So here we are, Happy New Year everybody and welcome to the first mindfulness practice of 2012!….
Instructions
Use your non-dominant hand for some ordinary tasks each day. These could include brushing your teeth, combing your hair or eating with your non-dominant hand for at least part of each meal. If you are up for a big challenge try using your non-dominant hand when writing or eating with chopsticks.
Reminders
The most difficult part of any mindfulness practice is remembering to do it, so here are some pointers to assist you: Put a band-aid or sticker on your dominant hand to help you notice when you have fallen back into using it. You could also leave messages for yourself “LEFT HAND!” on your mirror, by the kettle, on the fridge or wherever you are likely to see them – as gentle reminders to use your non-dominant hand over the course of the day.
Good luck, have fun with it and remember there is no right or wrong way of doing this practice, rather the invitation is to be curious, trust the process and simply notice what you notice.
I look forward to hearing from you all over the course of this week.
Spread the Word
Image courtesy of Trace Meek
Happy New Year!
And, yes: I am trying to type this giving more weight to using my left hand than usual. :)
If anyone if any right-handers are contemplating using writing with their left hand this week, this video may be of help. OK, so she’s promoting her shop for left-handers, but a) she has a delightful voice and b) it contains useful advice on pen grip/type and paper placement.
http://youtu.be/dZGyDtQ3S1M
Despite having a lousy afternoon (a certain amount of emotional turbulence, alas), I’m going to give this exercise a crack later on. Good luck! :)
Great to have you on board Chris and well done for resurrecting your blog…..love the content!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this practice.
Happy New Year to you.
Sorry for the confused opening to second paragraph! One of my dogs was pestering me at the time, and I clearly restarted the sentence several times! :)
Great to have you on board Chris and well done for resurrecting your blog…..love the content!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this practice.
Happy New Year to you.
Ha! Just made a left-handed cuppa tea! Trying not to judge quality of wobbliness… Small beginnings…
Bx
Tea? pah…..try ladling and eating soup! ;-)
Enjoying the change of pace that doing things left-handed brings and how it draws attention to the habituated, forward press of my nature.
What is the hurry, really?
I must confess that I simply keep forgetting! As I have a few things on my mind, this is understandable.
That said, I have sporadically remembered to brush my teeth, eats meals and perform other minor tasks. And I agree with James: I notice how I have an urge to press forwards with unnecessary haste. Rather strange, as my time is largely my own and I am rarely in a hurry.
As I have not been able to give this the attention it deserves, and because it is reasonably easy to fit into everyday life, I will continue this practice for a month. It’s can’t do any harm…
Sounds like you are embracing the practice to me Chris. Forgetting to do it is perfectly normal and the moment of ‘mindfulness’ is when we notice and become aware of our forgotten intentions…and just as in meditation, the invitation is to gently and without judgement, return to the task in hand (in this practice, no pun intended!)
In the Pali language, the original language in which the the Buddha’s teachings (suttas) are written, the word for mindfulness is Sati – this can also be translated as ‘to remember’.
So…to remember, try sticking something to the back of your right hand to act as a reminder – I use a small orange self adhesive circle.
Hello, James!
Well, I’m writing this a tad early as I’m about to enter a retreat for a week’s much-needed “getting my head together”. :) Might even extend it to a fortnight, if I find it’s beneficial.
Surfing the net will probably be off my list of activities for a while, so I’ll look forward to rejoining you in a week or so.
The left-handed task will be an on-going one for me, and hopefully, after the retreat, I’ll have a better chance of remember to do it! I’ll take a peak at Week 2′s suggested activity and, though I may not be blogging it, I’ll be giving it a go.
But now, time I had a long bath, lobbed a few t-shirts into one of Tumi’s range of practical but charmless products and got ready to head off.
Have a great week, people!
Chris
Hi Chris
Have a fantastic retreat and look forward to hearing about it on your return.
Hey, thank you so much for setting up this blog.
I bought the Elephant book yesterday and decided to go for the challenge of working through all the exercises in the coming year. This is going to be my Year of Mindfulness. I had already booked a place on a retreat with Thick Naht Hanh over Easter. Then I discovered this blog – I’m going to have companions along the path for the year – thank you so much.
I’m finding this non-dominant hand thing a really interesting start. What a change from sitting meditation or walking meditation! I’m trying to eat a part of each meal with the spoon in my left hand. Haven’t tried reversing the knife and fork yet, but I’ll give it a go. I’ve just done the washing up with the cloth in my left hand. And yes, I really have to be present to manoeuvre the spoon, cloth, etc where I want it to go.
It’s a pleasure Geoffrey and I’m glad you are enjoying the blog.
These weekly practices will be a challenge, but I am hoping they will prove to be useful bridges between formal practice (which can be a solitary pursuit) and our day to day experience, the heat of battle as it were, which is very rarely solitary and where I for one, find it most difficult to maintain my awareness, mindfulness and equanimity!
After all our practice does not simply stop when we get off the cushion (or so I’ve been told! ;-)
It is interesting though this left handed business….is it being present that enables us to attend to the task, or is it the attention to the task that brings us in to the present? What is the relationship between the two? Can you have one without the other?
Great to have you here Geoffrey and please spread the word and keep sharing your experience.
James
**I will be posting an update to week 1 tomorrow, reflecting on my efforts over the course of the week.
Thank you for the question, James, it’s been helpful.
At first what I found was that attention to the task was what brought me into the present. Because it was more awkward, I had to stay more aware of what I was doing.
But after a while I found a number of things happened. First, my left hand started to pick up the toothbrush automatically – mindlessly! So it became “the new way I do this” rather than a conscious choice. Second, the right hand started to help out in unexpected ways – not by taking over the washing-up cloth, but by moving the bowl it was holding against the cloth. So I had to notice that and become conscious again. Also, I’m aware that the longer I go on with this, the more my other hand will learn new skills. As a neurologist once told my wife, anyone can learn to write with their left hand if they stick with it, it usually takes about two months!
So I think both sides of the question are involved. Doing something difficult certainly makes me more mindful as I do it. That’s what I enjoy about driving well, especially in difficult conditions. But I think there has to be both an initial recognition (“I’m here to do X”) and an ongoing awareness (“I’m here to do X, not Y”).
Perhaps in future I’ll try to make choices (“shall I use my left or right hand for this?”). And then staying with that choice needs the same type of recognition of when I’ve lost it as when I’m doing sitting meditation. When I make a driving mistake, it is usually due to my mind having wandered off the task!
Hi geoffrey, it’s interesting is it not, the parallels this practice has with sitting meditation, the breath….the left hand, noticing when we’ve wandered from them, honouring and acknowledging where we’ve gone, investigating that a little perhaps and then choosing to return, without judgement, to the object of our meditation, the thing we attend to that brings us back into the present moment. With that noticing comes choice and it is the awareness of that noticing that is the moment of mindfulness.
I managed to miss out on week 1 somehow :-( so have only just discovered what you have all been up to!! Have now typed this entirely with the left hand…slightly frustrating… will carry on with the practice this evening. Now, back to James’ e-mail, having dutifully followed the instruction to click on the non-dominant hand link before reading on…
Never mind Melissa, you still have another 51 opportunities forthcoming! The Practice for week 2 will be posted tomorrow.
Frustration…..how do you work with it?
Frustration –
I notice that it’s arising and acknowledge it, e.g. ‘I’m feeling frustrated right now’
I breathe and let it be.
It wanders off :-)
Yes, allowing it to unfold, move, shift…to be replaced by something else, some other thought, feeling, sensation in the body, that arises and then fades away.