Noticing

Since my trip to Greece, which ended in early October, I haven't been eating as healthfully as I'd like.  After eating way too much on Thanksgiving, I knew I had to do something different.  I decided to do a cleanse that I'd read about in The Washington Post.  The eating regimen isn't that differently from how I try to eat most of the time. No dairy, but that's no biggie.  I don't eat much dairy any way.  Most importantly, however, is no sugar.  After just a couple of days of having sugar out of my system, I felt much better, and I know I am much more relaxed.

The interesting thing about this cleanse is not just what I eat or don't eat, but also how I eat.  Specifically, I am not to do anything while I eat except eat. 

I didn't realize until I attempted to comply with this part of the regime how I'd slipped big time into multi-tasking while I eat, and everywhere else. I know that multi-tasking has become a fact of life in this decade, but I am not even aware how or when I slipped into the multi-tasking habit.  Eat my breakfast fruit while doing my makeup in the morning.  Catch up on my email while I eat lunch at my desk.  Watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert while I have dinner. (I watch it the next day, when it airs at a time that allows me to view without literally losing sleep over it.) Snacks are even worse, often they're eaten "mid-flight" while running to my next meeting.  As much as giving up sugar, giving up whatever else I am used to doing while I eat has been harder.

One of the first things that I noticed was that most of the time, I eat about half as much. I eat more slowly.  When I am only concentrating on eating, I actually notice when I am full, probably because I've taken enough time to let the messages reach my brain and register that I'm full. Or maybe the messages have been there, and I haven't been noticing.  And funny as it may seem, I actually feel more full than when I am eating more but not being mindful. 

I'm sure that I was a rabbit in a past life, because I love eating the crunchy greens.  Most often, dinner is a large salad.  When I am actually paying attention to my eating, I notice that I get tired of chewing about half-way through the salad, and I'm kind of bored with the chewing, too.

Little cues, like being full, tired of chewing, and bored, have just gone flying by without me noticing.  So, now I am noticing. 

Curious about what else I've been missing, I've tried little single-tasking, focusing-on-what-I'm-doing experiments. (I wouldn't want to go full throttle.)  Tonight, I turned off radio, music, TV, and Greek lessons and focused completely on preparing my salad.  While it is not uncommon for me to nibble as I cut and chop ingredients for my salads, since I wasn't multi-tasking, tonight I had to actually stop what I was doing and enjoy the grape tomato that I'd popped in my mouth.  What an experience! 

I could hear and feel my molars breaking the skin of the tomato.  I could feel an explosion of the juices as the tiny fruit sprayed my mouth.  The taste was delicious. I just stood there for 20-30 seconds, leaning against the counter,  totally absorbed into the experience of one solitary grape tomato.  One grape tomato!  Something similar happened when I stopped my preparations to eat one of several pecans that I was chopping for my salad.

The exquisiteness of being totally in the moment with my dinner preparations didn't stop with oral experience.  I noticed cutting a wedge of lemon how I noticed the different textures on my fingers and how my knife moved differently through the skin/rind than through the inner recesses of the fruit and the juice. 

And, all of this in less than the 20 minutes it took to make a salad...just because I was noticing.
I've written a lot in this column about being present.  I've quoted spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss as saying "being present" was the most important spiritual lesson that we have to learn.  I know it is hard, but in such a short time this evening, I really "got" what that means on whole different level.

I will continue my cleanse because I know how much better...how much mellower...I feel when I don't eat sugar, and it seems that the only thing that can keep me away from the white stuff is something like this cleanse or Lent.   Yet, I am certain the spiritual lessons that I have to learn from this focus are to be present, to do one thing at a time, and to truly notice all of the dimensions of experience that can be had from even the simplest of things, like popping a grape tomato or pecan in my mouth while cooking.