manabunnow4zph – Mindfulness Challenges

Deeper Meaning Behind Hand Watching

What have been your observations from this mindfulness exercise this week which invited you to be more observant of your hands while you talk and the hands of others when they talk? Here’s my observation. If you’d asked me before I invented this exercise,

“To what extent do I use my hands when I talk?”

I probably would have reported I don’t use them very much. I prefer to use my big mouth.

The truth is, as I observe myself, that I use my hands a great deal when I talk. I’m not even aware of the extent to which my hands facilitate my ability to communicate meaning to others. Has that been your realization too?

Perhaps you have not learned a lot about how you communicate as much as how others communicate. Perhaps you now know much more about how somebody who is particularly close to you expresses themselves through their hands? Perhaps you never realized how much that individual uses their hands to express their feelings and their thoughts?

Our bodies are just like our hands when we talk. The reality is our body is always functioning without our awareness; we don’t need to turn on or off any switches. We do not need to consciously coordinate the pumping of the heart or the exhalation of our breath, or the circulation of our blood. Think of what a monstrous task that would be. It would surely require the participation and the input of an entire population of a very large country to control the physical function of just our single body.

The body is a miracle and yes, we’re not aware of everything that it actually does nor do we need to be. Our body knows how to heal itself. All we have to do is to honor that incredible ability. The right side communicates with the left side, the top communicates with the bottom; the body is always in a continuous state of adjustment, always striving to maintain that golden place of balance.

Yes, sometimes our body does need to have some help from us. It is possible that there are so many toxins in our body it is unable to discharge them; it’s simply too much to handle. If there’s a lot of trauma in the body it’s possible our body cannot function and come back into balance because the body is continuously frightened and frozen in a state of perpetual fear.

There are many reasons why the body gets out of balance. The presence of bacteria, fungus and viruses; all of these interruptions can influence the ability of the body to function. And yes, we certainly can help the body become all that it is.

Know in your heart and your soul and your mind that the body really does know what it’s doing and know we’re not really aware of what it does or how it does it. You see, it’s all a miracle.

Most of your body, my body and everyone’s body who is alive today is actually working perfectly. There are some functions – especially if you’re listening to this mindfulness exercise – that may not be quite in order. Yes, there is work to be done in the form of therapies, in the form of coming back into balance and centeredness, in the form of doing regular meditations, in the form of reducing stress. All of that is important and it is certainly important to discharge, release, remove and eject all negative thoughts that are not in our best and highest good.

Yes it is possible to come back into that golden place of perfect harmony, balance and wellness. That you see, turns out to be the deeper meaning of the exercise this week of noticing your hands. They do what they do and we’re not even aware of it. How magical is that?

Have a magnificent time the rest of the week as you even more closely and meticulously watch what your hands do from moment to moment. Watch others as they communicate with their own hands. And most importantly, celebrate the miracle of your body which is working perfectly.

Robert

Hand Watching

Hand watching can indeed be a fascinating pastime and hobby; it’s also a gateway into being more mindful. To what extent are you aware of how you talk with your hands? Do you use just the right hand or just the left hand, or like most people, do you talk with both hands? Of course if you are a news broadcaster you have been taught to glue your hands to the desk and not talk with them. Most people however do talk with their hands.

Be mindful this week of the extent to which you use your hands when you talk. Watch your hands as you talk. Watch them as they communicate with one another. Notice whether or not you tend to use one hand more than another. If so when?

It is well known in that in Western cultures the male energy tends to be on the right side of the body and female on the left. This seems to be reversed in Eastern cultures. Which hand is your dominant hand when you talk?

When you want to make an important point, which hand do you point? Is it the right hand? Or, is it the left hand? Or, do you point with both hands?

Watch your hands
Notice what they say

Don’t just watch your own hands. Watch the hands of other people as they talk. Look at their hands as they have this most intricate dance with one another or as they dance by themselves.

You are probably not paying much attention to your hands when you talk. Much of how we communicate with one another become very habitual. You’ll probably discover ways that you communicate that were previously unknown to you when you become more mindful of how you use your hands when you express yourself. You will likely also gain a deeper appreciation for the richness of information that is conveyed through your hands when you talk.

Enjoy being mindful of your hands this week as you are present to each and every month. Allow stress to vanish and dissolve.

Robert Rodgers

Deeper Meaning Behind One Bite at a Time

The underlying meaning of the challenge to eat your food one bite at a time is actually profound. It introduces an awareness of the extent to which impatience or patience is a large part of your life. Do you have issues with impatience in your life?

If you have to wait in a long line to check out in a store, do you find yourself being particularly restless, unable to be present in the moment? If you’re preparing a meal to eat, do you find yourself racing to the point of saying

“I can’t wait for this to be over because I have more things to do by the end of the day and the longer that I spend preparing this meal, the less time that I’ll have to be able to do what it is that I want to actually accomplish today?”

Are you then, a person who is persistently and continually impatient?

If this happens to be the case, it’s more than likely also the case that you found the challenge to eat your food one bite at a time to be a horrendous challenge. Did you find that you got particularly impatient with being able to do this particular task? Most people find it to be particularly challenging and difficult. Most people find that they start and they’re able to put their utensil down two or three times but then they drop back, sink down into the same habitual way of eating and then by the end of the meal say,

“Oh, I forgot. That’s right. I was supposed to put my utensil down between each and every full bite and swallow.”

It is in fact a difficult challenge, one that you’ll find will tickle your funny bone as you realize how difficult it is to honor and respect the challenge of being able to place your utensil down between each and every bite.

Let’s go deeper. How impatient are you with your recovery process? Do you find yourself saying

“I don’t think I’m feeling any better this week than last. When am I going to be waking up and say whoa, I don’t think I feel any symptoms at all; in fact I feel great?”

Instead, you find that you wake up and there are certain symptoms that tend still to be present. Do you say to yourself,

“When is this going to lift? When is this going to lift – when is this going to lift?”

In other words, are you impatient with your recovery process?

Guess what? If you’re impatient, that’s obviously going to trigger the production of hormones that are not conducive to bringing your body back into full balance. You see, the impatience itself creates a problem with the recovery process.

The challenge then of one bite at a time is a challenge of inviting everyone to slow it down, to become patient with each and every moment, to treasure the deliciousness of the experience, the tastes, the feeling, the texture of what it means to eat. It is a wonderful experience to ingest food into our bodies. Embellish that experience by making eating a mindful experience. This will transfer over into being more patient with each and every moment however it might unfold.

Becoming more patient also expedites the process of recovery from any and all symptoms that you might currently be experiencing that are associated with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

Robert

One Bite at a Time

How much pleasure do you derive from eating delicious foods, or at least foods that are yummy to you? Speaking for myself, I derive endless pleasure from eating. My next question is how much time do you spend eating the delicious foods that you love to eat? How much time are you able to derive pleasure from eating?

Thanksgiving is a good example of what happens when we eat. Much time is spent in the kitchen by many people preparing the Thanksgiving meal. Hours are spent puttering and cooking and heating and shopping and preparing various dishes. Everyone sits down, typically a nice prayer or salutation is given for the entire family and then everybody gets down to the serious business of eating. Food is gobbled, one bit after another. Sometimes talking completely stops for ten minutes. There is no necessity for one bite to be chewed and swallowed before the next is inserted into the mouth. And presto – after ten minutes each person around the table has successfully gobbled up as much as they can eat.

Watch people carefully who eat and oftentimes you’ll notice that a person will put one bite, chew once or twice, put a second bite, chew once or twice; they’ll put a third, chew once or twice and finally after three or four shovelfuls of food, they swallow. This is certainly not a mindful practice. What is also interesting is that we tend to eat the foods that we truly love, the taste that we treasure, much more quickly than those food that do not offer us as much instant pleasure.

The mindful practice and challenge this week is to slow the process of eating down. The challenge has a formula to it. I must warn you, it will take longer for you to eat each meal, but the benefits will be immeasurable. Here’s the formula. If you’re eating with a utensil; a fork or a spoon, take the fork or the spoon and insert the food into your mouth and then place the fork or the spoon down on the table and proceed to chew slowly, deliberately and then swallow.

After swallowing, pick the utensil and do it one more time. No new food can be inserted until the existing food has been swallowed and its treasures enjoyed. We will fully and completely enjoy the tastes of each and every bite by proceeding with this small, short, simple formula––

Insert the food into your mouth
Put the utensil down
Chew slowly and deliberately
Focus your attention on your mouth, not the plate or the spoon
Enjoy all the tastes and sensations
Swallow
Pick up the fork or the utensil from the table
Proceed to Step One

If you’re not eating with a fork or a spoon and if you’re using your hands – for example if you’re eating a sandwich or chips – the same applies. You’ll want to take your item, whatever it might be, place it up to your mouth, take a bite and then put that sandwich or whatever you’re holding in your hand down on your plate. Chew, swallow and then do it again one-bite-at-a-time.

This week, change your customary and habitual approach to eating. Focus your attention on your mouth. Enjoy the deliciousness of food that you love to eat.

Robert