This is a guided mindfulness practice around eating your daily meals.
With your food in front of you,
Start by taking a few grounding breaths.
Just become censored in the present moment.
Feel the seat,
The upright spine,
Intentionally bringing your focus into the physical body and allowing it to relax slightly.
First,
Take a look at your food.
Notice how the light lands on it.
Notice the contours and shape of the food.
Places of shadow,
Places of reflection.
Notice the colours,
The different colours in your meal.
Even if you are eating something of one colour,
See if you can notice subtle changes in the tone of that particular colour.
And the undulations on the surface of the food.
If your meal is something that you can eat with your hand,
Pick it up,
A piece of the food,
And feel the textures in your hand.
Just hold it lightly.
Feel its weight.
If your food is not something that you can eat with your hand,
Feel the texture of the utensil as you take a portion of the food with your utensil and hold it up closer towards the face.
Feel either the moistness or the dryness of the food or the utensil.
Notice the texture of that particular material that it is made out of.
Its weight,
Its relative warmth or coolness.
Now place the food in the opposite hand or move the utensil over to the other hand.
And feel the absence of it in your first hand and the contact in the second.
Perhaps there is some residue left over on the fingers of the first hand from the food or the utensil.
Now slowly bring the food up towards your nose and try to find the first point where you start to notice the smell of your food.
Move slowly with your eyes closed if possible.
And as the smell comes into contact with the nostrils,
See if you can break it down into the different fragrances that make that particular smell.
Is it sweet?
Is it spicy?
Is it sour?
Bitter?
Bear in mind that smell comprises about 80% of what we perceive to be taste.
So most of the information that you are going to get in terms of taste will come before you even put the food in your mouth.
Now mindfully,
Slowly bring the food into contact with your lips.
Again feel the temperature,
The texture,
Viscosity,
Roughness,
Smoothness,
Stickiness.
And perhaps notice any response that you have to this.
You may be salivating already or you may have a craving or urge to just place the food in your mouth and gulp it down.
If that's the case,
Just be aware of that impulse and continue to follow the process.
Now place the food into your mouth,
Onto your tongue.
Without chewing and pay attention to the sudden change in your taste as you do that.
Notice the texture and the weight of the food in the mouth.
It's slowly getting covered with saliva and the taste dispersing through your mouth.
Explore the contours and the texture of the food with your tongue and see if there are any changes in the taste that you get as you do this.
After you have tasted those different flavors,
Take a chewing bite,
Just one slow soft bite and feel the related sensations from that.
If you are eating something that doesn't require chewing,
Perhaps just compress the tongue lightly towards the roof of the mouth and feel the movement through the liquid as it is compressed and notice if there is any change in the taste,
In the physical sensations in the mouth.
The biting action may pass through different parts of food,
Different textures within the food itself.
Be aware of those.
Notice how the taste changes,
Perhaps intensifying when you break through certain parts of the food.
Now take a second bite and notice any changes.
Notice also that you may have that urge again to keep chewing,
But don't do that just yet.
Feel if you can where the food has started to break down,
Becoming softer either through the process of saliva or chewing.
Now continue to eat the food slowly and consciously,
Taking your time to pay attention to each chew,
To each swallow,
To the movements of your tongue.
You can gradually speed up the process,
But try to remain conscious to deepen your experience of eating.
Before you swallow your food,
Notice the feeling of how it has completely fallen apart and how it feels going down the throat.
Are there any new flavors at the back of your throat?
Do you notice changes in your tongue as you swallow?
And once again,
Just be interested in any urges,
Any craving,
Any desire.
Continue this process in silence to the best of your ability.
Try to keep your awareness on this one thing,
This one process.
Your mind most likely will get distracted.
And if this happens,
Acknowledge that your mind has moved off and gently bring it back to the focus on the act of eating.
