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April 2010 Newsletter – The practice of mindfulness
Please feel free to
forward this email to anyone who may be interested
In today's world,
mindless eating and mindless living are all too common. We are
propelled by the fast pace of hi-tech living—high speed Internet,
emails, instant messages and cell phones—and the expectation that we
are always on call, always ready to respond instantly to any message
we get. Thirty years ago, hardly anyone would have expected to
receive a reply to a phone call or letter within the same day. Yet
today, the pace of our lives is utterly hurried and spinning out of
control. We constantly have to respond to external stimuli and
demands. We have less and less time to stop, stay focused and
reflect on whatever is in front of us. We have much less time to be
in touch with our inner selves—our thoughts, feelings, consciousness
and how and why we have become the way we are, for better or worse.
And our lives suffer because of it.
Globally, there are more people who are overweight than who are
hungry and underweight. Scientists have already warned us that if
the overweight and obesity trend is not turned around, this
generation of youth will have a lifespan shorter than their parents.
Moreover, being overweight increases the risk of many serious health
problems. These problems cause much suffering, affecting the
individuals who have these diseases as well as their family members.
On a large scale, such suffering affects the well-being of our
societies and our world as a whole. The root of our problem lies in
what we consume—not just food, but all the other elements that
contribute to who and what we are. Because of this I recommend and
encourage the practise of mindfulness with all of my clients as I am
very aware of how it can deeply and profoundly change our
relationship with food, and most importantly, the relationship with
ourselves.
In this extract of an
interview, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks beautifully about the benefits of
Mindful Eating: “Mindfulness practices enhance the connection
between our body, our mind and everything else that is around us.
Mindful living is the key to understanding our struggles with weight
and to empowering us to control our weight.
When we can slow down
and really enjoy our food, our life and our health, we take on a
much deeper quality.” As Thich Nhat Hanh expresses eating; “I love
to sit and eat quietly and enjoy each bite, aware of all the hard
and loving work that has gone into my food. When I eat in this way,
not only am I physically nourished, I am also spiritually nourished.
The way I eat influences everything else that I do during the day.
If I can look deeply into my food and take this time as a
meditation—I receive the many gifts of the cosmos that I would not
otherwise profit from if my mind were elsewhere. Because if I eat
and am consumed by my worries and projects, I am eating a lot of
stress and fear and this is harmful to my body and mind.”
He also says that: “Mindfulness
makes life beautiful and meaningful. When I am mindful of my
in-and-out breath and relax my whole body, I am in touch with how
good it is to be alive. I am in touch with my state of health and
feel grateful for everything that is going well in my body. Then
with mindfulness I can be aware of the beauty of the sky, the smell
of a flower, the singing of the birds. I can be deeply in touch with
my own suffering and hold it with love and tenderness, rather than
suppressing it or running from it. Because I can be truly present
for myself, I can be truly present for those I live with, listening
deeply to them and speaking words that inspire hope and
self-confidence. In this way, I can bring joy to someone each
morning and relieve the pain of someone each afternoon. “
Basically, when we
respond to a certain stimulus, feelings or emotions will manifest in
our mind. We human beings have many feelings. They can be positive
or negative. For many people, emotions are closely tied to food,
although the precise nature of this relationship varies from person
to person. Some people tend to eat more when they are joyful, while
others tend to eat less. If we do not attempt to look deeply to
understand our cravings, they will grow and we will form unhealthy
habits. In maintaining our well-being, we need to use
mindfulness to help us be fully aware of how these various emotions
affect how we eat and to cultivate a healthy and positive
relationship with food.
Furthermore, the fast pace of life is now the norm. Between our cell
phones, computers and televisions, we are often trying to manage as
many as seven tasks at one time. This way of life is the opposite of
mindful living. No wonder people are not really living in the moment
and are not fully aware of what they are eating or of what they are
doing, which is essential for maintaining a healthy weight!
Eating mindfully is a practice that will help us understand who we
are. Without mindfulness in our daily life, we may not be able to
discover the peace and happiness that is already in us.
Mindfulness benefits both the individual and the world at large. We
are all connected. When you touch one thing, you are touching
everything. Whatever we do has an effect on others. Therefore, we
must learn to live mindfully to touch the peace inside each of us.
Peace in the world starts with peace in oneself. If everyone lives
mindfully, everyone will be more healthy, feel more fulfilled in
their daily lives and there will be more peace. This collective
mindfulness can bring positive change to our families,
organizations, communities, nations and future generations.
Extracts
from an interview with Thich Nhat Hanh; a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen
Master, poet, scholar and peace activist. His courageous efforts to
generate peace in Vietnam moved Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to
nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He is the author of
many books including such important classics as Peace is Every Step,
The Art of Power and his most recent,
Savor: Mindful
Eating, Mindful Living. He lives in Plum Village,
his meditation centre in France, and travels worldwide.
Mindfulness apple meditation (substitute the
apple for another fruit or vegetable if you do not like apples)
This simple mediation from Buddhist master
Thich Nhat Hanh
and nutritionist Dr. Lilian Cheung will show you how to find more
joy in your life by slowing down and savouring every bite you eat.
Take an apple out of
your refrigerator. Any apple will do. Wash it. Dry it. Before taking
a bite, pause for a moment. Look at the apple in your palm and ask
yourself: When I eat an apple, am I really enjoying eating it? Or,
am I so pre-occupied with other thoughts that I miss the delights
that the apple offers me?
If you are like most of us, you answer "yes" to the second question
much more often than the first. For most of our lives, we have eaten
apple after apple without giving it a second thought. Yet in this
mindless way of eating, we have denied ourselves the many delights
present in the simple act of eating an apple. Why do that,
especially when it is so easy to truly enjoy the apple?
The first thing is to give your undivided attention to eating
the apple. When you eat the apple, just concentrate on eating the
apple. Don't think of anything else. And most important, be still.
Don't eat the apple while you are driving. Don't eat it while you
are walking. Don't eat it while you are reading. Just be still.
Being focused and slowing down will allow you to truly savour all
the qualities the apple offers: its sweetness, aroma, freshness,
juiciness, and crispness.
Next, pick up the apple from the palm of your hand and take a
moment to look at it again. Breathe deeply a few times to help you
focus and become more in touch with how you feel about the apple.
Most of the time, we barely look at the apple we are eating. We grab
it, take a bite, chew it quickly and then swallow. This time, take
note: What kind of apple is it? What colour is it? How does it feel
in your hand? What does it smell like?
Then, give the apple a smile and slowly, mindfully take a
bite, and chew it. Be aware of your in-breath and out-breath a few
times to help you concentrate solely on eating the apple: what it
feels like in your mouth; what it tastes like; what it's like to
chew and swallow it. There is nothing else filling your mind as you
chew—no projects, no deadlines, no worries, no "to do" list, no
fears, no sorrow, no anger, no past, and no future. There is just
the apple.
Chew slowly and completely. Chew consciously, savouring the
taste of the apple and its nourishment, immersing yourself in the
process one hundred percent. This way, you really appreciate the
apple as it is. And as you become fully aware of eating the apple,
you also become fully aware of the present moment. You become fully
engaged in the here and now. Living in the moment, you can really
experience what the apple offers you, and you become more alive.
By eating the apple this way, truly savouring it, you have a taste
of mindfulness, the state of awareness that comes from being fully
immersed in the present moment. Letting go for those few short
minutes and living in the here and now, you can begin to sense the
pleasure and freedom from anxiety that a life lived in mindfulness
can offer. Savouring the apple is mindfulness at work. And it is
mindfulness that will help you reconnect with yourself and become
healthier in mind, body and spirit now and in the future.
Eating an apple consciously is to have a new awareness of the apple,
of our world and of our own life. It celebrates nature, honouring
what Mother Nature and the cosmos have offered us. Eating an apple
with mindfulness is a meditation and in itself can be deeply
spiritual. With this awareness and insight, you begin to have a
greater feeling of gratitude for and appreciation of the food you
eat, and your connection to nature and all others in our world.
Beyond the health benefits and pleasure an apple can provide when we
view the apple on an even grander scale, we can see it as a
representative of our cosmos. Look deeply at the apple in your hand
and you see the farmer who tended the apple tree; the blossom that
became the fruit; the fertile earth, the organic material from
decayed remains of prehistoric marine animals and algae, and the
hydrocarbons themselves; the sunshine, the clouds, and the rain.
Without the combination of these far-reaching elements and without
the help of many people, the apple would simply not exist.
Just as the apple becomes more real and vibrant when you take a
moment to eat it mindfully, your life will become more real and
vibrant as your practise of mindfulness increases.
Kind regards
Lesley Wood
021-4182843
082 3 782 782
www.weight-masters.com
I love receiving your questions,
comments or queries! Email me at
info@weight-masters.com. I will endeavour to return your mail
within 48hours.
“Like most
humanoids, I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the “monkey
mind” – the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to
scratch themselves, spit and howl. From the distant past to the
unknown future my mind swings wildly through time, touching on
dozens of ideas a minute, harnessed and undisciplined. This in
itself in not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional
attachment that goes along with this thinking….you are after all
what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and
you are the slave to your emotions.
And the other
problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that
you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or
poking in the future, but rarely do we rest in the moment…..”
From Eat, Pray,
Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Bloomsbury) 2006 page 132
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