The invitation this week is to be totally mindful of your thoughts regarding getting something done quickly. Become aware in the moment of any and all situations when you become impatient; when you want to get whatever you are doing in the moment over with quickly.
For example, when you’re driving, notice if there are situations where you say to yourself (or even out loud):
“Can’t that driver ahead of me go a little faster?”
Or situations where you are waiting for a friend to return a phone call or return an email and you say to yourself in your thoughts over and over again,
“Why doesn’t he return my call? Why doesn’t she return my email? I’m ready to hear from them now.”
Or, perhaps you are out in the yard doing a little yard work. Your thoughts are,
“I can’t wait for this task and this chore to be done so I do the fourth chore on my list. I will never be done with all my chores if I don’t finish this one in 10 minutes.”
Now I have another suggestion for you. Each time during the day when you are able to acknowledge, recognize and observe there is a situation where you are impatient, when you want something to get over quickly for whatever reason, I have a very simple two-word question that I’d like to suggest you ask yourself:
“Then what?”
In other words, when I am done doing what I am doing right now, when I have finished this task,
“Then what?”
Enjoy your opportunity this week to observe any and all situations when you find that you have become impatient. I have been doing this task myself all week and am surprised by how many times I find myself being impatient. I would have told you last week that I am a very patient person, but this week?
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.
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.
