Mindfulness for Chocolate Lovers: A Lighthearted Way to Stress Less and Savor More Each Day by Diane R. Gehart is a great read whether you’re new to mindfulness or have been practicing for a while. Gehart uses chocolate to help make the practice of meditation and mindfulness a little sweeter.
Pairs With: a Dove chocolate flavor you haven’t tried yet. The new flavor will naturally encourage you to be mindful and the sayings within the Dove wrapper will help uplift your day.
Overview
Mindfulness for Chocolate Lovers by Diane R. Gehart is a great book to help you calm your mind, ground yourself and find your inner peace. With Gehart’s professional experience in therapy, she is able to guide readers through exercises that help them feel more at ease. Gehart uses chocolate to aid in her descriptions and encourages readers to enjoy some chocolate while performing various mindful exercises.
This is a great book to start with if you are new to mindfulness and meditation. However, this is also a great book if you’ve been practicing for a while. Gehart provides many helpful tips and tricks to help keep your mind right.
When Magic Happens
I’ve been learning about and practicing mindfulness techniques for many years now (12+) and I still found this book incredibly useful. It reminded me of mindfulness techniques I had forgotten, it provided explanations for some of the mindfulness activities I was already doing, and it provided new mindfulness practices to try out. Gehart explains the research behind her advice and takes readers through examples in her own life of using these techniques and how they helped.
As you read this book and do the mindfulness exercises you may notice magic starts happening.
For example, while I was doing the various meditations I thought of a few relationships in my life that aren’t as relaxed as I’d like them to be. I thought of people that I felt disconnected from but that I would love to either be closer to or more understanding of.
Interestingly enough, after doing the meditations and reframing the negative thoughts around these relationships, ALL of these people randomly reached out to me.
- My sister-in-law texted me and shared something very relatable that allowed us to connect.
- My mother-in-law called me and we talked for 2 hours! (Usually, she does all of the talking but this time she seemed to listen and genuinely care about what I was saying.)
- My childhood best friend called me and wanted to catch up.
- A new friend texted me to schedule plans to hang out.
- My mother called me and listened to me as well. (Usually, it’s 90% me listening to her problems and 10% her pretending to listen to me. 😅)
- And my best friend (who has been distant) reached out. Interestingly, whenever I “befriend the problem” of her and I growing apart (which is one of Gehart’s techniques for dealing with issues in your life), my phone dings with a text from her! If I’m feeling down, I’ll remind myself, “This opens up my time for other activities and that’s ok. We’ll pick up where we left off whenever our lives come back together.” And then, like clockwork, I get a notification 😳
These were all people I focused on sending love and understanding to. People that I genuinely want happy. And people that I’ve had to reframe some of my thoughts around so that our relationships are healthy for both of us.
Conclusion
Honestly, I didn’t think I needed to read this book since I’m familiar with mindfulness and meditation. BUT this book could not have come at a more perfect time. This book helped me recenter myself after a stressful holiday season. It also helped me reframe events that had been bothering me.
This book will encourage you to slow down and find peace within yourself so that your days feel lighter and more fulfilled. The best-added bonus is that Gehard incorporates chocolate and encourages her readers to mindfully enjoy eating it throughout the book.
I hope you pick this one up and give the meditations and mindfulness practices a try! You may be pleasantly surprised when peaceful magic starts happening.
P.S. If you liked this one you may also like, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Betcha didn’t see that one coming did you? haha. But for real, The Subtle Art provides a different type of mindfulness. One where author Mark Manson encourages his readers to find peace by caring less.
