“To be mindful is to be fully present with whatever we are doing. If you are drinking tea, just drink your tea. Do not drink your worries, your projects, your regrets. When you hold your cup, you may like to breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, stop your thinking, and become fully present. In that moment, you become real and the cup of tea becomes real. In this state of true presence and freedom you enjoy simply drinking your tea."
- Thich Nhat Hanh
In a nutshell, Sally Powis-Campbell is a mindful helper for kids and the kid in all of us. If you want official titles then she’s a psychologist, yoga teacher, meditation guide, food artist, mindful food event curator, writer (book in the works), and competitive trail runner! Her craft is the marriage of her two biggest passions: mindfulness and food. Mindfulness is slowing down and focusing. Taking pause to become aware of all five senses, tuning into your inner and outer world without attachment. This simple practice gives you the power to live more fully. Food is pretty straightforward, so we think. But what’s your relationship with food like? Not many people consider this. In fact, it’s kind of difficult to come up with an answer if you’ve never thought about it before. Good thing Sally’s here! She teaches us how to create a connection with food so that we can eat mindfully and ultimately, live more fully. She begins by bringing us through a six minute tea meditation. It’s one of the most beautiful meditations I’ve ever done and it’s not to be missed. So come on, grab your cup of tea (or any beverage of choice) and plug in those ear buds!
Key Nuggets:
- Slowing down and living mindfully can help us to live more fully. One practice to incorporate into your life is a mindful tea or coffee meditation. Becoming aware of all five sense – feel of the cup, color of the tea, the smell, the taste and the sound of the tea as you swallow. Sally brings us through a six minute tea meditation in the podcast so tune into 6:57 to get right to it.
- Mindfulness allows us to become aware of what’s in us and around us. Tapping into our senses, releasing judgement. Let go of the criticism.
- Just a 10min -12min meditation per daycan literally change your brain structure.
- Creating a connection with your food is one partSome ways to enhance our connection with food, we can:
- Make sure we know where our food comes from. If you make sure it’s good food, maybe even locally grown, you learn a story about the food and now you build gratefulness around.
- Listen to your body’s hunger and fullness queues
- Ear hunger – the satiation that you get from hearing yourself eat. If we can’t hear ourselves eat, it impairs our body’s registration of how full we are. Another reason to turn off the tv
- Eye hunger – creating foods that are beautiful to eat. It helps create pause because you take a moment to soak in the sight of it.
- Stomach hunger – sounds straight forward but we are more out of tune than you think! A lot of times we are scarfing down our meals as quickly as possible or we get caught up multitasking while eating. This is a dangerous route toward mindless eating. Tuning into our bodies can significantly enhance our food experience. Here’s a tip on how to do that: before you begin your meal, rate your hunger level between 1-10. Do this again in the middle of the meal and end of the meal. Getting an idea of what full really feels like.
- Tip: We make over 200 food decisions a day. Portion out big bags of food into smaller Ziploc bags so they are already pre-proportioned to discourage mindless eating (ex. Finding yourself at the bottom of your bag of chips)
- Another way to create mindfulness and connection through food is to create a food ritual. Sally commits herself to a Sunday night family dinner every single Sunday. There is much fun and excitement in preparing the meal together, baking fresh bread and making time to talk. Slowing down on Sunday night sets her and her family up for the upcoming week’s success.
One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:
Find moments of pause throughout the day and slow down. That will end up making you more efficient.
Links:
If you have any questions for Sally or want to learn more, connect with her through:
Instagram: @wholistichealthyyc
Email: sally@wholistichealthyyc.com
Website: www.wholistichealthyyc.com