This is a delicate topic, so read at your own risk ;-)).
Why are so many people drawn to sweets?
One night an insight came to me (don’t ask why):
Dessert is a simple, gentle, almost naive form of loving yourself… …when the bigger, fuller love self-love is somehow forbidden.
A person avoids sweets in two cases:
when he no longer loves himself at all and has turned into a dry stone.
or when he truly loves himself completely, and no longer needs to caress himself in symbolic ways.
Most people live between these two poles. A substitute for love becomes cake, liqueur, or, in my case, figs and dates. The product does not matter. What matters is the desire to soothe yourself after a bad day.
Sweetness softens the bitterness of a disappointing piece of life.
If that is true, scolding yourself or arguing with the craving is pointless. The subconscious will find a way to fill the lack. And it will do so so cleverly that the conscious mind can only gasp.
In the short term, you can replace one thing with another—just as pleasant, but less harmful. Instead of alcohol, fruit. Instead of a slice of Napoleon cake, a Thai massage.
But in the long run, the goal is different:
To open a source of self-love inside—so fully that there is plenty left over for everyone around you.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
P.S. Suddenly I really feel like having some tea…
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