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MODULE 1.

Introduction: Inner Wisdom/Outer Wisdom

“Reflect on planting new seeds in your diet and your life.” ~ Donald Altman 

 

• The themes of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ wisdom are briefly explained, as are the basic principles and purposes of mindfulness meditation. 

• Introduction of Mindful eating using “The Raisin Meditation”. 

• A group meditation focusing on breath awareness provides the first opportunity for many participants to experience the fundamentals of meditation practice. 

 

 

MODULE 2.

The KEEP In Balance, Mini-Meditations, and Engaging Outer Wisdom

"What you resist, persists.” ~ Eckhart Tolle 

 

• Integrating mindfulness into individuals' everyday eating experience is further enhanced by introducing the use of mini-meditations. We’ll explore ways to use the ‘KEEP In Balance’ form to take small steps in creating more balanced eating

• Introduction of a more challenging eating experience (cheese and crackers). 

 

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MODULE 3.

Exploring Outer Wisdom further 

 

• Introduction to aspects of outer wisdom such as nutrition guidelines, food labels, calories, serving sizes, and mindful weighing. 

 

 

MODULE 4.

Hunger Awareness, Emotional Eating. 

“When hungry I eat; when tired, I sleep.” ~ Zen Master Rinzai 

 

• This session helps participants to become more aware of internal physical hunger signals and introduces the distinction between physical feelings of hunger and other triggers for eating, especially emotional triggers. 

 

 

MODULE 5.

Body Awareness and the Quality Over Quantity Challenge 

 

• Introduction to a gentle exercise in cultivating body awareness, body acceptance and appreciation. 

• ‘Quality Over Quantity Challenge’ as a flexible way to work toward creating healthier food intake, both by increasing or adding healthier foods, and decreasing frequency and quantity of more ‘indulgent’ foods 

 

 

MODULE 6.

Physical Activity, Taste Satisfaction, Healing Self-Touch 

"Seeing is deceiving. It’s eating that’s believing.” ~ James Thurber (in Altman, 5-31) 

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• Development of inner wisdom now shifts to exploring how the body lets us know that we may have eaten enough. 

• Paying full attention to flavor and texture can help to bring greater pleasure from small amounts of food, thereby cultivating the “inner gourmet”, and placing ‘quality’ over ‘quantity’ in making choices. 

• The session explores a new self-care exercise, healing self-touch, that builds on the awareness experiences of the body scan, and guides participants in extending kindness to self. This exercise uses touch to counter the body avoidance many individuals with weight concerns carry with them, while building skills for self-soothing. 

 

 

MODULE 7.

Fullness Awareness,  Mindful Choices and Forgiveness 

“What is required is nothing special, simply that we start paying attention and wake up to things as they are. All else will follow.” 

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• This session further deepens awareness of how we decide to stop eating using fullness awareness and ‘body satiety’. 

• Emphasising the value of learning to tune into such signals in order to use them to stop eating at lower levels of fullness. 

• The session also introduces a new aspect of mindful eating – becoming more aware of how we are drawn to different foods, and how we make choices of what to eat. 

• Related to such choices is becoming more aware of the complexity of eating both for physical hunger and for emotional reasons. 

• Emotional eating is further explored with a powerful guided forgiveness meditation that engages awareness of anger towards self – and others. 

 

 

MODULE 8.

Integrating Inner and Outer Wisdom: Becoming Mindful about Nutrition and Energy Balance 

“You really can get to a point where you can feed yourself what you want, knowing that your body has the wisdom to balance it out.” Sunny Sea Gold . (2011). Food: The Good Girl’s Drug. 

 

• The primary aim of this session is to help participants heighten their abilities to make healthful choices drawing on both inner and outer wisdom. 

• MyPlate approach is reviewed as a general guideline for making food choices and calibrating these choices with inner wisdom. 

• Other important nutritional concepts are also introduced, including calorie or energy density, adequate fiber, and choosing foods that offer a variety of vitamins and nutrients.

• Invitation to all participants to balance this information with their own awareness of likes/dislikes as well as hunger and satiety levels. 

• Convey the importance of flexibility, self-acceptance, and balance in creating new patterns that will work for the long run, rather than just for the purpose of short-term weight loss. 

 

 

MODULE 9.

Mindful Eating, Mindful Choice, and Meal 

 

• Mindful eating foundation reviewed: awareness of hunger, taste experience, fullness/satiety, and making mindful food choices. 

• The meal provides a challenging and often vital experience in bringing these mindful eating skills to bear within a complex meal. Eating in silence in a group is a new experience for many individuals; breaking the silence part way through provides a powerful contrast. 

 

 

MODULE 10.

Stress Distress and Eating Working More with Thoughts and Emotions 

“We are how we eat .... and so much more!” ~ Jean Kristeller 

 

• This session aims to help participants better understand their personal experience of stress reactivity and how it is entwined with overeating, mindless eating, and out-of- control eating. 

• Importantly, this session then allows participants to identify and develop key points of intervention to interrupt their own reactivity cycles. 

 

 

MODULE 11.

Breaking the Chain, Connecting to the Higher Self, and Moving Forward

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” ~ Kahlil Gibran 

 

• The intention is to have participants experience a sense of empowerment and encouragement with moving forward, using the tools provided, in creating a new, more functional relationship to eating, to food, and to themselves. 

• Core elements are reviewed, along with an eating practice for which they have chosen a healthy snack to eat mindfully and share with others. 

• The Wisdom Meditation practice is intended to reinforce a sense of being able to engage their ‘higher’ self and perhaps spiritual self in finding further direction.