Cooking can be a great tool to practise mindfulness and slow things down. Are dinner times a rush? Maybe you are always busy managing work, family, social life and cooking is just a necessity rather than something to enjoy, but have you ever thought about cooking being a tool for you to be present, and to help slow down your busy mind?
When we cook we can engage all of the five senses. Lets take the soup in the picture as an example. Look at all the different colours that you have in front of you. Feel all the different textures of the vegetables as you prepare them. What do they feel and smell like with their skin on? Are they rugged smooth, bumpy, coarse? What else can you feel? What do they smell like after you have prepared them? Has your mind just gone racing to tomorrows meeting, or what you need to get ready for the kids for school tomorrow, or stressing over who will be at the event tomorrow? Bring yourself back to the present, engage with what you are doing, what do the vegetables in front of you feel like now? Is there a difference? What is the difference? Has your mind gone back to something that happened earlier. Use your ears to listen to the sound of the chopping, the sizzling as you are cooking. Taste the food as you go along. What herbs and spices are you adding, think about what you are doing now, rather than what you have done or what you need to do in your busy life. As you are preparing your food, do you have a window? Apply your senses to what is going on outside the window.
By doing this you are giving yourself permission to be present for a little while. It helps to reset your thought patterns, allows you to apply some self care by slowing things down. Now think about you. Are you feeling a little less stressed than before? Do you feel calmer? We spend far too long living in the past and the future and not being fully present with ourselves.
I know some have busier lives than others. Try this with beans on Toast. Apply the same as the above, feel the texture of the tin, listen to it as you open it. See the colour of the tin and the wrapper on the bread, what does it sound like as you take the bread out. How do the beans taste cold, and hot? Smell the toast as it's cooking. Enjoy your food and be present with it.
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