Sometimes the craving isn’t for food, or things, or comfort — but for meaning itself. This is the story of learning to tell the difference between feeding my body and nourishing my soul.
“God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.”
— Matthew 5:6 (NLT)
When my emotions become powerful — beyond what my regular coping can hold — I start to crave something. I’m not always sure what it is I’m hungry for, but I feel it like an ache under my ribs. A yearning. I start seeking fulfillment in the easiest places to reach — empty calories that occupy my time, my space, my mind.
Sometimes it’s food.
Sometimes it’s scrolling.
Sometimes it’s the rush of adding one more thing to my cart — the fleeting high of a “buy now” click. I’ve come to recognize the bad habits, the patterns of behavior — but for so long, I never paused to ask myself: What am I really hungry for?
It was never just food.
I’ve lived on 500 calories a day, until I came to despise the very thing that was meant to sustain me.
Yet, the hunger remained. When I replaced food with spending, it wasn’t enough either. I’ve seen my bank account in the negatives more times than I’d like to admit. The high was short-lived; the guilt was relentless. I swung wildly between the two, trapped in a cycle that felt both familiar and cruel.
I wish I could say a single moment woke me up — that I suddenly stopped trying to fill my hunger with the wrong kind of substance. But the truth is, it’s a journey I’m still on. One that costs me dearly, but is worth the price. It began when I finally dared to question the reason behind my cravings — to define what fulfillment really meant and name the needs I couldn’t fill on my own. I started to notice that when my mind was occupied and my heart was full, I could go hours and forget that food even existed. The urge to spend, to fill, to fix — simply vanished.
I’ve realized there are many forms of hunger. Most often, mine isn’t physical. It’s not about nourishment or survival.
It’s emotional — craving comfort, validation, love.
It’s mental — craving stimulation, productivity, control.
And it’s spiritual — longing for meaning, connection, belonging.
That’s the part of hunger no diet or budget can heal.
The Gentle Relearning — What True Nourishment Feels Like
Healing began not with a single breakthrough, but with a quiet release — the decision to walk away from what drained me. To stop feeding the hungers that kept me starving. I had to leave behind the people, patterns, and expectations that consumed more than they ever gave back. The ones that left me anxious, overextended, and still empty. That kind of hunger — the constant reaching for approval, the endless doing — could never lbe satisfied. I had to make room for something softer. Something that didn’t demand I prove my worth to deserve peace.
In that space, my partner became a mirror for gentleness I’d long forgotten. His emotional steadiness, the way he listens without trying to fix, has helped me notice the difference between the hungers that harm and the ones that heal. He reminds me, often without words, that being seen and supported can feel more nourishing than any fleeting high. Through him, I’ve begun to understand that emotional hunger isn’t something to be shamed — it’s an invitation. A signal pointing toward connection, not consumption.
My spiritual hunger has also shifted shape. For years, I tried to fill it through obligation — following rules, performing faith the way I thought I should. But I learned that religion, when bound by expectation, can sometimes feed guilt more than grace. I had to let go of what others said connection should look like to find what it actually feels like. Now, fulfillment doesn’t come from checking the right boxes or reciting the right words. It comes in the stillness — in prayer that feels more like breath, in gratitude that arrives unannounced, in the everyday holiness of noticing beauty.
I’m learning that what truly fills me isn’t food, or things, or validation. It’s experience. It’s being present in a moment so completely that I no longer crave escape from it. A sunset shared. Laughter that lingers. The slow rhythm of a life not rushed.
These days, I let the journey itself create the high — not the purchase, not the calorie, not the next fix.
Just the simple act of living awake. It’s not a perfect path. There are still moments I find myself scrolling, eating, or spending for comfort. But I return, again and again, to the question that has quietly become my compass:
“Hungry, but am I actually?”
And most days now, the answer leads me back to fullness — the kind that has nothing to do with having more, and everything to do with being whole.
Fullness — Redefined
“If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.”
— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
I used to think fullness meant satisfaction — that if I could just get the right balance, the right body, the right rhythm, I’d finally feel complete. But fullness isn’t a state of perfection. It’s a posture of peace. It’s the ability to feel hunger and not panic. To know emptiness might not mean something’s missing — it might mean space is being made for something better.
I no longer want to be filled by things that fade. I want to be nourished by things that last: compassion, laughter, honest conversation, shared quiet, the feeling of being fully alive. Sometimes fullness looks like simplicity. Sometimes it’s a moment of stillness with someone who feels like home. Sometimes it’s just realizing —I don’t need to fill every gap. I can breathe into it instead.
So now, when the craving comes — for food, for distraction, for more — I pause. I listen. I ask the question that’s changed everything:
“Hungry, but am I actually?”
And more often than not, I find I’m not empty. Just ready for something real.
Well-Stirred Reflection:
What are the “hungers” that call to you most loudly — and what might they really be asking for?
Well-Stirred & Wondering 
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