• Sitting in a comfortable, supported position, close your eyes. Allow your body to relax completely. Release any tension in your face and throat. Let your belly soften and your limbs be heavy. Take a moment to let this unfold.
• Become aware of any sensations you are having in your body. Can you feel the backs of your legs on the chair? Can you feel the points of pressure where your back is against the chair? Become aware of the feel of your clothes on your skin.
• Keep tuning into the subtleties of the sensations you are having in this moment. Begin to scan more specifically. Are you feeling pain, tension, pleasure, relaxation, freedom, constrictions? Are there certain areas of your body you are more aware of than others?
• Now that you are tuned in, can you feel what you might wish for your body? “My wish for my body is that it: breathes easy; has relaxed shoulders; is free of tension, feels healthy . . .” You get the idea — whatever it is that might help the body to feel good, create a wish. How many wishes can you fulfill in any given moment?

Write some of these wishes down, play with them throughout the day and the week. See what kind of difference it makes to create and fulfill your body’s wishes.

Being quite sick of this craving getting the best of me – I devised a plan! I wanted to more deeply understand what peanut butter represented to my internal world, why it was so important, what it meant. I wanted to get present with was so that I could really begin to address the issue from a place of wisdom and clarity rather than from the bottom of a peanut butter jar. So, here’s what I did . . .

I took the great forbidden food, sat down to meditate and placed the peanut butter jar and spoon in front of me. It felt important to have the actual food so that the senses were engaged as well as the imagination. I closed my eyes, took a few minutes to open my heart and really bring the witness forward to facilitate the proceedings. Then, I imagined a great round table with many chairs around it. I sat the jar of peanut butter in the middle of the table and invited anyone that was interested to come join me at the table. One by one, their interest piqued, they showed up. When it seemed that all of those who wanted to come were around the table, I started the proceedings. I took a spoonful of peanut butter and rolled it around in my mouth, then spoke a few words about what I was feeling and what peanut butter meant to me. And so it went, sticky spoonful by sticky spoonful, each aspect took a turn with the peanut butter, attempting to tell some sort of truth about themselves. It was meaningful to hear each of them speak – it often wasn’t about the peanut butter at all. With few exceptions, the sharing was more about the individual suffering then the love of peanut butter.

I crave less now. It’s quieter now. The edges have softened and the ravenous hunger has settled down. What remains is the 10 year old who is always – and perhaps forever – convinced that love lies in the bottom of a peanut jar!