“In this food I see clearly the whole universe that sustains my existence.”
(Thich Nhat Hanh)
This week is very interesting and lends itself to different experiments on our relationship with food and the physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts that precede and follow the consumption of food and drink.
Everyone can experiment with new ways of consuming in relation to their eating habits.
A thought generates a ‘difficult’ emotion such as anger or anxiety, my hand may go straight to a cake or I start walking to the refrigerator….
Trying to recognize this relationship between thoughts, emotions and actions gives a lot of confidence that we can unravel one of the most common strategies for not getting in touch with our unpleasant emotions.
Transforming it requires being willing to get in touch with these same emotions and thus involves a good deal of courage.
Let us not force anything, experimentation is always kind , respectful and…creative!
1 – Exercises (duration: 6m)
2 – Deep relaxation and mandarin meditation (duration: 27m)
3 – Practice of the week (duration: 11m)
This week
A little exercise
by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The way we first present meditation in the stress clinic always surprises our patients. People often expect meditation to be something unusual, something mystical, something extraordinary. To eliminate these expectations right away, we hand out three raisins to each person and eat them one at a time, consciously, focusing our attention on what we are doing and living it moment by moment. If you want, you can do this experiment too, after reading the description.
First we look carefully at the Raisin Grain, observe it as if we had never seen such a thing in our lives. With our fingertips we palpate its consistency, while we notice the shades of color and the shape of the surfaces. We pay attention to the thoughts that arise about raisins or food in general. If, as we look at the raisin, we experience feelings of attraction or repulsion, whether we like it or dislike it, we also notice this. Then we smell it for a while. Finally, consciously, we bring it to our lips, observing the movement of the arm and hand and the salivation that begins to occur when the body and mind are waiting to receive food. We continue to pay attention as we put it in our mouth and slowly chew it, savoring the taste of a single raisin. And, when we are ready to actually deglutinate, we observe the urge to deglutinate as it goes growing, so that we experience this stage consciously as well. At the end we try to imagine or ‘feel’ our body of a heavier raisin.
The effect this exercise has on people is invariably positive, even for those who do not like raisins. Participants’ comments are usually that this different experience of eating is very pleasant, that they have tasted a raisin for the first time in their lives, and that even a single raisin can be nutritious.
Often someone observes that if we always ate this way we would eat less and have a more satisfying and balanced relationship with food. Usually someone notices the automatic impulse to put the other two grains in their mouth as well before they have finished eating the first one and recognizes at that moment that that is their habitual way of eating.
Since many of us use food as a consolation, especially when we feel anxious or depressed, this little exercise of eating in slow motion, mindful of everything we do, highlights how powerful and uncontrolled many of our impulses about food are. At the same time, it reveals how simply satisfying eating can be and how much more self-control is possible when we introduce awareness into what we are doing, moment by moment. The fact is, when you start paying attention in this way, your relationship to things changes. You see more and you see deeper. You begin to see an intrinsic order and connections that previously missed you: for example, the relationship that exists between the impulses that present themselves to your mind and eating too much or neglecting the messages your body sends you.
By paying attention, you literally become more awake. It is like waking up from the habit of acting mechanically, unconsciously. When you eat consciously, you are in touch with the food you eat because the mind is not distracted, it is not attending to anything else, it is attentive to the fact of eating. When you look at the raisin kernel, you really see it. When you masticate it, you really taste it. Paying attention to what you are doing moment by moment is the essence of mindfulness practice. We call the raisin exercise ‘eating meditation.’ It helps people understand that there is nothing strange or unusual about meditating or mindfulness. It is just a matter of paying attention to your experience moment by moment. This leads to seeing things in a new way and being in a new way, because the present moment, when recognized and honored, reveals a very special, indeed magical secret: the present is the only moment we have. The present is the only moment in which we can know anything. The present is the only moment to perceive, feel, learn, act, change, heal. That is why we place such great value on moment-to-moment awareness. Learning it requires practice. But the practice itself brings its own recompense: it makes our experiences more vivid and our lives more real.