4 Ways To Slow Down & Bring More Mindfulness To Your Meals

I had the most luscious experience today.

Most of us have probably seen the seemingly trendy word ‘Mindful’ making it’s way swiftly to the top buzz words of the past couple of years.

Sure, mindful can be applied to most of the ways we do life on a daily basis. Being aware of those around us, how kind or unkind we might act toward others, if we hold doors open for strangers or even have them opened for us, the food and drink we fuel our bodies with, how to reduce the waste by the consumption of plastic bags we use at the market or how many trash cans we pile with trash on a weekly basis-most of us seem we are becoming more mindful of these things.

Today, though, I experienced mindfulness in a whole new way.

One of my most favorite things about Spring are the organic berries that plentifully abound from local farms and farmer’s markets. Today I had a gigantic plate of mixed berries for breakfast- dark red and tangy raspberries, plump and sweet blueberries, juicy firm strawberries, and blackberries that left their sweet dark purple stain on my fingers and lips as a reminder of our journey together.

They were so gorgeous, it seemed like such a waste to hurry through them, meaning that beautiful experience had ended and it was off to the races for the next scheduled thing of the day.

I decided to stop the madness for awhile and challenge myself to a full half hour of berry eating. Just that. That would be my one goal of that set aside time, there would be nothing else vying for my time other than being in the moment with these luscious beauties.

Let me tell you-it was a challenge at first.

The biggest issue was that they were so amazingly delicious, it was hard to not stuff my cheeks full of this berry trio, squirreling them away like a chipmunk, saving more for later on down the road. I realized that is called hoarding, and this was not the point of this mindfulness exercise. In fact, it seemed the polar opposite.

As funny as it may sound, to just BE with my berries proved interesting.

I quickly realized I would need to come up with a mapped out berry plan of sorts to make the half hour of consumption not only do-able, but FUN!

Here is what I came up with:

1. Take inventory of how my food LOOKS. What beautiful patterns does it have that make it unique in and of itself? Is it dense or light? What color is it?
   

2. How does this berry SMELL??? To smell each and every berry is quite a time investment, but slowly and surely one by one they made their way to my sniffer, as I closed my eyes and inhaled their deep, ripe aromas, many of which brought back Summer and childhood memories.

3. Placing each cool berry one by one in my mouth and letting it slowly meld into warmth, I chewed and chewed until the berry just dissolved into a jelly texture, free of seeds or any roughness. The final prize of each berry experiment was to finally swallow and taste the pure delight of flavor hitting my throat and senses! My tummy seemed to be happy!
   

4. Just BEING with the food in stillness before rushing to the next bite. How did each berry bring me happiness? I even reflected on the time it must have taken for a berry to grow into a full mature fruit from seed to harvest. I blessed all of the different hands involved in this process along the way, from planting, to picking, to packaging up and trucking to the local market where I could easily go pick up the pack to enjoy! Quite a process when you SLOW DOWN to think about what goes into our food.

I think my berries deserved at least this amount of appreciated upon consumption. It was a gorgeous way to start my day and I believe I will be infusing this amount of SLOW awareness back into practice more often than I do.

FEEL GOOD MOMENT OF THE DAY: The three kisses Justin stole today at the bottom of our apartment stairwell for no reason other than he loves me and wanted me to feel it. THOSE were NICE 🙂