Session 4 - The chocolate meditation

  • How mindfulness helps mental wellbeing

    Becoming more aware of the present moment can help us enjoy the world around us more and understand ourselves better. 


    When we become more aware of the present moment, we begin to experience things that we currently take for granted in a more positive and mindful, accepting and non-judgemental way. 


    Mindfulness also allows us to become more aware of the stream of thoughts and feelings that we experience and to see how we can become entangled in that stream in ways that are not helpful. 


    This lets us stand back from our thoughts and start to see their patterns. Gradually, we can train ourselves to notice when our thoughts are taking over and realise that thoughts are simply 'mental events' that do not have to control us. 


    Most of us have issues that we find hard to let go and mindfulness can help us deal with them more productively. We can ask: 'Is trying to solve this by brooding about it helpful, or am I just getting caught up in my thoughts?' 


    Awareness of this kind also helps us notice signs of stress or anxiety earlier and helps us deal with them better. 

  • What does it mean to be mindful?

    It can be easy to rush through life without stopping to notice much. 


    Paying more attention to the present moment – to your own thoughts and feelings, and to the world around you – can improve your mental wellbeing. This awareness is called Mindfulness. Mindfulness can help us enjoy life more and understand ourselves better. 


    What Does it Mean to Be More Mindful? 


    Mindfulness means having a better awareness of what is going on inside and outside ourselves, moment by moment. 


    It's easy to stop noticing the world around us. It's also easy to lose touch with the way our bodies are feeling and to end up living 'in our heads' – caught up in our thoughts without stopping to notice how those thoughts are driving our emotions and behaviour. 


    An important part of mindfulness is reconnecting with our bodies and the sensations they experience. This means waking up to the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the present moment. That might be something as simple as the feel of a banister as we walk upstairs. 


    Another important part of mindfulness is an awareness of our thoughts and feelings as they happen moment to moment. It's about allowing ourselves to see the present moment clearly. When we do that, it can positively change the way we see ourselves and our lives.


  • Benefits of mindfulness

    Mindfulness is described as paying attention to the present moment with intention, while letting go of judgment, as if our life depends on it. The present is the only real moment we have. 


    Mindfulness helps improve our concentration and reduce ruminative thinking that contributes to the high levels of stress that is so prevalent in our society. 


    Stress and ruminative thinking are not only mental health hazards but they are quite often, the very symptoms that lead people to seek out the help of a therapist. 


    Mindfulness is an incredible tool to help people understand, tolerate, and deal with their emotions in healthy ways. It helps us to alter our habitual responses by taking pause and choosing how we act. 


    When we are mindful, we experience our life as we live it. We experience the world directly through our five senses, we recognise the thoughts we are having. In doing so, we learn how our minds work and we are better able to label the thoughts and feelings we are having instead of allowing them to overpower us and dictate our behaviour.

     

    Mindfulness presents an effective method to get to know oneself and it helps us to live in the present moment rather than muddling along too much on autopilot. 


    When we learn to be more mindful, we learn to train our mind to observe our own thoughts, feelings, and sensations with an objective view. 


    We learn to do this with compassion, as people tend to lose patience with themselves, particularly in the early stages of practicing mindfulness or trying out meditation. 


    When we release judgment and learn to live in the moment, we increase our mental agility as well as learning to better regulate our emotions. 


    Learning mindfulness enables us able to take pause and react in a more constructive way in emotional or physical conflicting situations. A simple breathing exercise can interrupt an outburst and lead to a more favourable outcome. 


    When we are reactive, falling victim to our immediate thoughts or emotions, we are not always acting in our own self-interest. 


    Mindfulness provides a great tool for developing more self-acceptance which helps us build our compassion for others. 


    It allows us to take more power and be more strategic in terms of our goals. It can bring us closer to the people we care about and help us to interrupt self-sabotaging patterns we’ve adopted throughout our lives. 


    Teaching ourselves to calm down and to be more receptive than reactive is a practice made possible through mindfulness techniques. 


    Whether learning to meditate or merely to tune in with ourselves at various times throughout our day, we are enhancing our ability to feel more integrated and to act with integrity. We improve our ability to focus our attention. 


    We are better able to slow the racing thoughts that lead us to engage in limiting or self- sabotaging behaviours. We strengthen our resilience and enhance our capacity to experience the joys of everyday life. 

When one eats chocolate we generally place the chocolate in our mouths, crunch on it, get a quick burst of the taste and move on to the next piece. 


We could say that this is a mindless way of experiencing the chocolate - which is a shame because eating a small piece of chocolate mindfully can bring many pleasures. 


When we can give ourselves time to be mindful of our experiences - to observe our thoughts, bodily sensations and the urges within us, we can't be automatically reactive to them at the same time.


We simply cannot deliberately focus on one thing and do something else.


This is where mindfulness gives you the power to step back from your autopilot and manage your responses to anger triggers in a more positive way.

Your mindfulness practice for session 4

Although the chocolate meditation is described as an eating meditation it goes far beyond just eating a piece of chocolate - you are going to experience it.


You are going to spend approximately 5 minutes exploring the experience of the slowly dissolving piece of chocolate and the after tastes.

From a wellbeing perspective - you are not eating chocolate to make yourself feel better.


You are being introduced to this exercise as another means of learning how to focus your attention on the present and stepping off autopilot when it tries to send you in a direction that impacts on your wellbeing.


Some examples may include when we:


  • Feel stressed, anxious, fearful, tense or angry.

  • Have low mood or maybe experience negative or irrational thoughts.
  • Feel negative emotions such as sadness, disappointment.

  • When we feel the urge to be reactive to these.


Mindfulness practice is here to help you step back and refocus your awareness and let the autopilot of the moment pass through.


If we choose to mindfully focus on a chosen present moment experience we cannot also follow it on autopilot.

  • A guide for the chocolate meditation

    With the chocolate meditation you’re going to deliberately turn your attention to what’s happening inside your mouth as the chocolate slowly dissolves - you're going to experience chocolate like you have never experienced before. 



    The steps


    • Place a small piece of chocolate in front of you - maybe place it on a piece of kitchen towel.

    • You'll start this meditation by focusing your attention to what the chocolate looks like.

    • Place the chocolate in your mouth - DO NOT bite in to it. Maybe close your eyes while you do this.

    • Notice the size, texture and taste of the chocolate 

    • Focus your whole attention on your experience of the chocolate slowly dissolving

    •  Be aware of any urge to bite through the chocolate - resist and bring your focus back to your experience of the chocolate slowly dissolving

    • When the chocolate has completely dissolves stay with the moment and focus on the lingering tastes of the chocolate in your mouth

    • All the while, be mindful of urges to move on to the next pice of chocolate - remember: even though the chocolate has dissolved you still have the after tastes to explore.


    This is an extremely useful exercise to be mindful of urges.


    Just like when we feel angry, stressed or anxious or if we have a run of thoughts that don't serve us well; in these instances this is the autopilot mind trying to distract us.


    The same will happen during the chocolate meditation - your mind will try to distract you. 


    Be mindful of these distractions, label the distraction simply as a distraction and deliberately choose to bring your awareness back to your experience of the chocolate.


    If you get distracted again, simply choose to bring your attention back again

Further guidance


 

  • Practice once with the chocolate meditation recording below and then a further 2 times with separate pieces of chocolate. Spread out the practice over the day. The guide is for 3 practice sessions today but feel free to do more and moving forward, continue to practice this meditation and aim to introduce other items: orange segments, boiled sweets...

  • If you can aim to use 3 different types of chocolate for each separate meditation, i.e. dark, milk and white chocolate.

  • When each piece of chocolate has dissolved, stay with the lingering tastes in your mouth before moving on to a new piece of chocolate.

  • With each step of the meditation, be curious to the tastes in your mouth just as if you have never experienced them before just like we did with the raisin meditation -n every opportunity you have, 'awaken the raisin mind'.

  • If you notice distraction by thoughts or sensations, note the distractions and return back to the tastes in your mouth.

The guided recording

Below is the guided recording for the chocolate meditation. It lasts for approximately 5 minutes. As with all your mindfulness practices, be patient with yourself. 


Mindfulness is something to be learned - not perfected straight away. 


Before you start, make sure you have read the guiding notes on mindfulness and meditation and for the best results listen to the guided recordings with headphones. 

The cognitive awareness exercise

Where could I have been more mindful today?


The cognitive awareness exercise is ongoing so you can continue to create an awareness of your triggers.


  • ”I could have been more mindful of my thoughts this morning when my wife was asking me to tidy the kitchen. My thoughts were that she was being critical of me for not sharing the tasks when in fact she was simply asking me to help make her morning easier to manage ”.


  • ”I got angry with Mike in the office. I knew I was getting tense so I could have mindful of the tense feelings I was experiencing. I could have stepped back from the discussion and utilised a breath meditation”.


  • “I became frustrated when I was driving home as the traffic was bad. My wife called me to ask what time I would be home. I shouted at her for asking me stupid questions. I could have just said that because of the traffic I didn’t know but would keep her informed once the traffic started moving”.


It’s important that you give full attention to this exercise and make notes in your journal to continue to develop an awareness of your anger triggers.   

The stalwart of your mindfulness practice - the breath meditations.

  • Continuance of the breath meditations

    In session 2 you were introduced to the breath focus meditation and in session 3 the informal breath meditation. 


    The breath focus is the stalwart of our mindfulness practice and as such, regular practice is needed in order to instil this important mindfulness practice in to your day to day life.


    SET REMINDERS


    It is highly recommended that you set alarm reminders on your phone to keep your breath focus practice on track.


    You are not taking time out of your day as you are alaready breathing. You are being asked that periodically you turn your attention towards the breath and take your mind off autopilot just for 2 minutes at a time.


    Continue your practice and begin to recognise where you might 'reset' the moment from autopilot to mindful awareness. 

  • What might you do with mindful awareness?

    We all jump from one moment to the next without being fully present in the moment.


    This results in following negative thinking patterns, responding to uncomfortable feelings and difficult emotions without being really aware that you're doing so.


    We can be judgemental of ourselves or others which can have a detrimental impact on our wellbeing.


    Mindful awareness aims to help you change the autopilot way of being. When you are more mindfully aware you begin to recognise the thoughts passing through. 


    You begin to recognise bodily tensions and sensations and how emotions are impacting on you. 


    Your mindfulness practice will help you manage these moment of difficulty in a more positive way. 


    It is said that you cannot focus on 2 things at the same time, so for example:


    If you are feeling tense and angry, you cannot continue to follow the path of tenseness and anger if you are focused on your mindfulness practice.


    So, mindfulness acts as a refocus tool. It enables you to recognise when negative stimuli is present and gives you a set of skills to experience the moment in a more mindful way.

  • Take time each day for reflection

    The cognitive awareness exercise is ongoing and needs regular self reflection. 


    • How has my day been today?

    • How have I felt?

    • How have my thoughts been? 

    • What has impacted on me?

    • How have I reacted to thoughts, feelings, situations or people?

    BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF AND YOUR REFLECTIONS. BE AWARE WHERE YOU BLAME OUTSIDE INFLUENCES AND LEARN TO TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR WELLBEING.



    You do not want to let countless autopilot moments pass by without recognition of negative stimuli that comes your way. If this was to happen your mindfulness practice will find it hard to find a home.


    Read the guiding cognitive awareness notes regularly and use a journal to make notes for you to reflect back on. 


    Without the notes, it will be hard to be reflective of moments as you will just pass through situations on autopilot. 

  • Choosing to be more mindful

    Being mindful is a choice. 


    You can choose to continue your autopilot habits of behaviour or you can choose to be more mindful of your experiences.


    As you go through your day start to pay more atention to where you could be more mindful:


    • Pay more attention to thoughts that pass through your mind. Allow yourslf to isolate a thought and just let it sit there without engaging or being reactive. 

    • Pay more attention to bodily feelings and sensations. For example: if you feel anxious or panicky, where in your body do you experience unpleasant feelings? If you feel tense or angry notice where you feel these feelings. Allow yourself to observe these feelings just as if you have never experienced them before.

    • Be more aware of emotions. Observe the presence of, for example, sadness, disappointment, stress, frustration, irritation or worry. Acknowledge the presence of emotions and lable they are present.

    • Be more aware of the urges to respond to thoughts, feelings and emotions.


    Your mindfulness practices enable you to be in the moment with the object of practice.


    During your mindfulness practices you are being encouraged to practice being in the moment, being observent of your experience, feeling the experience and staying in the moment whilst bringing yourself back from distraction when it occured.


    The aim is to help you use the same philosophy when negative stimuli comes your way.

     

    We want to help you learn how to observe a thought and recognise it as a thought...no thought is permanent and we can let it pass through.


    Bodily and emotional sensations are learned habits. Observing the presence of bodily feelings and sensations helps us to be less reactive to them.


    Being aware of our emotions helps us to step back from them rather than play them out.


    When we can become more aware of our intended responses we have the opportunity to create a more mindful response.

Your next session - session 5

Session 5 is going to introduce you to our train metaphor.


We all find ourselves in situations where we have a feeling where it is going to end up but continue nonetheless.


The train metaphor is going to help you learn an important mindfulness skill where you are gong to start paying more attention to your interactions.


You are going to be guided on how to take a pause and re-set the moment so you don't automatically end up at a destination where you don't want to end up.


From an anger management perspective - the destination is one where you have difficult interactions, where you feel irritated, frustrated, overwhelmed...any moment where you feel the destination will be unpleasant for you or others.

Session 5 - The train metaphor