ENTER THE MATRIX: Who Am I Without the Cravings?

What You Desire Isn’t in the Food—It’s in Who You Become Without It

Jul 11, 2025

"The Matrix is everywhere... It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."
– Morpheus, The Matrix

Let’s go there.
Let’s take the red pill.
Let’s ask the one question that cracks the illusion:

Who am I without... sugar, carbs, cookies, cakes, chips, soda, salty-sweet goodness, dopamine-laced comfort in a box?

You might feel a full-body clench just reading that.
A primal scream inside that says:
“Don’t take that from me. I NEED that.”

That, my friend, is the matrix.
And you’ve been living in it.
We all have.

🍩 When Food Becomes Identity

If you don’t know who you are without the foods you crave, it’s not a food issue. It’s an identity issue.
Your desire has become tangled up in those items.
And your fear of losing them is stronger than your desire to figure out who you are beyond them.

Here’s the truth:
Food is survival. That’s biology.
But chips aren’t survival. Soda isn’t survival. Cookies aren’t survival.
That’s dopamine. That’s addiction. That’s hijacked brain chemistry.

🧠 Your Brain’s Been Hacked (No, Seriously)

Highly palatable, chemically engineered foods weren’t just made to taste good—they were designed to hack your dopamine system.

These foods overstimulate your brain’s pleasure center and desensitize dopamine receptors over time.
This is why you keep going back. Why stopping feels impossible. Why you feel like you don’t have a choice.

But you do have a choice. It just feels harder because your brain has been rewired—and not in a good way.

If you live with ADHD, depression, anxiety, trauma, or emotional dysregulation?
You’re even more vulnerable to this neurochemical manipulation.
Not because you’re broken. But because your brain was primed to survive—not thrive—in this kind of toxic input loop.

And the food industry knows it.
And they keep feeding the loop.
And we keep buying in.

Is that the life you want to live?

💊 Even on a GLP-1 or After Surgery…

Let’s talk about this directly—because someone needs to.

Even if you’re on a GLP-1 medication.
Even if you’ve had bariatric surgery.
You can still experience that gnawing, emotional hunger that has nothing to do with your stomach.

I’ve worked with so many clients who, even after surgery and while on a GLP-1, still felt emotionally starved.
Still obsessed over processed foods.
Still turned to food when life got overwhelming, chaotic, or painful.

Because here’s the truth:
Surgery reduces your stomach.
GLP-1s reduce your appetite.
But neither one heals your trauma, your identity wounds, or your emotional pain.

That deep longing? That endless desire? That ache inside?
That’s not physical hunger.
That’s something deeper.
And there is no pill, no procedure, no quick fix for that.

But there is a way forward.
And that path starts with self-awareness, nervous system regulation, identity work, and emotional healing.

💣 The System Was Designed This Way

Big Food learned how to hijack your brain, and then created entire industries around your cravings.
They sell you dependence and call it “freedom of choice.”
They keep you on autopilot, numbed out, disconnected from your body and truth.
And they’ve made that disconnection feel... safe.

But it’s not.

This isn’t about convincing you to eat bland chicken and steamed broccoli.
This is about helping you wake up—to the reality of your connection to food, and when that connection becomes control.

🚫 Escapes Aren’t Bad… Until They Are

Food, TV, scrolling, numbing—they're coping mechanisms.
But when they consume your life,
When you’ve outsourced joy, pleasure, and power to what’s in a package…
That’s when your coping becomes your cage.

Cookies and soda should not hold the power to make you question your self-trust.
But here you are.

And that’s exactly how powerful this matrix has become.

🔁 Why Change Feels So Hard

The CHOICE to change feels hard because your nervous system is still stuck in survival.
Because your dopamine system is still wired for the quick fix.
Because your habits are not just habits—they’re deep-rooted programming.

But you still have a choice.
And it’s a powerful one.

You can choose to interrupt the pattern.
To reclaim your focus.
To reconnect with your body, your truth, and your possibility.

🌱 From Self-Abandonment to Self-Authority

You’ve been taught to fear your own mind.
To think your body is the enemy.
To believe that food has more control than you do.

But what if…

Your body isn’t the problem?
Your cravings aren’t a character flaw?
And your nervous system is just doing what it was trained to do?

What if the next level isn’t about restriction, deprivation, or food rules—
But about rewiring your nervous system to feel SAFE, SECURE, and TRUSTWORTHY again?

What becomes possible then?

💊 Red Pill or Blue Pill?

You always have a choice.
Stay asleep or wake up.
Keep buying the lie—or finally unplug and step into your power.

So I’ll ask you again:

Who are you without it?
And are you ready to find out?

Because this is your moment.
Your matrix moment.
Your chance to come home to yourself.

💭 A Personal Truth: Who I Was Without the Cravings

I’ll be real with you.

Before I had gastric sleeve surgery, if someone had asked me that same question—
"Who are you without the cravings?"
I would’ve been stumped.

Not because I didn’t care.
Not because I wasn’t trying.
But because I had so little insight into just how much I was using food to soothe, to numb, and to survive.

I was stuck on a hamster wheel I didn’t even realize I was running.
A cycle of pain disguised as comfort.
Cravings that felt insatiable, like they’d eat me alive if I didn’t answer them.

And what I didn’t understand back then—despite being a trained therapist—was that those cravings weren’t just physical.
They were deeply emotional.
Primal. Programmed. Patterned.
Linked to parts of myself I had hidden, even from me.

Yes, I knew the science.
Yes, I thought I was self-aware.
But I was also deeply disconnected from my own unmet needs, unresolved wounds, and the chemically engineered food that kept the loop alive.

Surgery cracked the surface.
But it was my own path of deep mindset work, emotional healing, and somatic nervous system repair that helped me see food differently.
Experience it differently.
Respect it.
No longer demonize “healthy” foods or idolize “unhealthy” ones.
I stopped assigning morality, guilt, or shame.

Now? Food is just food.

It doesn’t control me.
I don’t try to control it.
We coexist.

And I want this freedom for you too.

REFLECTION: A Few Prompts to Unplug from the Matrix

I know this is a lot to take in.
And if you’re not quite ready to leap—yet—you can still start shifting things today.

Here are a few reflection prompts and nervous system-friendly shifts to help you begin untangling your cravings from your identity:

💡Try This First:

Name what the craving really is.
Next time you’re craving something specific, pause and ask:
“What do I actually want right now—comfort? Control? Rest? Connection?”
Let the craving be a cue, not a command.
Practice food neutrality.
Choose one food you’ve labeled “bad” and ask:
“What would change if this was just… food?”
See what thoughts, emotions, or judgments surface.
Start a nervous system check-in ritual.
Throughout the day, ask yourself:
“Am I grounded, activated, or shut down right now?”
You don’t need to fix it—just notice. Awareness is the beginning of change.

🧠 Journal Prompts:

Who am I when I’m not obsessing about food or weight?
What part of me feels unsafe without those comfort foods? What might that part need instead?
What is food currently giving me that I’ve been afraid to give myself directly?
What would it mean to trust my body? What gets in the way of that trust?

You don’t have to have it all figured out today.
But you do have to stop lying to yourself that you’re broken or powerless.
You’re not. You’re just patterned.
And patterns can be rewired.

🎓 Ready to Rewire and Rise?

Feeling the stir?
Is this hitting deep?

Let me ask you this:

👉 Are you craving more personalized support?
👉 Do you want a safe, guided space to help you reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system, and finally experience trusting yourself?

Then The School of Self-Mastery was made for you.

This isn’t a “try harder” space.
It’s a “go deeper” space.

This is where we take you from stalking the pantry all day long to trusting your body—your hunger, your fullness, and even your “nah, I’m good” when it comes to cake or cookies.

We take you from using food to self-soothe,
to healing the root…
and using food to nourish, not numb.

We take you from confusion, self-doubt, and second-guessing,
to full-bodied clarity, calm, and self-respect.

We take you from regain and emotional heaviness,
to releasing the weight—physically and emotionally—that has kept you stuck.

We unlock the power of “yet”—as in "I don’t trust myself... yet."
And the power of YOU—as in “I am becoming her.”
With powerful identity shifts, we tap into your next-level self—the 2.0 version of you who already exists…
We just help you meet her.

That’s what happens inside The School of Self-Mastery.

This is a space where:

Your nervous system gets to heal.
Your mindset gets to evolve.
Your relationship with food gets rewritten from the inside out.
And you get to become the woman you’ve always known was in there.

💥 No shame.
💥 No food police.
💥 No perfectionism.

Just powerful healing, deep rewiring, and your return to self-trust.

✨ Enrollment is open now.
✨ You’ll get 6 months of coaching, training, tools, and transformation.

Are you ready to finally step into the life that’s waiting for you?

🔗 Click here to join The School of Self-Mastery

This is the start of your next chapter.
Let’s rise together.
Game on, my friend. Game on. 💥