Chocolate Therapy

                                                  In Search of Chocolate Therapy

My daughter, Lara, was singing along with a country song the other day.  The lyrics went something like this; “I’ve had enough of hard times; I’ve had enough of this…it’s time I reach for something else, it’s time I felt some bliss…”  I laughed out loud as I had just been studying the “bliss chemical” in chocolate.It is amazing to me, how unfulfilled and unmet needs often grow up into adult-size hungers and addictions for love. Sub-consciously, we all reach out in an effort to fill our own needs.  Very intelligently, but unknowingly, I had reached for refined and processed chocolate.  It is a substance that has a natural chemical that triggers a “bliss” reaction in the brain.  While it is not a pronounced “high”, it is very essential, I learned in the proper development of a human fetus.   

But, I had a double bind. I had an addiction for the approval of men and for brownies, (as well as other forms of refined chocolate, refined sugar and white flour.)  My need for affection, my hankering for “love, peace, joy and comfort”, had become a full blown craving to be accepted and loved in spite of what shape I was in.  I felt an insatiable need to be both “fathered” and to be “protected” from the lack of having a masculine buffer with which to face the world. 

I created my own buffer by disguising my beautiful potential beneath a cushion of extra weight to insulate me from my fear of men’s rejection (induced by my father-daughter bond).  I had chosen refined chocolate, to be the supplier of both the physical insulation and the emotional satiation from feeling vulnerable and dependent on anyone else to provide affection for me.  Thus, I used food for self nurturing.  This made me feel like I must be more dependent on me and less dependent on others to fill my needs.  If I wanted a high, I reached for a candy bar.

Food, in general, with chocolate taking the lead, became my sub-conscious way of dulling the emotional pain of loneliness, sadness, rejection, abandonment, etc.  Little did I know, that this “bliss chemical” really did do all that…but the sugar often dropped me into a depression that lasted longer than the effects of the bliss chemical. 

I have since learned that my body is lacking in one or more of the six chemicals that registers the “I am full” feeling; etiochoanolone.  (You have to have all six for this register to work correctly!) By the age of eight, I could out eat any man at Thanksgiving.  I always segregated my halloween candy into two piles; chocolates and non-chocolates.  I usually traded the “non-chocolate” halloween treats for more of the chocolate ones.  Lollipops and starbursts just didn’t fulfill the real craving, which was in essence, a craving for Bliss! 

Studying chocolate has been a treat!  I love learning the truth!  Here’s a little tidbit about how to find bliss!

Anandamide: a neurotransmitter that plays and important role in controlling cognition and emotion, may help to regulate moods, memory, appetite, and the perception of pain. The name is derived from the Sanskrit word “ananda”, which means “bliss”. This molecule was suggested by Jeffrey Hurst.