Early in the process of mindful eating and living -- and trust me, one month is still early in getting back in the daily habit! -- you catch yourself slipping more and more as you bring mindfulness to bear on your daily life. The good news is that -- like with Buddhism in general -- this is the darkness before the dawn. Mindfulness has a way of shining a light on your bad stuff before it gets better. It's very common for practitioners to feel they are actually "getting worse" before they start seeing the benefits. The sad truth is, they're just waking up to how they really were all along!
In a normal day, most of us run on habit energy, caroming through our day doing whatever we think of to do without a lot of attention on these machinations. But as your sitting practice grows, and mindfulness grows, and discernment arises, you get better at seeing the cravings, then you get better at letting go of them. But it doesn't happen overnight and one slip -- at least for me -- can mean starting over from scratch in a few days when you realize what you've done. Or even in a few minutes. Luckily, I'm starting to feel the benefit of a month or so of dedication combined with the clearer more mindful awareness of my habits again and I'm making less poor choices.. I hope that I'm posting more and more of these as the months go on and I re-establish strong awareness of both the eating and the living, and less and less of the slips.
Enjoy this laugh from Dave Kellett's Sheldon! And check out his KickStarter for his new book...he's a great guy!
Geo
