I just started a new book called
Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World by
Mark Williams, PhD and Danny Penman, PhD. I heard Mark Williams being interviewed on NPR a few weeks back and decided I had to read it.
What the authors accomplished (quite easily, I'd say) is to write about how mindfulness affects our brain activity and how it can change our lives. I've heard so much about mindfulness through my study of yoga, but these gentlemen take it further. It seems they found proof of what meditators for centuries have known all along: Meditation on a regular basis can improve our lives in measureable ways from attitude to disease fighting.
I'm only in the first quarter of the book, but I found an activity that I thought was really intriguing. It's called "The Chocolate Meditation". The idea of this activity is to get some chocolate that you normally don't eat to use for the meditation. For example, if you are a milk chocolate lover, try dark chocolate for this activity and vice versa.
The rules are simple:
- Open packet, inhale aroma, let it consume you.
- Break off piece and really look at it, examine every aspect of it.
- Pop in mouth, resisting the urge to chew it or suck on it...just let it melt on your tongue. Observe the flavors.
- If your mind wanders, gentle bring your attention back to the chocolate.
- Once the chocolate has completely melted, swallow slowly, observing how it glides down your throat.
- Continue until desired amount of chocolate is finished.
- Observe how you feel eating chocolate this way vs. wolfing it down.
Write about it if you'd like...even better, share here if you wish. I plan on doing this after I go shopping for the perfect chocolate bar. I will post the results. Have fun with this!
