Hello and welcome (back)!
In this fast-paced life, sometimes filled with challenges, it can be difficult to stop and enjoy the little things. But neglecting ourselves and living for days on end without enjoying something will lead to emotional burnout.
But there are strategies to prevent that. And one of them is called “Savouring”. Savouring basically means to allow ourselves to fully engage with pleasurable moments in our life, day by day. Now, you might find it hard to believe, but, except for the present moment, we can actually apply savouring to the past and the future. These are called “reminiscent savouring” and “anticipatory savouring”. If I was not clear enough, let me explain myself. So we have 3 types of savouring:
- Reminiscent Savouring – Remembering and reliving past pleasurable experiences (e.g. a celebration, a trip)
- Present Savouring – Being mindful when enjoying something in the moment (e.g. creating, dancing, swimming – anything)
- Anticipatory Savouring – Looking forward to a future pleasurable experience (e.g. meeting someone, a trip).
What happens when we focus on savouring those pleasurable moments is that we prolongue the positive feelings. But to actually savour those moments we need to:
1. become aware of them: we can listen to ourselves to see what we think and how we feel in those moments, and
2. put intention in enjoying what we are doing in those moments
So next time you do something you enjoy, try to see if you can focus on savouring those moments. This will lead you to an increased appreciation of the experience. But also to increased intensity. It will feel a bit like you are suspended in the moment, just like the women in this beautiful image:
The big advantage with this technique is that it’s up to us to decide how often we want to feel good.
Simply take the time with whatever you enjoy doing! Since you are doing it anyway, why not be there 100%?
It’s like when you eat something delicious for the 1st time: you focus on feeling every sensation that meal has to offer. And it makes you feel so good, every sensation is very intense, right? Well, the same can be done with everything we enjoy doing.
So if you decide to start savouring, here are the steps:
- do not hurry; on the contrary: slow down – this is how you will manage to savour every single step of the process
- focus on what you think and how you feel while you are doing this (i.e. your hobby) and…
- now you’re savouring it!!!
I hope you will find savouring to be helpful and exciting.
Have fun & stay positively well, lovely people!