I had a friend who always kept a bag of cheesies in her desk drawer at work. When the day warranted a pick-me-up, she would open the drawer, remove the black clasp, carefully unroll the bag, take out a cheesie and slowly eat three.
She would sigh happily, carefully roll the bag back up, secure it with the clasp and return the bag to her desk drawer.
“How is it possible to eat only three cheesies?” I asked her, my mouth open in amazement.
“I savour them,” she said simply.
I couldn’t grasp how she could do that. I tried a few times with potato chips but I was always through the bag before I remembered that oh, right, I was going to try and eat just a few this time.
I stopped comparing myself to my friend and accepted the fact that she was just super disciplined and I wasn’t. Besides, chips were my guilty pleasure and what was the point, after all, of having a guilty pleasure if I wasn’t going to full-on enjoy it.
This was before I started developing the practice of meditation and before I understood the concept of mindfulness. My first eating meditation exercise rocked my world. I could honestly say I was sated after three bites of my veggie burger.
I still buy bags of potato chips. And I still love eating them. But the other day I noticed there was over half a bag of chips left in the bag before I rolled it up and returned it to my guilty pleasures cupboard.
Hmmmm. Maybe I am becoming disciplined after all.
Being present will do that for you.
Carol J.