I am a chocolate lover, plain and simple. I will devour any chocolate dessert no matter how full I am from a meal, argue with you about milk over dark, and place m&ms on my textbook paragraphs to motivate myself to keep reading (that works btw). You can imagine my joy and surprise to hear that “chocolate meditation” was an actual practice that I could try. As someone who has just recently dipped my toe in the waters of meditation, I was very excited to see what chocolate meditation was all about.
Photo by Monique Carrati on Unsplash
After watching a TEDxEvansville video by Robin Mallery, I learned that chocolate meditation is an exercise in mindfulness. The goal is to take one small piece of chocolate and savor it over the course of three bites. Before eating, Mallery encourages you to feel the weight of the chocolate and notice its shininess and texture. Then, you smell the chocolate with a deep inhale from your nose to begin to activate your taste buds and salivary glands. As your brain begins to recognize the pleasure of something sweet, you lick the chocolate so that you now have the taste. After taking a moment to feel grateful that you can enjoy this treat, you take your first slow bite. Savour the time with this piece and do not take your second bite until the first piece is completed. Repeat this until your chocolate is done.
While it may sound simple enough to eat chocolate slowly like this, I can tell you that it was a lot harder than one might think. As soon as I smelled the dark chocolate after it was unwrapped, my instinct was to eat the whole piece in one bite and then grab another. I resisted the urge and found that the piece tasted better than I could have imagined.
This reaction caused me to pause and think about my relationship with food as a busy young adult. Especially in college, eating can be the quick thing you do between classes so you can keep moving forward with your day. Lots of times, students can feel like there really isn’t enough time to stop and enjoy their food and be grateful that they have it. I chose to use what I learned in this chocolate meditation and apply it to eating other things and let me tell you, it made a major difference. My bagel at breakfast afternoon coffees have tasted more delicious than ever before and I truly take my time when eating or drinking.
So, set aside some time for yourself and do a bit of chocolate meditation. Trust me, it’s pretty sweet.