Share a story over a meal
Connect with the present moment and share meaningful stories of eating, tasting, and cooking.
Duration: 65 minutes for 10 participants. Meditation: 5 minutes. Discussion and summary: 6 mins per participant.
Difficulty level: 2/5
Preparation
Create a peaceful and cozy environment for meditation and sharing stories.
Pack of raisins.
Instructions
Offer every participant a raisin and guide them through a meditation about experiencing the raisin and not just eating it to eat it.
Read the following Mindfully Eating a Raisin Script.
Meditation script (5 minutes)
Imagine that you have just come to Earth from a distant planet without such food. Now, with this food in hand, you can begin to explore it with all of your senses.
Focus on one of the objects as if you’ve never seen anything like it before. Focus on seeing this object. Scan it, exploring every part of it, as if you’ve never seen such a thing before. Turn it around with your fingers and notice what color it is. Notice the folds and where the surface reflects light or becomes darker.
Next, explore the texture, feeling any softness, hardness, coarseness, or smoothness.
While you’re doing this. If thoughts arise such as “Why am I doing this weird exercise?” “How will this ever help me?”. “I hate these objects,”, Then just see if you can acknowledge these thoughts. Let them be. Then bring your awareness back to the object.
Take the object beneath your nose and carefully notice the smell of it.
Bring the object to one ear, squeeze it, roll it around, and hear if there is any sound coming from it
Begin to slowly take the object to your mouth. Noticing how the arm knows exactly where to go. Perhaps becoming aware of your mouth-watering.
Gently place the object in your mouth. Place it on your tongue, without biting it. Simply explore the sensations of this object in your mouth.
When you’re ready. Intentionally bite down on the object. Maybe noticing how it automatically goes to one side of the mouth versus the other. Also, notice the tastes it releases.
Slowly chew this object. Be aware of the saliva in your mouth and how the object changes in consistency as you chew.
When you feel ready to swallow. Consciously notice the intention to swallow. Then see if you can notice the sensations of swallowing the raisin. Sensing it moving down to your throat. Into your esophagus on its way to your stomach.
Take a moment to congratulate yourself. For taking this time to experience mindful eating.
Wrap-up
After the script is read, ask questions to help participants connect this experience to a food memory they might have, then invite them to share stories with the following prompts:
Can they imagine their favorite food?
Can they imagine the taste of their least favorite food?
Is there a specific meal that they can think of and tell a story about?
Is there a recipe that the participant would like to share with the others, or a method for cooking that they can advise?
This might be a good activity to do over a meal or snack together.