Barbara Kramen-Kahn, Ph.D.

Informal practice savoring food Savoring food is mindful eating with the additional invitation to enjoy the experience of eating. Select a meal that you would like to eat.... Take a moment and enjoy how good the food looks to you. Then savor the smell and how the food feels to the touch. Begin to reflect on the many hands that were involved in bringing this food to your mouth - The farmer, the trucker, the grocer... Now eat very slowly, noticing first how you may be salivating before reaching for the food, bring it to your mouth, noticing when it crosses your lips, when you bite down, whether there is a splash of flavor, when you begin to swallow... Continue eating in this way, giving yourself full permission to enjoy every moment of the experience of eating, as if it were the first and last meal of your life. When you are done, noticed the finish - how the flavors linger in your mouth. Reflection Did the food taste different when you gave yourself permission to take your time and enjoy it? What was it like to eat in this manner? Savoring food usually brings immediate satisfaction and well-being. Ironically, when we eat mindlessly, we usually don’t enjoy our food at all, and often overeat. Research shows that an additional benefit of mindful eating is that it helps maintain our weight and stop eating when we full. From the book: The mindful self compassion workbook: a proven way to except yourself, build inner strength, and thrive - authors: Kristen Neff, PhD and Christopher Germer, PhD

When discussing seminars and workshops at a large spiritual organization’s annual gathering, Eckhart Tolle said this: Be aware of your breathing as often as you are able, whenever you remember. Do that for one year, and it will be more powerfully transformative than attending all of these courses. And it’s free. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

An Indian proverb on living with purpose: "Every time you wake up and ask yourself, 'What good things am I going to do today?' remember that, when the sun goes down at sunset, it will take a part of your life with it.

Poet and artist Mary Anne Radmacher on courage: "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'"

People often ask, ‘Where is the line between pleasure or comfort and numbing?’ In response, author and personal growth teacher Jennifer Louden has named our numbing devices ‘shadow comforts.’ When we’re anxious, disconnected, vulnerable, alone, and feeling helpless, the booze and food and work and endless hours online feel like comfort, but in reality they’re only casting their long shadows over our lives. Daring Greatly Brene Brown