Stale Coco Puffs, Ravenous Raccoons, & The Unrelenting Security of Our lives

It's 10:30 at night. It's after dinner and nearing time for sleep. You are mildly hungry - not the sort of hungry that needs a full meal, but enough of a craving that you decide to peer into your pantry and peruse the options. To your dismay, you find there is nothing sufficiently enticing enough to pique your interest. You let the impulse go until a few minutes later you find yourself staring down the shelves of your pantry again. Now that old jam is starting to speak to you a little bit, saying, "hmm, that actually might not be a bad idea." And you're beginning to wonder about Johnny's coco puffs, "they've been there so long! maybe he has forgotten about them?"

Twenty minutes and a bowl of coco puffs, topped off with crusty strawberry jam later, you're wondering, "what the fuck just happened?" What started as a mild impulse for food, a casual scan of the pantry, and a clarity that nothing in the food aisle met your needs ended in a ravenous devouring of Johnny's coco puffs. Now a feeling of regretful gluttony is present that somehow manages to feel all too filling but, at the same time, feels less nourishing than before you had started searching. 

What originally was outside your standards eventually gained enough appeal for consumption. It wasn't that the coco puffs changed; it was that every time you went back into the pantry, your expectations lowered. But why should your standards lower? All you are doing in the first place is innocently looking for food, right? Where's the harm in some fun, passive window shopping?

Our impulses and their resultant cravings are much more malleable than we realize. People do incredible feats, immersing themselves in cold water for hours, holding their breath for minutes, not eating food for days, and coming out unscathed on the other side. It's not that their needs change; it's that our range of safety expands and contracts with the fluctuations of our nervous system. The people who go under cold water for hours also practice maintaining their breath at a slow and even rhythm- which acts as an input to physiology, saying, "I know you feel cold and under stress, like this should be a situation you want to ring the emergency alarm system to find homeostatic balance, but look at what breath is doing, it's slow and steady, it's kind of like breath that may occur when relaxing on the beach. "What these "freaks of nature" are doing is training themselves to induce homeostatic balance under a wider range of metabolic conditions, taking situations which usually would signal a need to gasp for air, to increase the temperature, find a morsel of food, to indicate a state of security instead, and not need to reach for what others might unconsciously grasp for.

That's great and all, you may be thinking, but what does that have to do with ravishing Johnny's coco puffs? Going back and forth to the pantry is the diametric opposite of ice-men inducing safety in moments of stress. Instead, it's living in your lack, expanding the energy of your neediness; each time you go back to the pantry, mentally incanting, "fuck, I am hungry, need a quick bite, what's here?" We signal to our body, "well, I must not be full; I must be lacking; I mean, that is why I am searching and scanning all the food items in the first place, right? The body responds by devoting its resources and attention toward fulfilling the need. As the need becomes more urgent, your standard for nutrients decreases until you eventually devolve into your final form of ravenous raccoon diving through the trash, looking for food. 

Jokes aside, there are unnerving, real-life implications at play here. We play this game of cat and mouse not just in our nighttime pantry escapades but in our quest for potential mates, work opportunities, living situations, etc. We may download Bumble feeling we know exactly what we are looking for - someone emotionally intelligent, attractive, with similar meaning, etc. . Because when we first downloaded the app we came in with the mindset of: "you know, I've been without a dating app and on my own for a while. So I'll just give this a try and see what happens." (at least that's the hope!). That is to say, the person you were when you first started your search was someone who was okay without dating apps and the promise of finding someone new, so you didn't need to run toward the first buffet that opens its doors, and instead could let clear values guide your action. But as you go back and forth to opening the app - seeing all the partners you don't have - the energy of what is lacking in your life takes up more space in your mental garden. The mental landscape that used to feel it was fine on its own becomes cluttered with the weeds of non-having. Before you know it, you're setting up a date with Teyjah, the crazy cat lady, who says she's "just looking for fun." The metaphorical coco puffs that we didn't even give a moment of initial consideration to become more appealing not because any content outside of us is changing but because the process of compulsive seeking affirms and expands our neediness. Before we know it, we're hungrier than before we initially walked into the pantry, and the things we were at first sure we didn't want, grow to become things we feel we need. 

This drive toward nourishment isn't a bad thing! The impetus to finding community when someone is lonely can be (and for our ancestors likely was) the life safer. Focusing on our unmet needs is the adaptive response to finding the nourishment we lack. It's an impulse toward never-ending security that has allowed our genes to remain safe for millions of years, making the arduous journey to our bodies and what will keep us safe for the next million. 

But the devil lies in the detail. 

The question lies in how we search for the things we lack. Can we seek the things we need without letting neediness overtake us? The harsh truth is: it's hardest to meet our needs when we're most needy. It's sort of like if you've ever had that strange species of a panic attack, where you acutely become aware of your need for oxygen, and you start to command yourself to breathe. The result is you send your system into a frenzy, and through your gasping attempts to nourish yourself with air, your body constricts, and your lungs become less able to intake air. The man begging for money is usually not the one who becomes a millionaire. 

Beyond transient deficiencies and ephemeral cravings, there is a deeper safety at the core of who we are. Safety lies in nothing outside ourselves, not the food, not the water, not the money, not the shelter. It lies in our ability to find the food, to drink the water, to make the money, to live in the shelter. For our ancestors, their continued existence first and foremost wasn't dependent on if the forest was full or empty of food. Their safety depended on their ability to realize what the body is hungry for, and despite the hunger, enter into the forest, find potential nutrient and turn it into nourishment.  

Beyond the need, beyond the things outside of us, a capable, competent, skilled being exists within. Though it may seem far, far away, who we are is an expression of a long lineage of people who had no choice but to learn how to meet their needs. No matter how broken our homes may seem, they are never really broken because what remains is the ability to repair them; what remains is a carpenter. The ability to provision the nourishment we need may be buried deep underneath years of pain, but it's always there waiting to be contacted.

When you search, search from that place: our security, our unrelenting security, lies there. When we know the expression of security that we are - rather than seeking for security in things outside of us - we get to ask questions like "Who would I want to date? Would I take Teyjah, the crazy cat lady, out? Would I need to eat those coco puffs? What are my highest desires, and how do I live in alignment with those? " Those answers take on different forms depending on the momentary needs. It may very well be Johnny's coco puffs. Just don't fool yourself into thinking that Johnny won't notice.