The word “savoring” crops up a lot in instructions for mindful eating, but why stop there? Inspired by that notion, I decided to challenge myself to a week of savoring things. As I started out, I began to see that I was automatically leaving lots of things out—things that were, well, unsavory—so the challenge had to undergo some immediate reengineering. It would have to become about savoring everything. Yikes.
If I was going to savor the unsavory I would have to be thankful somehow for whatever came my way.
That immediately led me to the understanding that if I was going to savor the unsavory I would have to be thankful somehow for whatever came my way. I would have to embrace the artificially sweetened (but still valuable) “attitude of gratitude.” It was a bit of a revelation. What I was prepared for was taking time to really enjoy things, in the present moment. What I wasn’t prepared for was how much it would challenge underlying attitudes and assumptions. When the week was over, I came to some conclusions about how savoring can reach into every area of life.
6 Ways to Savor the Moment
By Barry Boyce
1) When things are good…savor the joy
When things are good, it should be easy to savor them. But it took more effort to savor something I already appreciated than I would have imagined. Joy came in the sudden realization that the body is always in the present, no matter where my thoughts take me, and I can always return to that.
2) When it’s every kind of bad…savor the resilience
I can glimpse the fact that