes the entire system of eating and hunger, a change that teaches us to know hunger, grow from it, and transform through it, something inside recognizes that a major shift is underway. And from that recognition, anxiety may arise. Almost always, anxiety arises before something good is about to occur. Anxiety about the unfamiliar. Anxiety about leaving the old comfort zone. Anxiety about the threat to the existing status quo.

This is very natural. We are used to what we have in our hands. We tend to preserve what we know, even if it is negative. We hold on to old habits, familiar emotional patterns, and even unhealthy eating patterns. They feed us in a way, even negatively, but they still feed us.

So when a very significant process begins to move internally, inviting us to transform, to reach a new inner land, fear arises. And from fear a strong resistance can grow, directed precisely against the change we wanted.

It is important to know this. Because if we do not know, we do not understand what is happening. We do not understand why suddenly, one or two days after everything starts flowing beautifully, there is a crash. Suddenly we lose all strength. “I do not want this anymore. I give up. It is not working. I cannot hold the hunger.” This is the fear of change speaking. This is the inner resistance rising.

Sometimes the crisis also occurs simply because we are not yet fully ready for recovery. A stressful event pushes us back to the early stages, to a level where we cannot yet cooperate with hunger, and we revert to what was familiar.

No matter what the cause of the crisis may be, the needed response is always the same. A response full of patience, understanding, warmth, and love. Not because it is “nice” or morally correct to be kind to ourselves, but because this is the strategy that works.

When I contain the crisis, allow it to exist, and do not scold myself excessively, do not dramatize, do not collapse into “I failed again, I am hopeless, something is wrong with me” – but instead breathe acceptance, love, gentleness, and say to myself, “It is okay, this is part of the process, it is temporary, I will return to the path soon, I fell but I will get up” – this approach works.

This is not moral advice. It is not even a matter of positive psychology. It is technical. It simply works.

When I am in crisis and find myself eating something unnecessary, or falling back into an addictive behavior, the most effective reaction is to gather myself back. To return to the recordings, to watch the videos again if needed, to speak to myself with trust and encouragement. “It is okay that there is a crisis. It is okay that I fell. This is not the collapse of everything. It is temporary. It is part of the program.”

The more I learn to work with myself this way, the deeper the transformation becomes.

Addiction is built upon excessive self criticism. Addiction sits upon an inner hostile attitude toward oneself. If in a crisis I repeat this hostility, intensify it, and attack myself again, I strengthen the addiction.

This is the familiar loop of excessive criticism and excessive eating. Criticism, overeating, criticism, overeating. We aim to stop this loop. And we use the crisis itself as an opportunity to establish new habits.

A crisis? Fine.
Embrace. Self love. Self compassion. Patience.

The crisis may last a day or two. It may last a little longer. But I tell myself: I will continue the process. I will fall sometimes, and it is allowed to fall. Nothing terrible has happened. This is learning. And I continue.

From this place we not only continue the journey, but also stop fearing the next crisis. We continue with more strength, more self friendship, and more willingness to cooperate with the process.

This is why the crisis is so important. It is a test. And it is a test you can pass, and pass well. You only need to bring love into it, and then continue forward.

Self reflection questions (to be answered in writing):

1. Do you now understand that you need to be on your own side, even when you fall again into unnecessary eating?

2. Can you see how improving your relationship with yourself in moments of crisis that include unnecessary eating can, in the future, help you reduce this type of eating?

3. What are the main emotions that lead you to unnecessary eating?

4. What would you be willing to forgive yourself for right now, unrelated to food?

5. What do you need more than anything when you enter a crisis and feel you have no strength to do what is supposedly “right”?

Chapter 17: Be the Good Mother of Yourself

Before I turn to the main point of this chapter, the request that you become the good mother of yourself so that the Creative Hunger Formula can truly succeed, I want to pause. As you already know, I love pausing many times throughout this process. These pauses are important, especially because this is a virtual journey in which we meet only through this indirect form of contact. For that reason I find it essential to stop now and then, to speak from heart to heart, and to bring in a practical and human tone. This is meaningful for the path we are walking.

I want to emphasize again that the Creative Hunger Formula, although it deals with changing eating habits, is a platform for emotional healing. It is not merely a story about eating. It is a doorway into something much wider. Some people struggle most with eating. Some with money. Some with relationships. Some with work. Everyone receives from life a different set of challenges, and through these challenges they can go through transformation.

You are likely here because eating is a meaningful issue in your life. But it could have been a different issue. And if we work with any subject correctly, not merely trying to change it on the surface but actually engaging with it in a holistic way, we discover that each issue reflects the broader emotional structure of our lives and mirrors other areas as well.

The Creative Hunger Formula is not only a technical tool for balancing weight. It is a technical tool for improving personality and creating general emotional healing through a path connected to nourishment, eating, and the inner magic of creative hunger. This is the deeper reason we are here. The deeper reason for anything truly good in life is healing. Wherever healing does not take place, something essential is missing.

Healing must exist, and it is worthwhile to ask ourselves, in nearly everything we do, whether healing is available, whether healing can occur, whether we are oriented toward healing, whether we demand healing, whether we receive healing.

This is the deeper meaning of this process. Along with the weight that will gradually drop, other issues will drop as well. We will learn to live with more courage, more clarity, more creativity, more health, and more abundance.

After this personal note, which will reappear from time to time in the following chapters, I want to ask you to become the good mother of yourself.

The story of creative hunger, the story of overeating, the story of eating in general, mixes two major forms of nourishment within us: emotional nourishment and physical nourishment. These two forms of nourishment often become intertwined, sometimes too intertwined. Emotional nourishment begins to take on the role of physical nourishment, and physical nourishment begins to take on the role of emotional nourishment. Things become blurred.

For example, emotional eating tries to nourish us emotionally in places where it can no longer do so or does so incorrectly. This confusion exists because emotional nourishment and physical nourishment become entangled.

If we speak about nourishment in general, we can assume that our difficulty with food is connected to other difficulties with nourishment. Almost every person has some complex relationship with nourishment. But in our case, it is very visible. We put food in our mouths, we ask for more food, we long for more nourishment. We feel hunger, we feel lack, we feel an inner emptiness. And this emptiness grows when challenges grow. We feel it more strongly.

To deal with this emptiness more wisely, we need an inner maternal figure. A nourishing, good, compassionate mother figure. One who evolves her motherhood, who becomes conscious of it, who works on it. We need the mother who will nourish you well, and this mother must arise from within you.

You can pause for a moment and reflect on your own mother, in the past or present. What types of nourishment did she give you? What forms of nourishment would you have wanted to receive but did not receive fully, or did not receive in the right way? What forms of nourishment she perhaps did not know how to give because of her personality, her life circumstances, the era she lived in.

Think also about the mother you are, if you are a mother, or the mother you may become if you plan to be one. What does motherhood mean to you? What does being a mother mean more broadly, not only in connection to your life? What is the role of mothers in this world? What is their role when their children are infants, when they are small, when they are teenagers, when they grow into adults? How do these roles meet you? How do they affect you? How connected do you feel to your own maternal energy? Do you feel confident in your motherhood? Do you enjoy your motherhood?

And remember, motherhood is not limited only to one’s biological children. You may be a mother to students, to nieces and nephews, to grandchildren. The maternal energy exists in every woman, and it finds its own direction naturally, depending on whom you choose to mother.

How do you meet your own maternal energy today?

What we need right now for the process to succeed is that you do your best to become the good mother of yourself. According to the model of motherhood you believe in, the motherhood that feels right and healthy to you. This is the mother we need here.

We need her to be embracing. We need her to be comforting. We need her to be nourishing, including in the food you prepare for yourself. Do you prepare food for yourself as if you were your own mother? We need her to be loving, soft, patient, and at times assertive and protective. A mother who stands by you, speaks for you, protects your boundaries, listens to you, cares for you, strokes you gently at bedtime, and welcomes you warmly in the morning and when you return home.

You need this mother now. Beyond the qualities I listed, you can add many more. The ideal mother that you need. The more this figure appears within you, the more you allow her to exist, the more nourished and secure you will feel. You will be less drawn to immediate addictive nourishment, less drawn to snacks and emotional food between meals, which are forms of nourishment from a much lower level. Not the high form of nourishment we are seeking now.

This is another inner element we want to cultivate. This element is connected to self love. It is connected to reducing excessive self criticism. It is connected to self compassion. It is connected to recognizing your value and your presence regardless of what you do, who you are, what your work is, or how much you have achieved. None of that matters.

The inner mother loves you and cherishes you exactly as you are. That is what a good mother does. A good mother delights in the very existence of her children. That is her role.

This is what we want to cultivate now. You need this good mother inside you. You need to call her, shape her, bring her into existence, build her, repair her, and give her presence inside the process. Give yourself her hand.

So that eventually, even when you are hungry, you will be able to nourish yourself emotionally. You will feel fed. And this will help greatly in succeeding in the process.

Self reflection questions (to be answered in writing):

1. In your view, why do we need you to be the good mother of yourself?

2. What does it mean for you to be a good mother?

3. What changes do you imagine will occur in your life when you become a better mother to yourself?

4. In what ways do you currently help yourself when you are in pain?

5. Can you cultivate self compassion and inner comfort so that you can truly become more motherly toward yourself?

Chapter 18: Do Not Rush to Tell Everyone

How are you, my dear?
If you are still here, it means we are on the right path. This is the eighteenth chapter out of thirty six, and something good is already beginning to take shape. Even if it is happening mainly in your thoughts, that is perfectly fine. Time has its own work to do. We are initiating a fundamental change that integrates body and mind, awareness and bold steps toward transformation, and such a process naturally takes time. I have said this many times, and I will keep saying it, because this is part of deeply understanding this journey. You may even finish all thirty six chapters and realize that it still is not fully “there”, and you will start again. And again. And gradually it will happen. And if you eventually add work with a group or with others, that may also support you, but right now it is not the central point.

When we continue and give the process space, face the crises, and allow skepticism to break down step by step, faith grows, tolerance for resistance expands, and our commitment deepens. At some point the click occurs. The Creative Hunger Formula stops being only an idea and becomes an inner functioning. The brain remembers something it had forgotten, something life pushed away. And from that moment on, the formula can work with full power.

This chapter deals with something that I believe is not sufficiently understood, and it is particularly important for women, even though it is relevant for everyone. It is directly connected to the success of the process. The main idea is simple but profound: do not rush to tell everyone. I mean this mainly in the negative sense, though eventually we could also speak of the positive aspect if we have time. But the emphasis belongs to the negative one.

The process we are doing here is not a small lifestyle tweak. It is a significant shift in your relationship with food, with hunger, with emotional patterns, and with your self perception. Sometimes the environment around us does not support that. People snack around you, drink coffee with cake casually, offer you diet snacks they believe are harmless, or ask why you need to be so strict about not eating between meals. Making this change is not easy, especially when the environment does not fully understand it. Even when awareness about healthy hunger grows in the world, it is still common that people around you are not supportive enough, not moving in the same direction, and their way of being adds complexity, especially during moments of difficulty.

When a moment of challenge arrives, when you slip or fail to meet the guidelines you set for yourself, there is often an immediate urge to share it with someone. To call a close friend or someone supportive and tell them how frustrated you are, how hard it was, how you fell again. People respond according to their personalities, their habits, their understanding of you. Some will respond with warmth, some with humor or cynicism, some with encouragement, some with misunderstanding.

But within this process, the one where you are learning to become the good mother of yourself, there is a deep importance to refining and strengthening your internal capacity for containment.

Containment is an attribute of the feminine energy. It exists in men too, but women tend to experience it more strongly. Containment is not passive patience. It is an active emotional movement of nourishment, warmth, support, and inner emotional presence. The womb, which is the physical symbol of this energy, is not just a place where a fetus lies. The womb is active. It nourishes, warms, provides ideal conditions, maintains a silent dialogue with the developing child.

Containment works the same way inside us. It is not merely enduring. It is tending. Nourishing. Softening. Embracing.

This is why it is so important that you do not rush to tell others whenever you slip. Sharing is not the problem, and sharing can eventually be very helpful. But if you share too soon, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to grow internally. When you are in a crisis, the first person you need is yourself. You need your inner mother. No one else can provide this for you. And even with the best intentions, someone from the outside may unintentionally interfere with your ability to meet yourself, soothe yourself, and develop the emotional nourishment you need. This inner meeting is part of the transformation we are cultivating here.

So what is containment? It is not merely not reacting. It is not simply waiting for something to pass. Containment is creating an inner space that is active and loving. It is holding yourself with tenderness, compassion, and attention. When you stand near someone in pain and you only pity them, you are not truly containing them. Their pain touches your own pain, and both need tending. True containment involves nourishing yourself while you are in the presence of pain, whether that pain belongs to another or to yourself.

So when you slip and take something between meals, or when you feel disappointed with yourself, I want you to remain with yourself for a moment first. Stay with the feeling. Stay with the frustration. And soften it. Hold it with love. Hold it with perspective. There are no true failures here. There are no real collapses. There are no falls that erase the journey. These falls are part of the process. The psyche is rebuilding itself, and sometimes rebuilding includes falling. And in these falls we are meant to learn to give ourselves more love, to remember our humanity, to remember that sensitivities and pains still exist and that nothing is wrong with that.

For the Creative Hunger Formula to take root and for this process to succeed, it is essential not to rush outward before you have gone inward. Give yourself the opportunity to feel without fleeing the feeling. Give yourself the mother you need, the one who comforts gently, understands you, reassures you, and trusts that you will return to the path very soon.

If you want to share tomorrow or the next day, you can. But now, in the moment of crisis, do not rush outward. The impulse to share is often the impulse for emotional nourishment, for comfort, for validation. But that is not the nourishment you need right now. There is another kind of emotional hunger that you are invited to meet. A hunger that asks you to be with yourself, to nourish yourself from within, to be your own mother with patience, gentleness, and faith in your ability to return and continue.

Self reflection questions (to be answered in writing):

1. Are you now able to contain yourself when you do not succeed in meeting your goals for reducing overeating?

2. Are you now able to love yourself when you do not succeed in meeting your goals for reducing overeating?

3. Can you see the difficulty in the fact that we rush to bring someone else into our story about our “slip”?

4. Are you willing to take full responsibility for the fact that you still have a weakness that can sometimes disrupt your process here?

5. Can you embrace this weakness and not be angry at yourself for its existence, and do you now understand that this can greatly support you in this process?

Chapter 19: More Change, Less Talking

We continue.

At this stage, it is important for me to outline the vision once again. Not only so that we know where we are going, but in order to make this entire journey something essential, practical, accessible, possible, and something that works within human proportions. Without pressure. Without unnecessary tension. Without tasks that are too difficult and then lead to falling off the path.

Before I go deeper into this lecture, it is important for me to remind you of what is about to happen, if it has not already begun. The body is about to enter a kind of healthy programming. A programming that is actually very familiar to it. A programming according to which almost all species in nature operate. A programming in which there is no need to eat many times a day, and no need to eat large amounts in order to feel good, to be vital, to function, to exist, to grow, to rest, and to maintain relationships.

The body knows how to be there. It knows this place. It is a pleasant place for it. A light place. A place that works well for it. Everything we are doing here is simply returning ourselves to that place. And once we get used to it, it will work on its own. Not only will it no longer be complicated not to eat between meals, but this will also create additional and deeper changes in our relationship with food.

As we focus eating, pleasurable eating, satisfying eating, eating that includes desire and sensory awakening, into organized times and clear meals, and in between create quiet in the digestive system, something very significant happens. The body begins on its own to dismantle distractions. It dismantles disconnection. It allows us to feel much more accurately what food truly suits us.

The body becomes more selective. Clearer. Things that in the past we ate without noticing and later regretted, suddenly no longer attract us. Not out of restraint. Not out of struggle. But out of listening. The body simply says: this does not really suit me right now. And this can apply to anything. There is no absolute good food or bad food here. What suits one person does not necessarily suit another. And what suits another does not necessarily suit the first.

This program does not tell you what is allowed and what is forbidden. It returns us to the body’s ability to enjoy a good meal at the right time, and at the same time to be quiet, in terms of the digestive system, until the next meal. It is a process of getting used to and remembering how the system actually works. It does not need food two hours after a satisfying meal. On the contrary. It needs space. It needs time to deal with what entered. It needs available energy to direct toward other things.

The body needs free time from food. Free time for work, for growth, for relationships, for progress, for coping with life. The system knows this. Wants this. Is happy with this.

And here, beyond weight balance that will come with time, and beyond a greater sense of control in life and around food, there is another very important bonus. A bonus of renewed connection to the body’s natural senses. Perhaps one of the most beautiful things that can happen. The ability to hear clearly what the body truly asks for. Not to eat randomly. Not to eat things that do not suit us. One of the reasons people gain weight is that they eat food the body has difficulty digesting. It accumulates. It burdens. It creates overload.

And here we arrive at the central topic of this lecture. More change, less talking.

This has two central meanings.

The first meaning is related to periods of not eating. I do not want to call it fasting. It is not fasting. It is simply not eating. It is a state in which we do not need food and do not deal with food. In this state, adrenaline accumulates in the body. This adrenaline is not an enemy. Originally, it was meant to allow the organism to act out of hunger. To hunt. To move. To be sharp. To be creative.

Adrenaline provides heightened attention, muscular energy, an alert heartbeat, sharper vision. For the modern human being, adrenaline is a hormone of creation, of action, of initiative, of change. When we do not eat, we fill with energy. And if we do not work correctly with this energy, it begins to press. It creates distress. And then the urge to eat arises in order to calm it.

But if we work correctly with this energy, if we move into action, creation, initiative, change, and doing, the hunger disappears. Not because we ate, but because the energy received direction. We are not truly hungry. We are full of energy that did not receive an outlet.

When instead of acting we choose talking, talking about what we will do, talking about food, talking that fills the space instead of moving into action, we are not working correctly with the system that is undergoing change. We miss an opportunity. We increase internal pressure. We increase the risk of unnecessary eating.

There are moments in which we cannot both talk and act. There are situations in which more quiet is required, and more focus on doing. Real doing. Creative doing. Doing that moves something that has been stuck for a long time.

This is the first aspect of more change and less talking.

The second aspect is slightly more metaphorical, but very deep. We are creating quiet in the digestive system. This quiet is physical, but it is also emotional. We reduce overload. We reduce inner chatter. We reduce the constant digestion of more and more stimuli.

We learn to be with quiet. And this quiet is not always comfortable. Sometimes it arouses anxiety. What do I do now. I am not eating. I am not talking. I am not filling my mouth. But we need this quiet. Quiet from food. Quiet from excessive talking. And from this quiet we move into action.

This is not about absolute silence. Of course we will speak when needed. Of course we will have conversations, work, and maintain relationships. This is about an inner stance. An understanding that there are moments when we stop talking and go do.

To open a book we postponed. To write something we were afraid to begin. To throw away an object we did not dare to part with. To order something we delayed ordering. Adrenaline is there to help us with this.

If instead of working with it we get dragged into excessive talk, we endanger our ability to work correctly with creative hunger and with the body’s healthy trait. To eat well, and at the same time to cleanse ourselves of eating.

Not only through not eating, but through correct use of the energy that is created. To take the adrenaline and go out with it into work.

And thus, in a natural, calm, and even easy way, the process succeeds.

Self reflection questions to be answered in writing

1. Do you feel that today you have a relatively good connection with your body regarding what it needs to receive and what it does not?
2. What changes are truly important for you to make in the near future and have not yet made?
3. Can you see the possibility that moments of quiet in the digestive system could help you make some of these changes?
4. If instead of eating during a period of not eating you were to start walking, where would you be heading?
5. Have you already experienced moments of emotional satiety, in which emotional hunger calmed when your attention turned toward change, creation, movement, or action?

Chapter 20: Move Courageously Toward Your Dream

The broader, deeper vision of the Creative Hunger Formula goes far beyond the issue of weight balance. Weight balance, as I have already mentioned, is a platform. It is a means. It is a gate. It is a path that allows us to reach places we might not have reached if we had focused all our attention only on the number on the scale or on external appearance. The larger vision of the Creative Hunger Formula is to give you a courageous push toward realizing your dreams.

This is the heart of this lecture. Move courageously toward your dream.

It is often very difficult to grasp the connection between these things. It is easy to miss the subtle, quiet, hidden connections. There is a deep and close connection between an addiction that is stuck and sitting on us, and the fact that we are not realizing our dreams. On the surface, these seem like two separate worlds. One may ask, and rightly so, why can I not eat several times a day, perhaps also be overweight, and at the same time act toward realizing my dreams. Why must one be connected to the other.

This question has several answers, and one of them is related specifically to removing background noise. I invite you to imagine a vision in which background noise, distractions, and screens that block your direct connection with your dream are gradually removed. The dream that existed before, but was hidden, blurred, difficult to see, begins to become clearer. Not because it is created anew, but because fewer things stand between you and it.

When there is overeating, when there is constant engagement with food, with guilt, with deliberations, with promises and disappointments, it is very difficult to see the dream clearly. Not only is it difficult to see the dream itself, it is also difficult to see the steps required to realize it. It is difficult to identify the next step. It is difficult to feel the courageous initiative that is required. It is difficult to believe that you have the strength to do it.

As long as our energy is mainly directed toward managing eating, managing the struggle, quickly filling tension and pressure, we use our adrenaline to calm rather than to create. Instead of allowing adrenaline to lead us toward creative, innovative, change generating activity, we suppress it. Instead, we allow insulin, the hormone that slows, that stores, that builds fat, to become more dominant. When this happens over time, without our noticing, we distance ourselves not only from weight balance, but also from realizing dreams.

The Creative Hunger Formula is not meant only for you to be slimmer or to feel more comfortable in front of the mirror. These are legitimate, beautiful, joyful goals. And if they are what motivates you right now, that is perfectly fine. But they are not the deep reason we are here. Behind the scenes, and now becoming visible, the deeper reason is to remove screens and masks. To remove distractions that prevent you from approaching, with courage, what truly matters. Your dream. A self realization you did not dare to approach before.

Here a delicate but essential question arises. Why did you not dare before. Why did dealing with overeating consume so many resources. What stood behind it. What was there, in the place that is difficult to see.

One possible answer is fear. A deep fear of realizing dreams. Fear of success. Fear of the change that will come if you truly succeed. Fear of parting from habits that define you. Fear of becoming someone else.

I am not asking now to analyze in depth why we are afraid. The first step is to agree to the possibility. To agree to the possibility that much of what we do not realize does not stem from lack of ability, lack of luck, lack of resources, or external conditions, but from fear. Fear of realization. Fear of success. Fear of change.

Overeating can also be managed by fear. Fear of what will happen if we do not eat now. Fear of restlessness. Fear of emptiness. Fear of staying with hunger. And when we practice space between meals, we are actually practicing calming fear. We discover that no disaster occurs. That we can bear the sensation. That we can choose another action. And thus, gradually, fear loses its power.

We are working here with fears. Fears keep us in addiction. Fears of realizing a dream. Fears of stable and lasting weight balance. Fears of leaving an old identity and entering a new space. Every significant change evokes fear, and that is natural. Therefore, together with the gradual work we are doing here with eating, I ask you to begin to ask another question as well.

Where can you recruit a bit of courage to move toward a dream. Not all at once. Not in too big a leap. Perhaps just a few small steps. At your pace. In your time. There is no need to rush and no need to pressure. Every person has a pace. But sometimes a small movement outside the familiar is required in order to allow change to take hold.

This courage is also connected to the ability to remain a bit longer with hunger until the meal. Not as extreme hunger, not as deprivation, but as a gentle practice of presence. Meals of pleasure remain. Food is not taken from you. But courage is required not to respond immediately to every impulse. Courage is required to soothe yourself without food. Courage is required to direct attention elsewhere.

And here the connection occurs. When you move courageously toward your dream, even in a small step, you awaken your natural courage. The adrenaline working within you begins to serve creation, movement, and realization. From this, it also becomes easier to remain with hunger. Things begin to connect.

Therefore I invite you to ask gently. Where in your life is there a dream that seeks movement. Where can you take one small step. Not perfect. Not final. But courageous.

It is possible. You know it is possible. And under the protection of the adrenaline flowing in you, precisely when you do not eat between meals, alongside meals of pleasure, indulgence, and self love, this is how it can work.

Self reflection questions to be answered in writing

1. What is the sweetest risk that comes to your mind right now, in any area?
2. What do you think will happen if you take this risk or at least realize part of it?
3. What is the dream you want to taste a bit more of in the coming months?
4. What excuses do you invent for yourself that delay the next risk toward realizing a dream?
5. Can you see the symbolic connection between unnecessary eating and delaying the next important step in your life?

Chapter 21: Spontaneity, Mistakes, and Growth

One of the reasons it is sometimes difficult to move into a lifestyle based on the Creative Hunger Formula, despite the fact that it is a very healthy, pleasant, vibrant lifestyle that allows meaningful things to happen, is that we enter a space with more adrenaline. This is a space in which forces of action, boldness, and jumping into the water awaken. Places we did not dare to enter in the past. This adrenaline calls us to move more, act more, dare more, be in motion.

Adrenaline is the hormone of action. It is the hormone of courage. It is the hormone of change. It is the hormone of surprises, renewal, and departure from routine. It asks us to respond to life, to be in motion, not to remain frozen. But because for many of us it is difficult to respond to this call, it is sometimes more comfortable to numb ourselves. To enter routine. A routine without too many surprises, too many changes, too many inner demands.

This routine also numbs adrenaline. One way to do this is through repeated and overly frequent eating. The insulin that rises following eating functions as a kind of silencing mechanism. In this way we are not required to face an inner push toward more boldness, more spontaneity, more mistakes, and more growth. Here it is important to say something that is not always comfortable to hear. Sometimes we are afraid of good things.

We are afraid of growth, even when we speak a lot about wanting to grow. Part of what is required to grow, to heal, to work correctly with ourselves, and to realize dreams, is a willingness for spontaneity and a willingness for mistakes. Without mistakes there is no growth. Without uncalculated movement there is no development.

If we do not allow ourselves to be, even a little, spontaneous, we suppress significant parts of ourselves. Parts of the authentic expression of who we can be can emerge only spontaneously, not planned, not fully calculated. Sometimes there truly is no such thing as a calculated risk. Either it is a risk, or it is calculated. There are cases where it is right to stop, think, plan, check data, consult, and that is fine. But that is not what we are talking about here.

Here we are speaking about the other part of the personality. The part that needs spontaneous departure from the place where it stands. The part that seeks to set out even without having all the data. The part that is willing to err, stumble, learn, and correct while moving.

Everyone has their own spontaneity. There are different styles of spontaneity. Some are more moderate, some more dramatic, some more introverted, some more intense. There is no right or wrong here. Every person needs a certain measure of spontaneity, in a dosage that suits them.

In the context of working with the Creative Hunger Formula, spontaneity is not a luxury. It is a necessity. It is an integral and meaningful part of the path toward realizing dreams. One cannot be only planned. When we are too planned, significant parts of our creativity are suppressed. This is a natural mechanism. Adrenaline does not allow us to be overly calculated for long.

Yes, it is frightening. A certain level of spontaneity can be intimidating. We fear that we will make mistakes, fail, appear ridiculous, embarrass ourselves, do foolish things. These are very human fears, and precisely because of this it is worthwhile to face them. When we avoid mistakes, we remain overly calculated, and in order to remain there we must suppress adrenaline.

There are significant situations in life that can exist only when we release the need to be calculated. When we take this need too seriously, we do everything to remain in the familiar and safe zone. Among other things, we suppress the adrenaline within us. Here one can see how overeating enters the picture without our noticing. There is a hidden agenda. An agenda of suppression. An agenda of silencing. An agenda of sedating the spontaneous part, the part that wants to set out.

That same part that is willing to err is the part that allows creative hunger to exist. It allows quiet in the digestive system to form. In this place it is impossible to maintain the same false calm that existed before. That calm that allowed us to slow down, plan, be seemingly balanced, seemingly responsible, seemingly mature. Creative hunger develops from within and demands change from us.

Therefore it sometimes seems that hunger is bothersome. But it is not truly bothersome. It asks us to change. It asks us to play more with life. To dare more. To be more spontaneous. To sometimes jump before thinking too much. To be willing to err, then correct, or change direction, and continue.

The anxiety that arises around this can sound like this. What, now I will be only spontaneous. Uncalculated. I will do foolish things. I will be childish. One cannot rely on me. But this is a mistaken perception. Just as I am not saying not to eat at all, not to fast, not to give up the pleasure of eating, so too I am not saying to be only spontaneous.

I suggest integration. To eat good meals. To plan them. To invest in them. To slow down with them. To enjoy them. And at the same time, to allow ourselves to be a bit more spontaneous in life. To listen to adrenaline. To act in harmony with it.

When we act in harmony with adrenaline, hunger becomes light. Sometimes it almost disappears, because we are engaged in action, creation, initiatives, and realizing dreams. We want this natural, free energy that comes from within us, energy that fuels us and gives us strength to work, energy that comes precisely from not eating.

But in order to use it, we must be willing to be more spontaneous. To be willing to make mistakes. To be tolerant of mistakes. To correct them along the way, with a smile. From here real growth is born. Sometimes it is growth that cannot be reached by any other path.

Within this space of hunger we will do things we never dreamed we would do. Initiate initiatives we never imagined. This is how body and soul connect. This is how changing eating habits ceases to be a technical issue and becomes a deep existential one. This is how life itself changes.

We began with a simple wish to lose a few kilograms. And we arrived at a deep understanding of the importance of spontaneity, of the importance of mistakes, of how to work correctly with adrenaline. From here we also reach a place where hunger becomes something light, even desirable, because it fuels us.

These are very significant changes. They are natural. They operate according to the laws of nature, not against it. I am not asking to remove any food. I am asking to allow the body to do its natural work. And I am asking the soul to cooperate with what happens in the body. This is how a process is created that truly works.

Self reflection questions, to be answered in writing

1. In which topics or areas can you say about yourself that you are spontaneous?
2. In which topics or areas are you less in flow and less inclined to act without thinking?
3. Can you acknowledge the possibility that sometimes, in order to grow, it is worthwhile to make a few good mistakes along the way?
4. Are you willing to initiate some kind of mistake, during a time of quiet in the digestive system, as a form of experimenting with transferring energy from hunger to an interesting action?
5. What directions of growth and development do you think you could attach to this process of the Creative Hunger Formula?