As you begin to
explore your relationship with food and your body, you may find that a lot of
thoughts and feelings come up or you may notice that you’re feeling stressed,
anxious or overwhelmed. Be gentle with yourself!
Instead of mindlessly
on “autopilot” reaching for food and stress eat, pause and practice the following breathing
mini-meditation to help you calm yourself and focus your thoughts.
It’s a mini-meditation
that can put you back in control of your life when it starts to slip between
your fingers.
And when you’re
anxious or stressed, and feel like stress eating, you feel far too rushed to
squeeze in a twenty-minute meditation. When you’re under pressure, the last
thing your mind wishes to be is mindful – tired, old thinking habits are
infinitely more seductive.
Three-minute breathing space meditation.
Step 1: becoming aware
Deliberately adopt an
erect and dignified posture, whether sitting or standing. If possible, close
your eyes. Then, bring your awareness to your inner experience and acknowledge
it, asking: what is my experience right now?
- What thoughts are going through the mind? As best you can, acknowledge thoughts as mental events.
- What feelings are here? Turn towards any sense of discomfort or unpleasant feelings, acknowledging them without trying to make them different from how you find them.
- What body sensations are here right now? Perhaps quickly scan the body to pick up any sensations of tightness or bracing, acknowledging the sensations, but, once again, not trying to change them in any way.
Step 2: gathering and focusing attention
Now, redirecting the
attention to a narrow ‘spotlight’ on the physical sensations of the breath,
move in close to the physical sensations of the breath in the abdomen . . .
expanding as the breath comes in . . . and falling back as the breath goes out.
Follow the breath all the way in and all the way out. Use each breath as an
opportunity to anchor yourself into the present. And if the mind wanders,
gently escort the attention back to the breath.
Step 3: expanding attention
Now, expand the field
of awareness around the breathing so that it includes a sense of the body as a
whole, your posture and facial expression, as if the whole body was breathing.
If you become aware of any sensations of discomfort, tension, feel free to
bring your focus of attention right in to the intensity by imagining that the
breath could move into and around the sensations.
In this, you are
helping to explore the sensations, befriending them, rather than trying to
change them in any way. If they stop pulling for your attention, return to
sitting, aware of the whole body, moment by moment.
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