Mindful Scrambled Eggs

I’ve been experimenting with mindfulness.  It is so much easier than I ever thought it could be.  You can do it anywhere, anytime – for a second or for an hour.  You can do it with 100% focus or you can do it as a fleeting thought. Mindfulness is simply being aware.  Interestingly, awareness seems to have magic properties that I had never expected.  For instance,  just by being aware of the pain in my shoulder the pain eased. How the heck did that happen?  Who cares?

Yes, I am definitely changing.  Previously I would have spent hours researching the principles and science behind mindfulness and pain reduction.  Now I realize that I don’t have to know how and why something works to enjoy it.

Today I decided to try a new thing.  Mindful eating.  I happen to be the queen of mindless eating. I never just eat. I always eat while doing something else.  Breakfast is had in front of my laptop checking email, surfing the web or reading blogs.  Snacks are usually consumed in front of the TV or while driving or again on the computer.  Sometimes I eat and read a book. I love to eat and read at the same time! Dinner is with my family and is filled with wonderful conversation. Evening snacks are often a televison, iPad or laptop event. One of the people in my support group told us about a meditation she did while eating a raisin.  She ate the raisin for about an hour.  Notice the singular form of the word.  She didn’t eat raisinS for an hour, she at the same damned raisin!!!

She explained that it was called mindful eating. She started by looking at the raisin, smelling it, touching it and then feeling it pass her lips. Noticing how it felt on her tongue, between her teeth and so on.  One raisin, one hour.  I’m so not up to that just yet.  Especially because I woke up really hungry today. So as I sat down on the couch with my plate of scrambled eggs, I put my laptop aside and closed my eyes.  I tried to shut out the blaring sound of The Amazing World of Gumball coming from the TV and experienced my scrambled eggs.

Yes, I felt a little silly, but I’m nothing if not committed. I smelled my eggs and they smelled…well..eggy.  I put a piece in my mouth and tried to pay attention to how it felt as I ate it.  I noticed that it was very hot.  I realized that my instinct was to just swallow it when it was very hot. Actually I realized that in the case of scrambled eggs, I don’t chew them at all.  I normally shovel them in, swallow and repeat until they are gone.  Time is money, right?  Oh, wait.  Not true for me anymore.

Scrambled eggs are both squishy and firm. They have really hot parts and some yukky cool parts.  They don’t taste like much of anything.  They leave a film of some kind in your mouth after you have swallowed. Overall, they are quite gross.  Been eating them for breakfast for years and never noticed how truly gross they are.

Wow.

I didn’t finish my eggs.  Not because they were gross, but because I just didn’t feel like eating anymore.  A task which usually takes under five minutes was lasting way too long.  Oh, I also think I was full.  Yes, it took me so long to eat the stupid eggs that my stomach had time to get a message to my brain that said, “We’re good down here. Stop shoveling in the squishy gross stuff.”  This  must be why they tell people who want to lose weight not to multitask while they eat!  Cool!

I sit here thinking back to all of the salads consumed at my desk, while on a conference call and reading email.  Did I ever really taste those salads.  Did I have them loaded with salty items like feta cheese and green olives so that I could notice something in and among the distractions? Would I have eaten until my stomach hurt if I had been paying attention while eating those salads?

Hmmm

Food for thought.  (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist!)