Photo by Nuttakit from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Give big this year. By big, I don’t mean you need to spend a lot of money at the mall, or gather multiple gifts for everyone on your list.  I mean that you can enhance your gift giving tradition by enlarging your view of the gift—by choosing something that nurtures your loved ones and our global community at the same time.

Photo by Bill Longshaw from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Thanksgiving is a holiday of reflection, community and great food! Seize this opportunity to share mindful eating with loved ones and reinforce your mindful habits.

Q:  How can we deepen our practice?

A: Deepening our practice means having a genuine practice, practicing not in form only.  When your practice is genuine, it will bring joy, peace, and stability to yourself and to the people around you.  

Congratulations to the winners of the Savor & Share Recipe Contest. Their recipes are delicious examples of how healthful, vegan meals need not sacrifice taste or time.

Keeping health, ease and taste in mind, our distinguished contest judges, Mollie Katzen, Martha Rose Shulman, Dr. Melanie Lane, and Judith Kingsbury chose their favorite dishes from our community’s top picks.

This passage is from Savor: Mindful Eating. Mindful Life.

Work environments are not always easy places to remember and engage in our mindful practice. It is important to act mindfully in this space though, as it will bring more peace, happiness AND productivity. When we act mindfully, we form better relationships with our co-workers, respect our body’s need for movement, listen to signs of hunger and fatigue and ultimately we are better at our jobs.

Here are some tools that encourage mindfulness in the work place:

Q:  I’ve been practicing compassionate listening but it is very difficult to listen to people who rant and rave.  How long is it necessary to practice compassionate listening?

Cooking can be one of the most peaceful, mindful and loving of acts. But often we are stressed when preparing food.  We’re racing the clock.  We’re hungry – perhaps too hungry, uncomfortably so.  or past the point of hunger when preparing food. This can turn a beautiful act into a chore. And the unpleasant feelings we cultivate in the kitchen may manifest in our creations.

When you pay attention to your in breath and out breath, you abandon the future and go back to the present moment.  This is the practice of mindfulness.

When you eat, if you eat mindfully, that's mindful eating.