Spoiler. This isn’t a post about weight loss.

I have never been a food motivated person. Back home, chocolate was just chocolate. Something in the cupboard. You eat it or you don’t. I was very fortunate growing up without lack. There was no urgency around it. No emotional pull. Just choice

I moved to another country when I was 18 and started from scratch, but I wasn’t far enough. Still a few hours on a train and I could be back in “safety” .

Then I moved to Australia, and everything changed.

For the first time in my life, I had to think twice before buying a simple chocolate bar. The price of one bar was my hourly rate back in Europe. My savings were far from what I thought they would be. I wasn’t alone in that. Many people I know have been there too. And something unexpected started happening. The less I could have something, the more desperate I became for it. I started craving things I had never really cared about before. Chocolate, for example. The wanting was something I hadn’t experienced before. It wasn’t preference, it was obsession. Almost like an addiction.

And it didn’t go away after I had the thing. I wanted more.

It felt like there was something in the back of my mind saying there isn’t enough. There won’t be more.That feeling stayed, even when the moment had passed.

I stayed in that loop for a while…

Then One Day I Caught Myself

I caught myself in it again and realised that voice wasn’t me. There was a split. I was the one watching it. And in that moment, I felt free. That isn’t me at all. Scarcity was not my story.

That awareness changed something quietly but deeply.

This isn’t about weight control, but about compassion. It’s about how the mind works, and how to help yourself or others who can’t say no, even when there is no lack around them.

The Question That Became Bigger

What about those who grew up with real scarcity. Food, money, safety, love. People whose nervous systems were shaped by it from the very beginning. For them, the loop doesn’t feel like a loop. It feels like reality.

This is why some people eat past fullness and can’t explain it. Why some accumulate and still feel poor. Why some achieve and immediately need the next thing, not from ambition, but from a fear so old it has no name.

The Craving Is Never About the Thing.

It’s about the signal underneath: not enough. not safe. not yet.

Start Here:

First, realise there is nothing wrong with you. That craving is not you. It is just a craving. Something that comes and goes.

This craving is your body’s stress response, trying to keep you safe. Trying to make sure there is enough. So much so that sometimes, it overdoes it.

Acknowledge that this is not your reality anymore. Sometimes even saying thank you to the feeling, and recognising that it is no longer needed, that you are safe, can help.

Then gently begin to imagine what safety feels like. Not as an idea, but as a felt sense in the body. What would it be like to have enough. To be okay, right here.

Little by little, create a space between the body experiencing the craving and you, the one watching it. The one recognising that it is no longer needed.

Sabina Laniova is an ecotherapist and nature guide based in Sydney. sabinalaniova.com.au | @sabina_laniova