Savor the Ingredients

Circumstances for learning this attention exercise

• Feeling achy, tired, or blue

• Rested but a little uncomfortable or agitated

• After a strenuous workout

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Practicing mindfulness lets us become connoisseurs of human perception. 

The benefits of the practice emerge naturally and at their own unknowable pace as you become more intimately familiar with the sensory details of being alive.

Enjoying a bowl of soup doesn’t mean you have to know every ingredient, but being able to taste and appreciate the individual flavors can enhance the experience. We all have our favorite flavors and ones we don’t like, and the same soup can taste different after resting in the fridge for a couple of days.

A multisensory approach to mindfulness cultivates a more sensitive palate for sights, sounds, flavors, smells, and physical sensations. It even improves our ability to observe thoughts and feelings more objectively. Our perceptions become sharper with practice, and our resistance to unpleasant ingredients gradually decreases.

By default, we constantly interfere with the details of our experiences. This interference occurs internally and mostly unconsciously.

We suppress unwanted perceptions, like physical and emotional discomfort, which often intensifies them. We cling to the desirable ones, trying to prolong or improve them, which may drain them of their potential vitality and satisfaction.

It’s a kind of internal micromanagement that runs on autopilot.

There’s a third way of relating to sensations called equanimity. It involves intentionally responding to perceptions with less internal interference, regardless of our preferences.