Eat with your ears.
Explore the sense of hearing in a mindful eating exercise with Marc-Antoine Nodry.
In this mindfulness exercise,
The focus range is limited to the sense of hearing.
You only want to pay attention to the sound or the silence of eating.
Hearing the sounds of food is not an experience we usually pay attention to.
It might bring your inner child to the surface and add a new dimension to the pleasure of eating.
For this mindfulness exercise,
Ideally you would need one food item.
I invite you to pause the recording and fetch the food item and resume when you're ready.
An excellent way to start this exercise is to pay attention to the sounds associated with chewing your food and the sounds of swallowing.
For example,
The sounds that come from crushing and grinding food between your teeth.
You could also decide to broaden the sonic experience to handling the packaging of a snack,
The cutlery clinking against the dishes,
Or any other noise that comes out of your mouth,
For example.
Let's start the mindfulness exercise.
You can close your eyes or leave them open when you take food into your mouth.
Let's start by noticing the absence of sounds coming from your meal,
Unless there are some sizzling sounds or something else that is audible.
Soak your awareness into this experience for a few seconds.
As you introduce food into your mouth,
Notice the sounds that food makes as you crunch and chew it.
Keep focusing on what you hear until the sounds vanish entirely and the food has made its way into your stomach.
Consider yourself an explorer who is discovering the sounds of eating for the first time.
Explore the different sounds that food makes in between your teeth.
You may notice when sounds arise and vanish,
Where the sounds are in your mouth,
And so forth.
You don't need to answer those questions intellectually.
They are just pointers to how you can develop your clarity within your awareness.
Allow the sounds of eating to freely come and go and stay for as long or as short a time as they will in the foreground of your awareness.
Welcome whatever is happening in your auditory experience.
You may now turn your attention to the sound of the sound.
You may now turn your attention to the sound of the sound.
You may now turn your attention to the sound.
You may now turn your attention to the sound.
If you are caught in thinking,
Or your attention is being pulled to another sensory experience like the taste of food,
Or sensory experience in the body,
Just bring back your attention to sounds that food creates while you chew food.
If you're not actively chewing or swallowing,
Maybe silence is what you detect.
If you're not actively chewing or swallowing,
Maybe silence is what you detect.
If you're not actively chewing or swallowing,
Maybe silence is what you detect.
If you're not actively chewing or swallowing,
Maybe silence is what you detect.
If you're not actively chewing or swallowing,
Maybe silence is what you detect.
If you're not actively chewing or swallowing,
Maybe silence is what you detect.
If you're not actively chewing or swallowing,
Maybe silence is what you detect.
Awesome,
We're done!
I hope you enjoyed this mindful leading exploration.
