Reflecting ....

Questions to consider

* What is my question or my focus?

My question has been "What am I choosing, in the space between stimulus and response?" For the most part, my focus in holding this question has been on the food choices I'm making.


* What have been my challenges to this?


My challenges have been maintaining mindfulness. In an attempt to do something completely different to help me THINK about the food choices I'm making, I decided to keep a visual food journal, photographing everything I plan to eat and reflecting on how it's affecting me.

I'm also facing a new challenge in the last few days -- some boredom with the routine of photographing and posting the visual food journal. It's becoming less mindful and more rote, the longer it goes on ... but I hate to stop because I've had such positive results with it. A long time ago, I read that it takes 30 days to establish a new habit. I want to persevere for at least 30 days, in the hope that the new mindful choice-making in the area of food will endure if I do. To combat the challenge, I'm changing up the routine of actually posting, a little -- I don't want to mess with the commitment to photograph my food choices just yet. There's still huge value in that practice for me.


* What have been my successes around this?

My successes have been amazing! I've written about this a little before, but the most significant success has been that ... while my original intention was simply to RECORD what I was eating, without altering my choices FOR the journal ... the actual effect of KEEPING the journal was to make me actually reconsider the merit of various choices PRIOR to settling on a final decision -- and very often, to choose something much less fatty, much less sugary, and much more "healthy" ... plus, often, simply "much less" ... than I might have without the prospect of those choices appearing in the visual food diary.

I'm honestly not sure what the impetus for this change of choices is

• simply being mindful that I *am* making choices ... and therefore actually *taking* the moment to do so with some thought instead of mechanically.
  
• embarrassment about what other people might be *seeing* that I'm eating ... although I'm not absolutely certain this blog is being viewed by anyone on a regular basis, and I'm not sure whether anyone who might be viewing it would actually be *judging* me for my choices.
• realization of patterns of behavior as I prepare and review each day's choices.
  

* What might be a next step?

A next step, which I began today, might be to add time of day to the food journal. I'm interested to observe, and possibly adjust, the timing. For example, I've long been aware that eating later in the evening results more predictably in heartburn for me. *Where* I eat also has an impact on my choices -- incorporating more context in my visual food journal might assist in bringing some useful insights in that area, as well.

Choosing what to believe -- in particular, about my body vs. the image I hold in my mind about my body -- is another "next step." I haven't developed that beyond some intermittent mindfulness, but I believe there's some definite value there.

I've also begun playing with a "next step" that considers other "body rituals" besides eating, in my life. Since much of what I do is repetitive from day to day (brush teeth, take a shower, get dressed, sit at my desk endlessly during the workday), without mindfulness there is no real "choosing" going on. With mindfulness, every routine behavior becomes a ritual with meaning.

Another ongoing "next step" has been to keep mindful of how we spend our money. When we're mindful, we try to support local businesses.

* Is a new question called for?

I think holding this question is still important and relevant for me.