John talked to us about mindfulness tonight. He started with a raisin for each of us. We held it under our nose. Smelled it for a while. Described what we thought and felt and saw. What memories arose. What emotions arose. He then let us put in our mouth, but not to bite it! not yet! Just roll it around in our mouth. Feel the texture. The wrinkles. The roughness. Feel yourself salivate. What are you tasting so far? And then we were allowed to slowly bite into it.

Pause. Observe. Be aware.

I’ll update this post with links to some of the topics John mentioned, and I’ll try and get a copy of his power point.

But first I’ll quickly give 1 exercise. It is S.T.O.P. When you come to a stop sign, Stop. Then Take a breath. Then Observe. Then Proceed. If you do that for every stop sign you encounter in a day, that is an example of teaching yourself how to be more mindful.

I noticed this morning that Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps posted on mindfulness on her Making Change blog. Leslie will be talking tomorrow (Wednesday morning, 9:30am) on Maintaining Healthy Relationships: Advice for Couples. I hope she talks about raisins and other forms of pleasure.