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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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Discover how to use urge surfing to ride out cravings and make more conscious eating choices.
Hi, and welcome to Day Two
of the Mindful Eating course.
Yesterday, we explored how to listen to
our body's cues and therefore bring more
awareness into when and what we eat,
helping us to eat in a more natural way.
Today, we're going to be continuing
this exploration of bringing more
awareness into our bodies and
specifically to our urges and emotions
and the way we relate those to eating.
Sometimes we don't notice the difference
between genuine hunger and eating for
emotional reasons or triggered eating.
So triggered eating is when you see
something, like an advertisement or you
see some food displayed in the offers,
or when you're out somewhere when you
walk by a window full of food, or maybe
you walk by the bakery or the ice cream
shop and you smell the food, and you
may not actually be hungry, but you feel
an urge to eat after seeing or smelling
something that triggers the desire.
Emotional eating mostly happens in
response to unpleasant emotions or
urges that we don't want to feel.
So in these times, we might reach for
food in order to get some comfort, to numb
ourselves, or have a moment of pleasure in
the midst of our pain or our loneliness.
So in either of these cases,
we're often not physically hungry.
But now I just want to say that a
certain amount of triggered eating
or emotional eating is normal.
And we'll probably all do
that from time to time.
It's really not a problem.
Emotional eating only becomes problematic
when it becomes the primary strategy
to deal with unwanted emotions.
Since eating does not actually
make the emotions go away, your
unmet needs can trigger unhelpful
eating patterns again and again.
Not only that, but when we try to numb,
escape, or struggle with difficult
feelings, they actually tend to
get bigger and stay around longer.
So it can really become a vicious cycle.
The thing is, is that food
cannot solve your unmet needs.
So we can find other ways
to work with those emotions.
And with triggered eating,
similarly every now, and then.
This is not a problem and
can be really enjoyable.
It only becomes problematic for us when
we automatically give in to every urge,
every desire on a continuous basis.
One practice that helps us to navigate
our emotions and urges with more awareness
is a practice created by psychologist,
Alan Marlatt called urge surfing.
So I'm just going to invite you
to give this practice a try now.
If you haven't already,
settling in for the meditation.
Closing the eyes.
And take a deep breath in.
And letting it out.
And take two more breaths like
that now in your own time.
And allowing your attention to settle
here into the feeling of the breath.
Being fully present to what's
happening in the here and now.
And letting everything else go for awhile.
And as you let go of any
control of the breath now,
just noticing any sensations in
the body of hunger or fullness.
Just noting where you're
at in this moment.
And now inviting you to think about
an urge that you experienced recently.
And as you think about this urge,
see if you can notice all the
sensations and emotions that come
up for you, as you think about it.
Notice where in the body you are
experiencing this urge or emotion.
And once you've really tuned into what
part of the body is most connected to the
urge, focus your attention gently here.
If you notice more than one area of
the body is connected to the urge, just
start with the place in your body where
you most intensely feel the sensation.
And just taking note of the sensations
you're having in this body part with a
curious and non-judgmental awareness.
What do the sensations feel like?
Does it feel like heaviness?
Tingling?
Warmth?
Or buzzing?
Is there a lot of movement
or is it fairly static?
Notice how much space the
sensations take up in the body.
Maybe even trying to mentally
draw an outline around the place
where the sensations are felt.
And can you get a sense of just
allowing the sensations to be there?
Making peace with them instead
of struggling with them?
And if there's any tendency to
get into a mental commentary about
what you're feeling, just seeing if
you can let that go and come back
to simply feeling the sensations.
Bringing a kindly curiosity to them.
And now bringing attention to your breath.
You don't need to change
your breathing at all.
Just notice your breath
for the next minute or so.
Just feeling the breath
as it moves into the body.
Feeling the breath as it
moves out of the body.
That's it.
You're doing great.
And now gently shifting attention
back to the part of the body
where you notice that urge.
And once again, tuning into
whatever sensations are here
in the body in this moment.
If at any time it becomes overwhelming
to notice the sensations, you
can gently bring attention back
to the breath for a few moments.
And then when you're ready, you
can touch back into feeling the
sensations connected to the urge.
Urges are a bit like waves.
They have a beginning, a
peak and then a receding.
They do pass.
In fact, research shows that even
the strongest urges pass within 20 to
30 minutes, if we can just let them
flow through us without acting on
them or arguing with them mentally.
So taking a deep breath in now.
And as you breathe out, if you care
to, you can gently open the eyes.
So this is the practice of
urge surfing and you can take
this practice into daily life.
By pausing in the moment you feel an
urge to eat and just checking in with
your thoughts, emotions, and sensations,
you can make more conscious choices
about whether to proceed or whether
you want to find other ways to comfort,
nurture, enjoy, or soothe yourself.
And this can break the cycle
of unhelpful eating styles.
Remember, natural eating
is all about awareness.
It's about knowing when we are
going to eat for fun or for
comfort and making a choice about
whether that feels right for us.
We might really want to make those choices
sometimes, but just not all the time.
It's about finding our own balance.
It's not about guilt, tripping
ourselves or being perfectionistic.
It's bringing an attitude of
compassion, curiosity, and awareness
to our relationship with food.
So as you go about your day today, if
there are times when a strong emotion or
urge comes up, see if you can experiment
with accepting emotions instead of trying
to push them away or get rid of them
with food, riding out urges and making
conscious choices that nourish you and
lead to your overall wellbeing and happy.
Well, congratulations for completing
Day Two of the Mindful Eating course.
Thank you for your practice today.
And I look forward to being with
you again for Session Three, where
we'll be exploring the value and the
pleasure in slowing down and savoring.
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