Mindful eating helps us to digest our food better,
Absorb more of the nutrients in our food,
Feel more energized,
And gives us an opportunity to also digest our emotions,
Our thought processes,
And our entire experience of the external world.
Mindful eating can also be very challenging in our modern world,
Where we're often driven by distraction or productivity,
Eating through lunch or distracting ourselves with something else in our surroundings,
Such as television,
Radio,
Internet.
So I suggest that just for this practice,
That you only focus on this recording and your food.
Let go of everything else.
Set it aside.
Know that it'll be there waiting for you when you're done eating and digesting.
Let's begin our practice.
Take a few moments to settle in with your food.
And before you dig in,
Take a moment just to notice what's on your plate.
Notice the colors,
The textures,
The smells.
Allow your sensory experience of your food to begin the digestion process for you,
To begin the process of feeling that you will be putting nutrients into your body,
And that those nutrients help to fuel your cells,
Empower your brain,
And soothe your heart.
So take a moment.
Just let the senses notice the food in front of you.
Take a nice deep breath in.
Notice the waft of the food.
And a releasing breath out.
Again,
Breathing in,
Notice the delicious smells,
And breathing out.
Last time,
Fully experience,
Without eating yet,
The food on your plate in front of you.
And let the breath go.
If you're using a utensil,
You may pick up your utensil.
And as we move toward our first bite,
We'll choose the food that most appeals to us.
And we'll take a savory,
Delicious bite,
Taking our time to chew it fully,
To experience the taste of what's in our mouth,
To notice the flavors,
The textures,
The consistency.
And once you're done fully chewing that portion of food,
Swallow it slowly,
Noticing it pass down through your trachea,
Into the top of your stomach,
And then down into the center of your stomach.
And then we'll take our next bite of food.
Slowly,
Take a savory bite.
Enjoy again the flavors,
The textures,
The consistency.
Perhaps notice something about this bite of food that you didn't the last,
Be it a new flavor or texture.
Find joy in this early process of digesting your food.
And when you're done chewing,
Gently swallow the food,
Again feeling it pass through the trachea and down into the stomach.
And then slowly moving toward our next bite,
With the same process,
Savoring the food,
Taking our time to notice the flavors,
The textures,
And the consistency.
Slowly swallowing the food,
Noticing how it passes down into the stomach,
To join the food that's already there.
Before you take your next bite,
Start to notice how the stomach feels.
Are you starting to feel just a little bit full,
Maybe very full?
We'll continue on taking small bites,
Taking our time to chew our food consistently,
To notice the flavors and the textures in the food.
It can take the brain time to catch up with the stomach,
But we want to start to gauge when we're at about 75% full,
So that point where you don't feel stuffed,
But you're starting to feel satiated.
As you continue eating,
Begin to pay attention to the specific properties of food on your plate.
Start to notice,
Perhaps you have greens and vegetables,
Perhaps an animal protein or a legume.
We'll focus this next part of the practice on a vegetable,
But you can imagine this with any property on your plate.
Let's hone in on a specific vegetable on your plate.
Imagine back to many months ago,
When that vegetable was perhaps just a little seed planted in the ground.
A farmer,
Perhaps in a place far away from where you are right now,
Had to nurture that seed,
So that it could draw nutrients from the soil and growth energy from the rain and the water and potential from the sunlight.
That seed,
As it sprouted up and grew into a full vegetable that's now on your plate,
Was eventually picked by a farmer.
It joined with other vegetables,
It was packaged,
And then it was transported.
It may have traveled from afar or nearby.
It arrived at your local farmer's market or grocery store,
Where eventually you bought it,
Brought it home,
Maybe stored it on your shelf or in the refrigerator.
And then one day you took it out,
Perhaps processed it or chopped it up,
Maybe cooked it and combined it with oils or spices,
A grain or a protein.
And now here it is on your plate,
Entering your body to give you nutrients,
To energize your cells,
To keep you healthy,
To nurture your entire being.
Notice that this can be true of everything on your plate.
Mindful eating requires not just being aware of our own processes,
But the processes of all living organisms that we come into contact with.
So that vegetable or grain or protein on your plate is also a living organism meant to sustain life for other living organisms,
Meant to help nurture and fuel your cells,
Your body,
Your being,
Your brain,
And your heart.
Find deep appreciation for every morsel of food on your plate,
Not just for what it can give you,
But for how it helps to feed all of humanity.
Give yourself permission to have a new and different relationship with food,
One in which every morsel that enters your body is one that nourishes you and gives you strength.
Give yourself permission to enjoy the last bits of this meal,
If you haven't already.
And when you're done eating,
Take a moment just to sit in appreciation and to enter into the rest and digest mode in which your food will have a greater ability to be used as nutrients and be fully assimilated into your cells to make them healthier and stronger.
You may wish to say to yourself,
I honor my food,
I honor my body.
I honor my food,
I honor my body.
I honor my food,
And I honor my body.
Sit in meditation for about five more minutes,
Just allowing your food to digest,
Your heart to feel open,
And your cells to feel energized.
.
