The Daily Ritual of Cacao, for every part of your body and all parts of your life. What will your Cacao ritual be?
Cacao For Your Heart:
A Harvard University study showed that people who ate dark chocolate 5x per week experienced 57% less heart disease
Cacao For Your Mental Health:
Cacao tastes as good as it makes you feel emotionally. Endorphins, Anandamide, Serotonin, and Phenylethylamine are all found in cacao and contribute to elevating mood, producing feelings of bliss, increasing focus and minimizing depression.
Cacao For Your Brain:
Studying subjects in their 20’s to 90’s, scientists found that habitual chocolate intake could be associated to better memory, organization, and reasoning.
Cacao For Healthy Cells:
Eating Cacao daily boosts blood antioxidant levels by nearly 20%.
Antioxidants inhibit the activity of free radicals by neutralizing them. Less free radicals mean less damage and stress to cells, reducing the chance for development of cancers and heart disease. Cacao is teeming with polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that manage blood pressure, protect the organs and fight disease.
Cacao For Preventing Strokes:
The European Heart Journal reported that eating dark chocolate regularly contributed to lessening the risk of stroke by up to 48%.
Cacao For Daily Ritual:
Rituals bring peace, predictability, and calm, reducing stress and anxiety on the mind and body. When we connect them to the spirit, we create deeper meaning and alignment with Source Energy. When we radiate with this trinity, through eating cacao with purpose and intention, each day becomes an opportunity to improve our well-being. Rituals require that we do things in a certain order and in the same way repetitively until they become part of our subconscious. There, the ritual becomes most powerful; left to do its work naturally, while we focus on its outcomes rather than its mechanics. What will your cacao ritual be?
Make Cacao Part of a Good Habit:
Sometimes in the middle of your busiest days your brain cells crave chocolate. At the end of a lunch or with an afternoon cup of tea, a truffle or cacao elixir can be the very thing to propel you into the rest of your day. Give yourself the gift of this small amount of time to create a habitual moment of slowing down, taking in your surroundings, taking a breather, actually breathing. Cacao has an oxygen radical absorbance capacity rate (ORAC) per 100mg of 13,000 compared to for example grapes which have a 750 capacity.
So, breathing with intention and small additions of chocolate to our diet may be just what the doctor ordered to ensure the longevity of our brain function.
Make Cacao Part of a Solid Routine:
Rhythm is an important part of our body's clue and cues to remain calm and balanced. Adding cacao to our daily diets, can assist with this as it provides Anandamide, also known as the “bliss chemical”, which contributes to a sense of well-being and solitude. Give yourself a daily moment of blissing out. Run a bath. Light a candle. Create an alter. Write a list of intentions. Or just simply sit still. Whichever you choose, use the time to listed to the rhythm of your breath, your heartbeat, a clock, the wind, your favorite song, and reset.
Make Cacao Part of a Worthwhile Observance:
Heightened senses allow us to savor pleasure as it occurs and stay in the energy flow of our own creation. It opens us up to experience more joy, curbs anxiety, and makes everyday life richer. Mindfulness practices unleash our natural curiosity about the inner workings of our minds and hearts. They allow us to approach our experiences through the lens of kindness to ourselves.
Take time each morning just to be a gatherer of observations. Find somewhere quiet to sit comfortably. Close your eyes, find your breath, and begin to feel grounded in your space.
1. Choose a chocolate once you feel present and settled.
2. Close your eyes and breathe.
3. As you breathe in, take in the light. Exhale, releasing negative energy and distractions.
4. Open your eyes and notice the shape, color, sheen, and texture of the chocolate. How would you describe it?
5. Run your finger against the chocolate. It should always be dry to the touch. Notice the texture as you release the aromatics.
6. Rub your finger on the chocolate and bring it to your nose. Close your eyes, cup your hand around the truffle and inhale deeply. This will give you a hint of what is to come.
7. Pick up the chocolate. Take a small bite of the truffle and internalize the meditation. As you taste, the chocolate begins to melt on your tongue, allowing your body the sensation of relaxing into a state of pure presence. Let your distractions come and go.
8. Listen as the quiet surrounds you. Tap into the true moment.
9. Repeat your meditation until you are fully aware that this space is always available to you. A place to pause and breathe. A place that you will become more and more aware of, find easier to tap into and be able to return to whenever you choose to.
This is your space for observing and being curious about what exists within and around you in just this very moment.
Make Cacao Part of a Practice That Makes Progress:
It is important to bookend our days; to start them mindfully and to end them thoughtfully. Doing this on a daily basis has been shown to help improve sleep patterns and times. We also know that proper sleep plays a critical role in our physical and mental health. Whether your morning and evening ritual practices include physical activities like yoga or walking, mental routines such as journaling or spiritual ones like meditation, you can include Cacao in the mix. Use the same techniques of observance from above and then apply them to your daily practices. Does the chocolate taste different before your yoga session and after? How could you describe the chocolate in words were you to write about it? The key is to use the chocolate as the catalyst for your ritual which also allows you to partake in the physical health benefits of the Cacao.
Make Cacao Part of a Time For Creating Meaningful Moments:
Daily rituals don’t need to be a solo act. Share an interlude from a hectic life with a healthful bite of haut-chocolat. Our health is also fed by joy and sometimes there is no better way than bringing happiness to ourselves than by having experiences with others. At your next gathering share cacao and toast to yours and your friends and families good fortune and good health, making new memories and new rituals.
