Practice Eating Mindfully With Others

If you’re surrounded by other people and you try to practice your usual mindful eating practices where you’re focused entirely on what you’re eating, you’ll ignore people around you, and this can create socially awkward situations.

You want to stay mindful while participating in the conversation with those around you. We have several tips to help you through this process:

•	Ground yourself. As you’re sitting in the chair, notice how it feels against your back and legs. How does the ground feel against your feet? How do the utensils feel in your hand? This will begin to activate those mindful thought patterns.

•	Order first. The person who orders first from the waiter sets the tone for the rest of the table, and if you’re not ordering first, you can be swayed into following the herd rather than ordering what your body needs.

•	Go with what you know. Order something familiar so you can focus more energy on the people around you rather than the nuances of the new textures, flavors, and smells. Ask yourself, what’s something that you can trust you’ll enjoy, even though you can’t be mindful in your attempts to enjoy it?

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Set the pace. It’s easy to be influenced by how fast or slowly the people around the table are eating. Just as you will walk faster to keep up with one of your friends, you will eat faster to do the exact same thing. However, if you are intentionally eating slower, you can be the one who sets the tone for the group.

•	Put down your fork and break up your bites with conversation. When you’re talking, set down the cutlery so you don’t accidentally eat in the middle of the conversation. This will ensure that you don’t accidentally eat without mindfulness.

•	Embrace doggie bags. Expect leftovers. Even better, do what we suggested before and ask for half your meal to put into a to-go container. This way you’re not tempted to eat if you get pulled away from your mindfulness practice.

•	Choose your company wisely. When possible, conversation can enhance the mindful eating practice experience. However, if it’s judgmental, you want to shift the conversation entirely away from food.

If you need to, ask about family and friends instead of talking about diets and bodies. The last thing you want is for everyone around the table to look at you and focus on what you’re doing. This will distract you from mindful eating and make you more likely to submit to temptation when the rest of the table decides to order a dessert.