Urge surfing is a technique developed in the relapse-prevention work of psychologist Alan Marlatt and later built into mindfulness-based relapse prevention. The premise is simple: a craving behaves like a wave. It builds, it peaks, and — if you don't feed it — it subsides. Most of us never find this out, because we act before the wave crests.
Surfing means doing something different from both giving in and white-knuckling. Instead of arguing with the craving or trying to force it away, you get curious about it. Where do you feel it in your body? Chest, throat, hands, stomach? Is it hot or tight, steady or pulsing? What happens to it as you breathe? You're observing it the way you might watch weather move across a field.
Two things tend to happen. First, the craving turns out to be made of sensations that are uncomfortable but survivable. Second, it changes — it rises and falls instead of holding steady forever the way your mind predicted. Each time you ride one out, you collect evidence that you can. That evidence is worth more than any argument you could make to yourself in the moment.
✦ Quote
"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf."
— Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are (1994)
◎ Prompt
Next time a craving arrives, set a timer for ten minutes and do nothing but observe it. Every two minutes, rate its intensity from 1 to 10. When the timer ends, look at the numbers.
Get this in your inbox every morning
The Daily Sovereign arrives every day — insight, quote, prompt. Free forever. New subscribers receive the 30 Days of Sovereign sequence.
Subscribe free →