Cook & Chef Well-being
Three minutes to connect with your inner self
How many times each day do you stop to connect with yourself? Nowadays, spending quality time on yourself has become a tall order, but I am proposing a quick and simple practice that you can use several times a day so you don’t forget to do something as important as getting to know yourself on a deeper level.
- Identify which mode you are in, whether it’s “doing mode” or “being mode” and activate whichever one is necessary at that moment.
- Inquisitively discover your mental patterns and the way you function while you look after yourself.
- Foster calmness, learning to be more responsive than reactive when faced with difficult situations.
- Practise attentional flexibility with the open or closed focus, focussing on one specific thing or several aspects of the experience that is occurring at the time.
- Become aware of the different ways of interacting with experience. Choose the way of acting thanks to the fact that you can observe what is happening from a distance.
JUST THREE STEPS AND THREE MINUTES
STEP 1: OPEN FOCUS. We become aware of the surroundings, the body and the internal experience.
- Create an attentive posture, sitting, lying down or standing and gently close your eyes.
- Become aware of the place you are in, the light, the temperature, the sounds, the smells. Pay attention to the information you are receiving through your senses. Connect with your body, feel the contact of your feet, legs, feelings that emerge that are pleasant or unpleasant, or the absence of feelings and whether they change.
- Travel now to your inner self, connect with your internal experience. Detect your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, your impulses.
- Reflect on the experience generally, observe everything that emerges, how it relates, without fusing with it, just being aware from a distance and noticing what changes.
STEP 2: SPECIFIC FOCUS Attention to breathing
Move your attention to your breathing, feel it in your nose, your chest or abdomen. Connect with the inhalation and exhalation, moment to moment, without changing it. Thoughts appear and you return your attention to your breathing, again and again, as many times as you need to.
STEP 3: OPEN FOCUS. Connect and expand your awareness
- Feel your awareness in your body and how it embraces your entire being, how you are breathing. Stay connected there.
- Gradually become aware of your posture and facial expression, smile gently, be grateful for this moment of connection and self-care. And breath with the intention of continuing to be aware for the rest of the day.
