Mindfulness Exercise: A First Taste of Mindfulness - Eating One Raisin
1. Holding
- First, take a raisin and hold it in your palm of your hand or between your finger and thumb.
- Focusing on it, imagine that you've just dropped in from Mars and have never seen an object like this before in your life.
2. Seeing
- Take time to really see it; gaze at the raisin with care and full attention.
- Let eyes explore every part of it, examining the highlights where the light shines, the darker hollows, the fold and ridges, and any asymmetries or unique features.
3. Touching
- Turn the raisin over between your fingers, exploring it's texture, maybe with your eyes closed if that enhances your sense of touch.
4. Smelling
- Holding the raisin beneath your nose, with each inhalation drink in any smell, aroma, or fragrance that may arise, noticing as you do this anything interesting that may be happening in your mouth or stomach.
5. Placing
- Now slowly bring the raisin up to your lips, noticing how your hand and arm know exactly how and where to position it. Gently place the object in the mouth, without chewing, noticing how it gets into the mouth in the first place. Spend a few moments exploring the sensations of having it in your mouth, exploring it with your tongue.
6. Tasting
- When you are ready, prepare to chew the raisin, noticing how and where it needs to be for chewing. Then, very consciously, take one or two bites into it and notice what happens in the aftermath, experiencing any waves of taste that emanate from it as you continue chewing. Without swallowing yet, notice the bare sensations of taste and texture in the mouth and how these may change over time, moment by moment, as well as any in the object.
7. Swallowing
- When you feel ready to swallow the raisin, see if you can first detect the intention to swallow as it comes up, so that even this is experienced consciously before you actually swallow the raisin.
8. Following
- Finally, see if you can feel what is left of the raisin moving down into your stomach, and sense how the body as a whole is feeling after completing this exercise in mindful eating.
One-Mindfully
- Do one thing at a time. When you are eating, eat. When you are walking, walk. When you are bathing, bathe. When you are working, work. When you are in a group, or a conversation, focus your attention on the very moment you are in with the other person. When you are thinking, think. When you are worrying, worry. When you are planning, plan. When you are remembering, remember. Do each thing with all of your attention.
- If other actions, or other thoughts, or strong feelings distract you, Let go of distractions and go back to what you are doing - again, and again, and again.
- Concentrate your mind. If you find you are doing two things at once, stop and go back to one thing at a time.
The goal is to focus on one thing in the moment. Most of us think that if we do several things at once we will accomplish more. This is not true. However, this does not mean that you cannot switch from one thing to another and back. The trick is to have your mind completely on what you are doing in the moment. This refers to both physical and mental activities. Eg; sitting in a group and worrying about the future. A mindfulness perspective would suggest that if you are going to worry about the future, you should devote your full attention to it.
Ideas for Practicing One-Mindfulness
1. Awareness while making tea or coffee. Prepare a pot of tea or coffee to serve a guest or to drink by yourself. Do each movement slowly, in awareness. Do not let one detail of your movements go by without being aware of it. Know that your hand lifts the pot by it's handle. Know that you are pouring the fragrant, warm tea or coffee in to the cup. Follow each step in awareness. Breathe gently and more deeply than usual. Take hold of your breath if your mind strays.
2. Awareness while washing the dishes. Wash the dishes consciously, as though each bowl is an object of contemplation. Consider each bowl sacred. Follow your breath to prevent your mind from straying. Do not try to hurry to get the job over with. Consider washing the dishes the most important thing in life.
3. Awareness while taking a slow-motion bath. Allow yourself 30-45 minutes to take a bath. Don't hurry for even a second. From the moment you prepare the bath water to the moment you put on clean clothes, let every motion be light and slow. Be attentive of every movement. Place your attention on every part of your body, without discrimination or fear. Be aware of each stream of eater on your body. By the time you've finished, your mind will feel as peaceful and light as your body. Follow your breath. Think of yourself as being in a clean and fragrant lotus pond in the summer.
Effectiveness
- Focus on what works. Do what needs to be done in each situation. Stay away from "fair" and "unfair", "right" and "wrong", "should" and "should not".
- Play by the rules. Don't "cut off your nose to spite your face".
- Act as skillfully as you can, meeting the needs of the situation you are in. Not the situation you wish you were in; not the one that is more comfortable; etc.
- Keep an eye on your objectives in the situation and do what is necessary to achieve them.
- Let go of vengeance, useless anger, and righteousness that hurts you and doesn't work.
Ideas for Practicing Effectiveness
1. Observe when you begin you get angry or hostile with someone. Ask yourself, "Is this effective?"
2. Observe yourself when you start wanting to be "right" instead of effective. Give up being "right" and switch to trying to be effective.
3. Notice willfulness in yourself. Ask yourself, "Is this effective?"
4. Drop willfulness, and practice acting effectively instead. Notice the difference.
5. When feeling angry or hostile or like you're about to do something ineffective, practice willing hands.
Bringing Awareness to Routine Activities
One way to practice being more mindful is to choose some routine activity that we do every day and resolve that each time we do it, we will bring a fresh quality of deliberate and gentle moment to moment awareness to the task or activity as best we can. Bringing awareness into these activities of daily living can make it much easier for us to recognize when we are operating in the doing mode, on automatic pilot, and provides us with an opportunity to enter and dwell in the mode of being. In this way, we know full well what we are doing while we are actually doing it.
Here are some examples of possible activities:
- Washing the dishes
- Loading the dishwasher
- Taking out the garbage
- Brushing your teeth
- Taking a shower
- Doing the laundry
- Driving the car
- Leaving the house
- Entering the house
- Going upstairs
- Going downstairs
Feel free to add your own chosen activities to this list, perhaps choosing to focus on one for a week, and adding more as you feel able.
Comments
Post a Comment