Or what if I, like I did while eating tonight, imagined eating both meat and dairy while looking at menu ideas.
It’s totally fine. While it is indeed admirable to have noble intentions in mind while doing seemingly mundane things such as eating or going to sleep, it is not mandatory. And there is certainly no problem of thinking about milchigs and fleishigs food in the same meal.
So I was eating without appreciating the food since I thought of other food at the time. I wasn’t eating mindfully.
I give you a bracha that this should be the greatest of your spiritual struggles 🙂
In last week’s parsha, we read about Yaakov Avinu dreaming of angels climbing up and down a ladder. This ladder represents (among other things) the process of spiritual growth. One must ascend this ladder rung by rung, slowly but surely, to make sure that they end up on the top. To attempt to leap to the top in one jump would be too risky, and probably end in a great fall.
Remember, slow and steady wins the race.