Savoring by Bill O'Hanlon

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, to savor is "to appreciate fully, enjoy or relish." Savoring involves paying full attention to something in one's experience. Savoring also involves engaging in the experience. Too many times in our busy, multi-tasking life, we miss the actual experience we might be having. It is said that few people who visit the magnificent Grand Canyon in the American Southwest actually see it directly any longer. They only see it through the digital camera or video screen they have in front of their eyes so they can see later what they would have been seeing if they'd bothered to look.

Savoring is not equal to pleasure, but refers more to appreciating and noticing and engaging in some experience. One could even savor a bitter-tasting food, or a feeling of melancholy.

One can distinguish three ways to savor one's experience:

The first and most common type of savoring is Present-Oriented Savoring, in which one is enjoying and engaging fully in some experience in the moment.

Some activities one might do to experience present-oriented savoring are:

• Cellphone-, email-, TV-, computer-free time periods
• Sensory focus moments (using visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory or gustatory senses)

Watching sunrise or sunset

Feeling the breeze with eyes closed

Smelling food or environmental scents

Tuning in to bodily sensations

Tasting/savoring food

Slow eating with no distractions

• Mindfulness practices
• Tuning in to feelings of the moment

The next is Past-Oriented Savoring, in which we vividly recall something we experienced and treasured in the past. This type of savoring might also involve reliving or re-experiencing a significant experience by telling it to others.

Some activities one might do to experience past-oriented savoring are:

• Replaying happy days
• Keeping a savoring photo album
• Remembering acts of kindness
• Recalling best moments

Last is Future-Oriented Savoring, in which we anticipate something good we expect to or want to have happen in the future. These are essentially vivid, engaging daydreams.

Some activities one might do to experience future-oriented savoring are:

• Vividly imaging an anticipated event
• Imagining what the future without some current hassle or problem would be
• Exploring your best possible future self
• Detailing the components of your ideal day

Savoring  

Bill O'Hanlon, Bill@billohanlon.com, http://www.billohanlon.com

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)