Urge Surfing: How to do it

some wisdom from one of my favorite mentors

(by Hank Robb, Ph.D., ABPP,
with attribution to him this article may be copied and used as a handout)

As you may have noticed, urges happen! However, individuals can also learn that they neither have to act on their urges nor continue trying to suppress them. They can lean to “surf” them.

Urge surfing is about getting “on top” of the urge rather than tumbling around inside it. The urge is still “there,” but you are using a different way of being with it.

Urge surfing begins by recognizing that YOU are not YOUR URGE. You are the person having the urge. When you can’t experience a distinction between YOU and the urge you are having, then instead of you having the urge, the urge is very likely to have you.

There is a certain physical sense in which you “are” your body. However, there is a certain psychological sense in which YOU “posses” your body. Take a moment to look at one of your little fingers. ln a sense that finger is you. But, in another sense, it is something that you have, rather than something you are. If it were to be damaged, the PERSON that is YOU would still be whole and complete even if your finger were not.

It is this second way of looking at things that can be helpful. It is a way to put some psychological distance between YOU and your thoughts, images and bodily sensations and especially that combination of thoughts, images and bodily sensations that make up your urges.

When you ARE your urge, it seems you have no choice about acting on it. Things are rather different when your urge is something you are experiencing rather than something that you are. When the urge IS YOU, then you tend to “tumble around in it.” When the urge is NOT YOU, then you have a better chance of “riding on top.”

When you experience yourself as possessing your body rather than being it, you will typically find yourself experiencing a lot more control over your hands, arms, feet and mouth even as you do not have so much control over things like urges. To say it another way, YOU find YOU can CHOOSE whether to act on the urge. The urge no longer” takes over” your hands, arms, feet and mouth. YOU, the psychological you that is the person who has a body but is somehow different from that body, can CHOOSE what is done with all those body parts. It is a lot easier to surf an urge when you realize that you won’t HAVE TO act on it. You can CHOOSE to do what is important in your life even as you “surf” the urges that come and go in your life.

Surfing an urge is not controlling it. Surfing an urge is letting it do its thing while you are doing yours. “Your thing” is to “be present” with the urge while choosing to do what’s important in your life. Like waves on the ocean, urges build, and crest, and fall. Your job is not to stop this process. Your job is live your life while it is happening. Physically speaking, you “ride” the urge. Visually speaking, you “watch” the urge. Spatially speaking, you “hover around” the urge.

This is very different than trying to control the urge or run away from it. If you have tried controlling urges, you’ve likely found that it is pretty darn difficult. If you’ve tried to run away from them, you’ve likely found that there isn’t really any place to run to because no matter where you go, there you are, and so is the urge.

Surfing an urge is like being a good host or hostess. A good host or hostess is kind, considerate and patient with a guest even if the guest is a pain in the neck. That “way of treating a guest” is what differentiates a “good” host or hostess from a “bad” one.

“Have a cookie. Would you like a soda?” That’s what a “good” host or hostess would say even it they were saying it to a “bad” guest. And, if you are a good host or hostess, you don’t turn to the other guests in the kitchen while you are pouring the soda and say, “OK, let’s be real nice to the jerk in the living room and maybe he’ll go away.” That isn’t being a good host or hostess either. You don’t draw a distinction in the way you treat your “good” guests and the way you treat your “bad” guests. They are all guests.

You also don’t serve the soda while tapping your foot and checking your watch to see how long your guest has been sticking around. The guest will leave on the guest’s own schedule; not, necessarily, on yours.

You can even “get to know” your “guest” without fear of being “contaminated” by it. Guests, even “bad” ones, come and go just as waves rise and fall. YOU are not your guest. YOU are not the wave. While your guest is present you can learn all about him or her while remaining safe in the recognition that YOU are not IT. YOU are the person hosting IT. YOU are the person “hovering around” IT. YOU are surfing IT. YOU can be WILLING to have your urge even if you don’t particularly WANT to have your urge just as, at one time or another as a student, you were WILLING to do your homework whether you WANTED to do it or not.

To paraphrase the Roman philosopher Seneca: “Those who are willingly have their urges can learn about them. Those who are unwilling are just dragged around by them.”

So, try surfing your urges. THEY are not YOU. Try hosting your urges. THEY are not YOU. Try hovering around your urges. THEY are not YOU. And, by surfing, hosting or hovering, you can avoid being dragged around by them.