CMP Intro To Mindful Eating Discussion

Welcome to the Community Mindfulness Project's discussion of mindful eating.

In this discussion,

We're going to address what is mindful eating,

Why do we practice it,

And how do we practice it?

So to start off,

What is mindful eating?

Before talking about mindful eating particularly,

It's probably helpful to back up and talk about what mindfulness more broadly is.

And we love Jon Kabat-Zinn's definition of mindfulness,

Sustained voluntary attention in the present moment to an object of your choosing with curiosity and kindness.

And each of those components is really essential.

We're strengthening our attention muscle by holding our attention for a sustained period of time.

And we're choosing the object that we pay attention to.

We're attending to the object right now in the present moment as we're experiencing it.

And we're doing so with curiosity and kindness.

So mindful eating is a mindfulness practice.

And instead of breath,

Sound or emotion,

We're holding our attention on the food that we're eating,

The thoughts and emotions that arise as we eat,

And the physical sensations that arise when we eat.

So why do we practice mindful eating?

Well,

When we engage in mindful eating,

We intentionally slow down one of our daily activities.

And we reacquaint ourselves with the full spectrum of experience that is available to us when we pay attention in the present moment non-judgmentally.

And for those of us fortunate enough to have access to food choices,

The act of eating fulfills more than just our physical need for sustenance.

If sustenance were the sole reason for eating,

We wouldn't eat the variety of foods that we do or perhaps the sorts of foods that we do.

And food really reflects cultural,

Emotional,

Social,

And practical elements of our lives.

More often than not,

We choose the foods we eat based on their flavors,

Sensations,

Smells,

Colors,

And textures.

And yet most of the time,

We hardly pay attention to any of that when we eat.

Often we might be grabbing a bite on the way to work or class,

Eating at our desk as we read email,

Or maybe we're even watching TV over dinner.

So how much enjoyment are we leaving on the table,

Whether it's just lunch at the desk,

An ice cream cone,

Or a meal out?

So not only might we derive more pleasure from eating if we practice attending to the experience more fully,

We may also gain an understanding about our personal relationship with food and other attachments or aversions we may have.

For example,

Do we panic when we don't have food?

Do we eat things we know we shouldn't or volumes we know we shouldn't,

But we can't stop ourselves,

It seems like?

Do we have aversions to food?

Do we feel badly after we eat?

Do we eat even when we're not hungry?

What triggers send us to the fridge?

By paying attention to our eating experience,

We can learn much about ourselves.

We can then investigate some of the emotional triggers we have with gentleness and without judgment.

When we eat,

We're nurturing ourselves,

And that makes us feel good.

So this is another reason to pay attention to it.

Taking a moment to bring our full attention to our eating experience enables us to break habitual patterns of unhealthy eating and make choices to improve our health.

The integration of mind and body occurs when we plug back into the body's cues so that we know when to stop and when to start eating.

And it also creates an opportunity to bring mindfulness into an everyday activity to support training our attention.

Mindful eating is also a practice to deepen our understanding of interdependence.

So taking a moment to reflect on how many people around the world it may have taken to enable this object that's in front of us to be there.

This reinforces the reality of connection and dependence on people we know and don't know.

And this interdependence offers an opportunity to rest in gratitude for all the ways in which people around the world contribute to our nourishment in so many aspects of our lives.

In addition,

We can then reflect on how this experience differs from how we typically eat the same food item,

Maybe in large quantities without noticing any of the qualities we just noticed for example.

So how much joy and delight are we really missing?

And if we extrapolate this new found awareness beyond food,

We can reflect on how much we're missing if we apply the same experience of noticing to important things in our lives such as interactions with loved ones.

So that's just touching briefly on some of the many,

Many benefits of slowing down one of the processes in our daily lives and really paying attention to it.

But how do we do this specifically with eating?

In a formal practice,

When we engage in a mindfulness of eating practice,

We begin by settling into the body.

Mindfulness is at its core an integrated awareness.

The cultivation of a state of awareness where the mind and the body are connected.

And so taking some time at the beginning of each practice to connect the mind and body is essential.

We may do this just by taking a seat and maybe sensing into the body about how we're feeling,

Our connection with whatever's beneath us like a chair or a stool,

Or even a cushion.

And once we've settled into the body,

We can take a few minutes to stabilize the mind,

Maybe by tuning into the breath as an anchor.

So just pausing for a little bit,

Connecting the mind and the body and then stabilizing the mind.

And then we begin mindful eating by placing a food object in one hand.

For example,

It may have been just sitting before us on the table.

A raisin is the typical food item used for this practice,

But you can use a strawberry,

A piece of popcorn or a bit of chocolate if you want.

So with beginner's mind,

We experience this object as though it were the first time that we've ever encountered it.

And with curiosity,

We move through all five senses,

Visual,

Tactile,

Olfactory,

Auditory and taste.

Feeling the nature of the object as vividly as we can.

And it's a bit like playing with our food and playfulness is a great attitude to bring to meditation or mindfulness practice.

So for example,

For using a raisin,

We can hold the raisin in the palm of one hand,

Noticing its weight or its seeming weightlessness.

We can very intentionally pick it up with two fingers,

Taking care with each movement to allow us to be aware of thoughts,

Sensations,

Feelings.

Maybe we can roll the raisin gently or squeeze it gently,

Sussing out its texture a little bit.

We can then put it up next to our ear to see if it makes any sounds when we squeeze it.

And seriously,

This is what you can do.

Try it.

What is this like?

What emotions arise from trying to hear a raisin?

Do we want to giggle?

Do we worry what we look like?

Are we discovering anything new?

Again,

We do all of this very slowly and deliberately.

And then we can place it just beneath the tip of our nose to see if there is a scent that we can discern.

We hold it there for a bit.

Does the body begin to anticipate eating the raisin?

Does the smell evoke any memories?

If we didn't know we were smelling a raisin,

What might we think of the scent that we're discerning?

Does it smell different with our eyes open or closed when we're looking at it?

So then we can place the raisin very gently on our lips,

But not move it from there.

What happens now if you just leave the raisin right on your lower lip,

For example,

For a little bit?

Notice what arises.

After a bit then,

We can place it on the tongue,

But not chew it.

Just holding it in the mouth,

Noticing what that experience is like.

And then we can begin to chew very slowly,

Deliberately,

But we don't swallow.

And what is that like?

Can you actually do that?

Can you have something in your mouth and chew it and then not swallow it?

What physical reactions take place?

What muscular activity is necessary to move the raisin around in the mouth?

How do we not bite our tongues more often?

These are some things that might arise as you're doing this.

And then when we're done really experiencing that,

We can swallow the raisin and notice what happens next.

We can just sit and be present for anything that we're experiencing,

The full spectrum of our experience,

Physical,

Emotional,

Mental.

And at the end of all of this,

If we like,

We can take some time to do a little bit of mental journaling about the experience.

What arose for us?

What did we notice?

Were there any aha moments or maybe not?

Maybe it was just sort of fun and playful.

So there is some technical tips that we can offer for when you choose to do this practice.

The first one is to encourage beginner's mind.

Mindful eating is a perfect practice to break free from our habitual patterns and our preconceived notions.

So if you imagine that you're experiencing something for the first time,

Your mind is open to possibility without the constructs of memory,

Beliefs,

Or judgments.

For example,

Someone who has in their mind that they don't like raisins has a perfect opportunity to just experience the raisin as it is today and remain open to all of the different experience.

It is after all a different raisin than we might have had in the past,

And we are not the same person that we were when we had the last raisin.

So encouraging an expansive mind and noticing when memories and judgments arise is the practice.

Next,

Try not to analyze what arises.

Sometimes when we become aware of a thought or reaction,

Rather than simply allowing it to progress on its natural brief path of beginning,

Middle,

And end,

We begin to follow it and try to make sense of it.

We kind of move right from an integrated mind and body straight up into the head.

And a very important part of this practice lies not in simply being aware of the mental events as they arise,

But letting them follow their natural path without holding on to them or giving them weight that they don't need to have.

Next,

Notice the after effects of eating.

So encourage some observation of what happens after you eat and the food is being digested.

We may miss important cues about how a specific food impacts the body if we're not tuned into how we feel after eating something.

And there are foods that will serve our specific health needs better than others.

Noticing our body's reaction,

Maybe it's an energy level,

Discomfort,

Comfort,

Whatever it is,

Can help us to make maybe better food choices.

And then lastly,

Being aware of the second arrow of affliction,

Which is a term used to explain judgment.

So if you become aware of a thought or emotion that arises,

And you find yourself reacting with judgment about the fact that it has arisen,

Remember to be kind to yourself.

Your experience in that moment is exactly just that,

Your experience in that moment.

Remember that neither our emotions nor our thoughts define us,

And they're just temporary states of experience.

So what I've described here has really been about how to sit and engage in mindful eating in a very formal way.

On an informal basis,

We can bring mindfulness into our daily eating several different ways.

We might notice what emotions are present when we reach for food.

We can also pause to have what somebody once called,

And I love this expression,

An intimate moment with our food before we eat.

Instead of looking it in the eyes,

If you will,

Taking in the colors,

The textures,

The smells of what we're about to eat,

And maybe noticing with gratitude how fortunate we are to have before us what we do.

Lastly,

We can eat meals without distraction,

Often or even just from time to time.

No laptop,

No cell phone,

Newspaper or book,

Just us and our food.

Interestingly,

This is how meals are most often eaten when we're on retreat.

And what's interesting is that it's been observed that very often when people first get to retreat,

People fill their plates up with food.

But by the end of the retreat,

People take less food and eat less food,

Because in slowing down and paying attention to the experience of eating,

We realize that we need much less than we originally thought.

So we hope that this discussion has served you in some way.

And we wish that all beings everywhere without exception may have what they need to sustain themselves physically,

Emotionally and spiritually.

Take care.