There are several exercises in mindfulness where you eat mindfully. In the simplest of ways, you make sure that when you eat, you just eat. It is an act of intentionality where you savor each mouthful, its taste and texture.
[In other words, your toast isn’t hanging limply out of your mouth while you’re furiously texting your kid’s teacher about why they don’t have a sports uniform this morning, and your coffee is going cold on the kitchen sink beside the dirty dishes.]
Another exercise in mindful eating is to be grateful for the food you about to eat. You sit in front of your salad and say “thank you lettuce for being here for me to consume. And thank you to the shop keeper for selling it to me, the truck driver for bringing it to the store, the farmer for growing it. Thank you to the sun and rain for growing it. Thank you to the worms that aerated the soil, and perhaps the bugs that died from pesticide so that my leaves could be so green.”
If you’re eating a bacon cheeseburger then you also need to thank the pig and cattle that gave their lives, and the dairy cow for giving up her milk to make the cheese. In Australia we also add a fried egg and a slice of beetroot and pineapple to a deluxe burger, so you have to thank the fertile soil again, as well as Mother Hen.
I’m a big fan of trying to eat mindfully in the first example, and stop being an ‘eat on the go’ person who mindlessly consumes food while doing (ten) other activities. I’m not however, a huge advocate of the ‘thank you mother hen’ approach.
I AM grateful to the universe that I can eat a good meal, and I DO recognize all the steps and effort that go into make that meal possible. For me however, as a chronic pain ‘sufferer’ or ‘warrior’ (take your pick), shame and guilt are always s(h)immering just below the surface of my being. Thinking too hard about “clean eating” won’t just scratch the surface of my awareness regarding the complex web of potential sacrifices and exploitation that make a meal, it’s more likely to scratch off a barely healed scab and reveal a raw, open wound.
I think that is why I have struggled thinking about medications being tested on animals before they make it to market. I grew up in the 1970s and 80s (or “last century” as my children like to remind me). It was a time when animal welfare was really kicking off, and I remember seeing adds with baby kittens crying because shampoo had (apparently) been put in their eyes to see if it stings. Companies started selling makeup with ‘not tested on animals’ slogans. I remember being relentlessly upset by it all, and going through many vegetarian stages, (although, apparently not moved enough to give up meat forever… or to stop using shampoo).
In hindsight, of course migraine medication was tested somewhere on someone or some-thing before it made it to me. Botox didn’t just go from a cow to my face, (thankfully) there were several steps along the way that involved a lot of people, and potentially a lot of test subjects. In the case of Botox, it was pretty-people who were the primary guinea pigs because they were already using the treatment to reduce wrinkles and noticed the correlation to migraine reduction.
FYI – Here’s my computer’s summary of how Botox became a migraine medication (and note that there was a potential lag of 20+ years between the “ah-ha moment” and “you’re good to go”):
For plenty of other medications, however, it’s more likely to be a non-consenting critter whose pain was my gain.
With this in mind, right now, today, when my migraines are an annoying part of my life but not at a keep-me-constantly-in-bed stage, if you offered me a brand spanking new medicine that would cure my migraine, but came at the cost of 1,000 Bambi-lives, I don’t think I could take it. A year ago, when I was in bed more than 50% of my life, with my hand cupped over my eye 24-7, moaning and groaning, my decision-making process would probably have been different. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to tell you whether I would have put my hand out for the same medicine… or how quickly.
Medication is never going to go away for migraineurs, but perhaps the notion of pausing before popping isn’t a bad thing.
Curious if you feel the same…
Take care taking care, Linda x
The Mindful Migraine 
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