It’s the middle of the afternoon and you just came back home after a run. You feel a little hungry. Do you? Maybe it is just gluttony and you really want that banana with peanut butter, although you don’t actually need it. Actually, you feel a little weak and maybe the urge to eat it’s your body telling you you need some sugar. But maybe you are self-sabotaging your low-calories goals with this rationalization?

Are you feeling sleepy because you need to sleep or you just don’t want to do that boring paperwork?

Do you really need vacations or you just really want to go Disneyland?

How do we differentiate between a urge to do something because it’s important for your basic health vs. for fun, gluttony, laziness?

I want to eat well, but not too much. I want sleep enough, but not too much. I want to have fun and not burnout, but I also want to do meaningful work.

How do I interpret signs from my body regarding all this? The saying “listen to your body” makes sense, but it’s not always easy.

Having experience in mindfulness meditation probably helps, since you become better at looking at your thoughts and motivations. I also find that, in a psychedelic state, the me part of my mind becomes more separated than usual from the unconscious part, making it more easier to look at urges and analyse them.

But having said this, I don’t have a clear answer - but being aware of the problem probably makes it easier to deal with it.