#challenge30days - Mindfulness: road to enlightenment (4/30) - 30 Days blogging/meditation streak

A bite of mindfulness

Becoming more mindful is more than just dedicating a few minuets a day in siting still and focusing on ones breath. It is about living in the present, not caring to much about the future, and even less about the past.

Reaching this state of mind requires willpower and practice. Dedicating time to a tasks and focusing solely on THIS specific task can help tremendously to become more mindful. Avoid multitasking... Not only does this boost productivity, but it also makes activities or tasks more enjoyable. I encourage you to try it out :)

So here is what I did today, and try to do at least once a day from now on...

Eating a meal mindfully

But what does this mean? How can a meal be eaten mindfully? It's not so easily explained, but in essence it is exactly what i described above. Focusing entirely on the meal. Don't get distracted. Don't play on your phone simultaneously. And also, (yeah, this is strange, but for one meal a day i think it's okay) don't engage in a conversation. Talk can be done after the mindful-meal.

To have a truly mindful eating experience these steps are necessary. And for the exercise itself, it's simple. Same as in the breathing exercise, you just focus on the tasting, chewing and swallowing instead of the breathing.

I came up with some guidelines to help me focus:

• Choosing consciously what goes from my plate onto the fork, inside my mouth
• Every bite i chew 30 times before swallowing
• I ask myself: how does this taste? Salty? Sweet? Bitter?
• I (try) not to judge the food (still working on that ;D)

What i felt was, by focusing on the meal only, i was able to minimize the thoughts on the past and future and truly live in the present. It is an extraordinary experience and i encourage you to at least try it out for one meal.

Thanks for reading & stay healthy :)

This is part of the 30 days writing challenge by @dragosroua. I combined this with a mindfulness challenge. My goal with this is to improve writing & english skills as well as becoming more self aware.