Pre-eating Meditation

If you want to put yourself in the right frame of mind for eating, try a meditation beforehand. Don’t let the word scare you. A meditation can be anything you focus your physical and mental attention on. By saying aloud the message you want to program into yourself right before eating, you increase your potential for responding to it while you’re eating, thereby heightening your awareness to better connect to appetite signals.

 

Here are a few ideas but, please, feel free to create what suits you, because your own words will speak most passionately to your heart. 

 

“I am relaxed and peaceful and anticipate enjoying a glorious meal. I will choose foods to enjoy, then savor them. I will honor my body by giving it as much nourishment as it needs and as much pleasure as I want. I will listen to my appetite and trust it to tell me when I am approaching satisfaction and fullness and when I have reached these points. Then I will contentedly stop eating because the moment will be perfect.”

 

“My mind and body will stay totally connected while I’m eating, though I will be talking and listening to other people. I will hear loudly and clearly my body’s messages about enjoying food and feeling full and satisfied, and trust and respect what my they tell me.”

 

“I am choosing to eat a food I love and will enjoy it until I’m satisfied and not one minute more. My mind and body will be in harmony while I’m eating this food, and I will entertain only pleasurable thoughts about it and about my eating experience. Guilt, shame, and fear will be far away as I embrace total sensory delight and satisfaction.”

 

You can meditate on any aspect of eating. Depending on what your issues are (All of them, I hear you saying!), script a meditation to fit. First, write it down. One woman I know had one laminated on a small card, with the rules of “normal” eating on the other side. If you repeat your meditation prior to every food encounter, and your meditation is short, soon you won’t need to read it because you’ll have it memorized. Best not to say too much, anyway. Instead, create a message that is short (30-60 seconds), to the point, and targets the behaviors you’d like to engage in while eating.

 

With seriousness, focus, and deep feeling, say your meditation slowly, (preferably) aloud or to yourself before you eat whether you’re about to dive into dinner, bite into an apple, or spoon some sherbet. Repeat it before every single food encounter. 

 

Best,

Karen

Normal Eating web site

Normal Eating talks and workshops

PLEASE NOTE: I encourage you to comment on my blogs and will do my best to address topics/questions you raise in future blogs. I cannot provide individual responses, but encourage you to post your questions and comments on The Food and Feelings Workbook message board at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings.

 

Comments

[cinnamonapple]

This is a really great idea! Sometimes I feel as if I've tried every tactic out there...but then I come across something like this. :) Thanks so much.