Chocolate Meditation

This meditation is a variation of a mindful eating exercise. You will need a piece of chocolate to use as the guidance is centered in the exploration of the sensory experience of consuming a bite of chocolate. Paying close attention to your body while eating, can create an opening for unexpected discoveries.

Transcript

This is a variation of a mindful eating exercise I used in my recent class on joy and making spaces for our experiences.

Feel free to use this type of inquiry with whatever you have available to you.

I instructed my students to bring a piece of chocolate to practice,

So I will guide you with that in mind.

Feel free to pause this recording and get yourself some chocolate,

Along with its container or wrapper.

As with any mindfulness practice,

The following reminders may be useful.

Concentrate on being with what is actually present instead of what you think should be there.

See if you can have a beginner's mind.

Bring forward a sense of wonder and curiosity,

And use my guidance as an invitation for an inquiry.

I use a specific pace and step-by-step process that I hope will bring forward new discoveries for you.

Let's begin.

You can start with extracting your chocolate out of its container or wrapper in a mindful manner.

It helps to slow it down so you can take in many layers of this experience.

One of such layers is sound.

Pay close attention to presence of sound or pauses between the sounds as you examine the container that holds the chocolate goodness inside.

See if you can open the net like a present,

Like you have seen the treasure it contains for the first time.

Notice what you see,

Color variation,

Texture,

Shape.

What are you sensing in your body right now?

Are you noticing your mouth watering?

Is there some restlessness or impatience?

Judgment even?

Whatever is present,

See if you can gently acknowledge it with kindness.

If you wish,

You can now touch the chocolate with your fingers,

Not the sensations that it brings forward.

Use the urge to put it in the mouth.

See if you can resist.

In fact,

See if you can serve the urge and watch it break like a wave only after a split second.

Now you can bring closer to your face and see if you can smell it.

Simply take it in and notice the complexity of what you are sensing.

What is the quality of the smelling sensation?

Is it pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Neutral?

Where does it go in your body?

Does it bring forward any emotions or thoughts?

See if you can touch it with your lips.

Not eaten it just yet,

I promise you'll get to it in a minute.

What are you sensing with the skin of your lips?

Is it different when you touch it with your fingers?

See if you can envision yourself taking a bite.

What does that anticipation feel like?

And then if you notice the urge to go ahead already,

Just see if you can watch it with kindness and curiosity.

Okay,

You can take a small bite now,

But resist the urge to chew on it right away.

See if you can simply place the chocolate on your tongue.

Notice the slight temperature difference between the surface of your tongue and the chocolate.

And as it warms up,

Notice the texture.

Can you sense the oozing chocolate coating the insides of your mouth?

From the tongue,

Maybe to the roof of your mouth,

Cheeks,

Teeth.

And again,

Notice the urge,

Maybe urge to chew or swallow.

See if you can serve that urge and see what happens to it as you notice it.

And even if you start chewing or find yourself swallowing,

See if you can pause yourself and watch either warmth of your mouth continue melting the chocolate or as your mouth is filling up,

Notice the urge to swallow.

See if you can resist it for just one moment.

And of course you can swallow when you're ready.

I just want you to notice that when you have an urge,

You don't have to succumb to every time it shows up.

Notice what does it feel like when you're making the conscious choice to swallow instead of being on autopilot.

And is the chocolate still melting?

Perhaps you found yourself chewing.

See if you can detect the layers of all the taste sensation.

Can you sense different qualities or layers?

Can you notice the sweetness or maybe bitterness,

Maybe even saltiness?

Is there anything else you're detecting a hint of?

Whether you decide to chew or simply hold the chocolate on your tongue and let it melt,

Do you notice the beautifully coordinated movement of your cheeks and tongue expertly moving stuff around?

And as your mouth is filling with mixture of chocolate and saliva,

See if you can play with serving the urge to swallow right away.

Just a little longer.

In fact,

How long can you hold it before giving in to it?

Just notice what's there.

What is the quality of your experience?

Or maybe you can notice the quality of your presence.

Now that you probably don't have any chocolate left in your mouth,

Can you sense what is left?

Do you feel a piece of chocolate fuller or richer?

And how do you feel about this tiny piece of chocolate?

Was it a surprisingly big,

Surprisingly small experience?

Would you consider it pleasant,

Unpleasant or neutral?

Reviews

It Was really good I like tell she made you resist to urge , right until the end of the meditation I liked how she talked about Smoothness The texture, how it changed with each step of the meditation then how it made me feel When I stopped fighting your urge.

This meditation could be even better if not only she talked about the texture the smell the taste Maybe she goes into details.Intricate details and guides the person in Getting more advanced with their mindfulness To go further than chocolatey Or bitter,

For example The aroma for me Reminded me of wine.It had a nice musketel smell, The feeling with touching the chocolate with my hand was smooth but hard and I could feel the tiny flakes of chocolate that had fallen off, When I put my lips on the chocolate It's still felt smooth yet hard but I could slowly taste the aroma I'm feeling it slowly soften on my lips, When I actually put the chocolate in my mouth, I could feel the chocolate slowly get to my mouth temperature and it very slowly melted, it released earthy yet bitter flavours, I resisted the urge right until the end to eat it.But I did find a chocolate melted regardless.And it was released earthy bitter flavours But when the chocolate was completely melted , it made my mouth water made me want more, it made me thirsty and salivate, the finish Which is essentially the taste when the chocolates long gone from your mouth was sweet, almost vanilla, like and a little earthy, bear in mind this chocolate has no vanilla in it.

I hope I'vee not given too much away. Obviously you would listen to instructions. And do it for yourself, but I thought I'd use my chocolate as an example.

This was my second chocolate meditation and it was fantastic! I used a galaxy bar during this session and it was so hard not to gobble the thing up! 😂😂 Really loved this practice, thanks so much ❤️