A Taste of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a very practical way to bring meditation into your everyday life. It’s a technique that can be practiced at any time of the day, wherever you are and what better activity to practice it than when you are eating a meal or a consuming food.

When we bring mindfulness to our plates we find out about our relationship to food and encounter our deep ingrained habitual patterning.

By shifting our awareness through the senses we start to slow down the activity of eating which is usually done mindlessly, sometimes emotionally, often unconsciously and we transform it to really tasting the food, noticing the feelings, the thoughts, and the sensations that are present. Consequently, it returns us to the present moment, finding more appreciation in the activity and changes our relationship to food.

So let me ask you some questions…
How present are you when you eat?

Let’s take your breakfast as an example? ( and if your breakfast is very peaceful, let’s look at your lunch..)

Is it eaten on the run? Is it eaten thinking about the day and what you have to complete in it? Or are you engrossed in conversation that food is just stuffed in your mouth, are you multi-tasking it with another activity?

? Sound familiar? I can say yes! let’s continue…

What about; Have you ever caught yourself eating because you are bored, or to relieve stress, or to feel better?

What about; Have you ever paid attention to how a food affects you? the subtleness of energy increase or decrease, the kick or slum it gives you, the nourishment or depletion you might feel in the body?

What about; For each meal you’ve had have you noticed the texture, flavour, smell and the visual of the food you have consumed?

Well, mindful eating brings awareness to all of that.

There is a variety of approaches to mindful eating, some come from Buddhism, some are rooted in Zen, and others come from Yoga.The essence of mindful eating as with mindfulness is learning to pay attention.

I have used the word learning as it is something that needs to be learned primary and then practiced as it’s not our natural conditioned tendency.

So the aim in mindful eating is to pay attention to:

Why do you feel like eating? What emotions or needs might be triggering the desire to eat?
What are you eating? is it healthy or not?
the smell, the look, the feel, the taste of the food you are eating
how does it make you feel as you taste it? As you digest it, and throughout the day
How satisfied are you before, during and after eating
Your emotions before, during and after eating?
Where has the food come from, who grew it? what has died for it to come to you? how much is it processed, fried, overcooked, or how fresh is it, alive with benefits for your body?

Like all meditation techniques, it’s a practice, so it won’t change overnight but as you practice it, you see how it starts to creep into your consciousness next time you are eating an apple or a muffin or that hamburger on the way home

One of the main things to note; is Mindful eating is not a diet, or about giving up anything at all. It’s actually about experiencing food more intensely — especially the pleasure of it.

Now before we dive into giving it a go, let’s look at some of the benefits you might experience

You begin to enjoy the eating experience more, and as a result enjoy life more
You discover how food affects how you feel, your mood and energy throughout the day
From that, you learn which food best fuels you and supports your exercise, work, and play
It becomes a mindfulness ritual you look forward to
You learn to eat when your hungry and stop when you’re satisfied
You enjoy and really taste the food and the taste of healthy food
This leads you to a by-product where you start to realise that unhealthy food isn’t as tasty as you thought, nor does it make you feel as good
As a result, you often lose weight if you were overweight
You bring more awareness to the emotional issues you have with food and eating and no longer get governed by them
You learn how to eat mindfully even when socialising with practice and not overeating.

BEFORE

When you begin to feel an urge to eat ask yourself– Why do I feel like eating? What emotions or needs might be triggering the desire to eat? or is my body telling me it needs more fuel?

What do you feel like eating? is it healthy or not?

How do you feel emotionally before eating the food?

DURING

Start with a pause, a conscious breath and a moment of gratitude for the food you have in front of you, for your body that will break down the food and nourish your body

As you begin to eat, journey through the sense perceptions; Touch, Smell, Sight, Taste, Hearing. Notice Textures, Notice Flavours, Notice smells.

Notice how does it make you feel as you taste it? As you digest it?

How satisfying does it feel?

Reflect on where has the food come from- follow the journey it has taken to get to you, offer gratitude, appreciation and feel its energy

Take a few moments to pause and take a breath to slow down the automatic unconscious pace

Notice when you start feeling ‘full’ or satisfied’ and what your body wants to do?

AFTER

Sense into how satisfied are you after eating?

How do you feel emotionally?

Watch how your energy and mood is after this meal?

The in-between section is actually especially rich so let’s now just explore that part with the famous technique of eating one raisin taken from Jon Kabat Zin’s book.Eating One Raisin: A First Taste of Mindfulness

Holding
First, take a raisin and hold it in the palm of your hand or between your finger and thumb.
Focusing on it, imagine that you’ve just dropped in from Mars and have never seen an object like this before in your life.

Seeing
Take time to really see it; gaze at the raisin with care and full attention.
Let your eyes explore every part of it, examining the highlights where the light shines, the darker hollows, the folds and ridges, and any asymmetries or unique features.

Touching
Turn the raisin over between your fingers, exploring its texture, maybe with your eyes closed if that enhances your sense of touch.

Smelling
Holding the raisin beneath your nose, with each inhalation drink in any smell, aroma, or fragrance that may arise, notice as you do this anything interesting that may be happening in your mouth or stomach.

Placing
Now slowly bring the raisin up to your lips, noticing how your hand and arm know exactly how and where to position it. Gently place the object in the mouth, without chewing, noticing how it gets into the mouth in the first place. Spend a few moments exploring the sensations of having it in your mouth, exploring it with your tongue.

Tasting
When you are ready, prepare to chew the raisin, noticing how and where it needs to be for chewing. Then, very consciously, take one or two bites into it and notice what happens in the aftermath, experiencing any waves of taste that emanate from it as you continue chewing. Without swallowing yet, notice the bare sensations of taste and texture in the mouth and how these may change over time, moment by moment, as well as any changes in the object itself.

Swallowing
When you feel ready to swallow the raisin, see if you can first detect the intention to swallow as it comes up so that even this is experienced consciously before you actually swallow the raisin.

Following
Finally, see if you can feel what is left of the raisin moving down into your stomach, and sense how the body as a whole is feeling after completing this exercise in mindful eating.1

Reference: 1 Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn (2007). The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness. New York: Guilford Press.

So enjoy! and let me know how you go! What part of the mindfulness eating do you find difficult or what has it revealed to you about your relationship to food?

Basia