My Practices

Mindfulness Meditation

From looking for overcoming a physical condition, managing weight and eating disorders, having more energy; or learning how the minds works, managing emotions, dealing with stress, anxiety or burnout; to having a sense of loneliness, disconnection, emptiness and lack of a life purpose, all these situations are rooted in the fact that worry, regret or fear dominate own’s life in the present moment.

The practice of being fully present in each moment is called mindfulness, an ancient approach to living in the now, a moment in which we actually have the power to make real changes in the face of challenges or to maintain overall health and wellbeing. Mindfulness can be practiced at all moments in our live: walking, talking, breathing, bathing, swimming, shopping, working, gardening, cooking, eating, etc.

Mindful Eating

The Japanese practice Oryoki is a meditative way of eating that enables you to eat without thinking. However, it’s not a mindless, spaced-out nonthinking. It’s a nonthinking that’s intimately attuned to the present moment, as Gesshin Claire Greenwood explains. This practice, followed in Zen monasteries, leads to a mindful and intuitive eating. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen master who was a pioneer bringing mindfulness in the West since the early 1970s, developed an extensive collection of practices to bring mindfulness into our daily lives at home including eating and cooking rooted in the ancient tradition practiced at the monasteries in the East.

His student Jon Zabat Zinn integrates the mindfulness teachings with scientific findings and developed the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme to help people to cope with stress, anxiety, pain and illness. Later on Jean Kristeller, integrated Jon Zabat’s MBSR programme to work with people with compulsive eating problems and after many years of testing, she developed the MB-EAT (Mindfulness-based Eating Awareness Training) which incorporates a number of meditative exercises with food, including hunger and satiety meditations, as well on meditations on forgiveness and connecting with our inner wisdom.

Mindful Cooking

Similar as Oryoki, the Japanese practice Shojin Ryori is a way of cooking where the food is prepared with the aim of purifying the body and mind. This practice is based on the philosophy of balance, harmony, simplicity and zero waste, where the seasonal ingredients are carefully combined to create the perfect blend of tastes, colours and cooking methods. It also pay attention to ensuring that each dish is nutritionally balanced.  While Shojin Ryori has been practiced in the East for centuries, in a way that can be compared as a therapy for the body and the mind, psychology schools have started to look deeply into the benefits of cooking.

For Michael Kocet, professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology culinary therapy or cooking therapy is “the therapeutic technique that uses arts, cooking, gastronomy, and an individual’s personal, cultural, and familial relationship with food to address emotional and psychological problems faced by individuals, families, and groups. Culinary therapy involves an exploration of an individual’s relationship with food and how food impacts relationships, as well as psychological well-being and functioning”.

As mindful eating, cooking offers a great opportunity for us to train the mind to be present.