Author: manabunnow4zph

Deeper Meaning Behind Using Your Non-Dominant Hand

What in the world is the meaning behind doing a silly task like using your non-dominant hand?  I interview hundreds and hundreds of individuals every year that have the symptoms of Parkinson’s and ask the question,

“What is it that helps you the most to get sustained relief from your symptoms?” 

An answer I frequently hear reported back to me is the following.

“I’ve discovered that really helps is to simply slow down.  Instead of trying to move as quickly as I moved when I was ten years old, I’ve learned to take my movements mindfully.  When I do this I’ve discovered that my movements become smoother and much more graceful.”

Mindfulness really is the ticket to sustaining true balance and harmony.  How is the exercise of using your non-dominant hand coming along?  Have you been so frustrated because it has taken so much time to brush your teeth or comb your hair or eat a meal with a non-dominant hand that you’ve just skipped a few days?  Perhaps you decided that you just do not have enough time in the day to fuss around with doing such a silly tasks like using a hand that is not your best one?

You see this tasks helps you realize the true degree to which you tend to be impatient. Acknowledge whatever degree of impatience you might have experienced. Honor the value that is inherent in bringing your consciousness to the present moment. When you experience life as it unfolds in the moment the entire experience of impatience becomes irrelevant.  Living becomes what is now in the moment and as such, each and every moment is truly magical.  Living in the moment and becoming mindful means that all of the imbalances that are currently present in our body are magically resolved.

One golden lesson from this exercise is it affords you the opportunity to be more compassionate. Why?  As you become frustrated with being unable to do tasks that are much easier when you use your dominant hand, you transcend back into the time long ago when you were a child, when those particular tasks were much more challenging.  This particular task then, you see, teaches the golden lesson to have more compassion for yourself.

How many times have you been frustrated with the fact you

  1. can’t move or
  2. can’t talk or
  3. can’t function or
  4. can’t think or
  5. can’t swallow?

Everyone has symptoms of one type or another but if you currently have a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, some symptoms are truly frustrating.  When a symptom rears its ugly head, what is your gut reaction?  To get frustrated with yourself?  To get upset, to go into fear about the long term consequences?  Hum, that’s interesting because you’re not having very much compassion for yourself.

I have a statement to make that I think is pretty universally true of many individuals with Parkinson’s.  You’re really good at helping other people and being compassionate for the struggles of other people.  But you do not extend that same compassion to yourself. My guess is that you are awfully hard on yourself.

Switch that around. Even out the compassion you have to offer. Be just as compassionate to yourself and to your own struggles as you are to the struggles of others. Add up the compassion you offer to family members who are having difficulty to the compassion you offer to strangers who are having difficulty with all persons you encounter day in and day out who are having difficulty. Take that total energetic surge of compassion you extend generously to others and turn it inward. Be open to becoming more  compassionate to yourself.

Delight in the magic of each and every moment without agonizing over what has happened to you or your family in the past.  The past is over. There is nothing you can do to change it. Fears about the future are almost always  unfounded. All such worries are entirely irrelevant to what is happening now in the present.  Bring yourself to the magic of the moment as you continue undertaking the challenge of using your non-dominant hand for the rest of the week.

Another revelation that you will discover is, yes, it is very difficult to do these exercises: brushing your teeth, combing your hair and eating with a non-dominant hand in the beginning.  But guess what?  It gets easier. You get better at it if you will continue doing these simple exercises not just for the rest of the week, but next week and the weeks to follow.

You see, it is possible to be able to get sustained relief from the symptoms of Parkinson’s by giving yourself a heavy dose of compassion, by being patient to what is happening in the moment and by being totally and completely present to the moment you experience second to second.

  • May you have fun
  • May you enjoy this exercise
  • May you invite others to join in the fun for it can be truly revealing and instructive.

It will transform your attitudes toward yourself and toward the possibility of recovering fully and completely.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery

Use Your Non-Dominant Hand This Week

I have a warning before I now explain the mindfulness challenge for the week.  This week’s challenge will take an additional 15 to 30 minutes of your time every day.  It is, in a way then, indirectly a lesson in learning to be more patient.  Here’s the challenge if indeed you wish to accept it.

The challenge is first of all to acknowledge which of your two hands is the non-dominant hand.  One of the hands for most people is the hand you use most frequently; the other hand is the hand you use less frequently.  Which of your two hands is the non-dominant hand?  The challenge is to put that non-dominant hand to greater use in three very specific tasks I will now describe.

Task One: Brushing your teeth.  Instead of using the hand that you usually use, use your non-dominant hand when you brush your teeth everyday this week.

Task Two: Combing your hair.  Instead of using your dominant hand as you customarily would do while combing and brushing your hair in a way that you have probably combed your hair for many, many years now, use your non-dominant hand to comb your hair this week.

Task Three: Eat with you non-dominant hand. This is one task that may require extra time and concentration. Place your eating utensil in your non-dominant hand as your eat one entire meal each day this week.

I fully realize that you will be particularly challenged this week if your non-dominant hand happens to be a hand where there is tremoring which will make it particularly difficult and frustrating to use your non-dominant hand for any of the three tasks. I offer one suggestion for being able to activate energy in a hand that may also be associated with some motor dysfunction.

With your intention, take the strong and vibrant energy from the other side of your body where the symptoms are not as prevalent or troublesome and – using your intention – shift the strong and vibrant energy over to your non-dominant hand.  You can accomplish the transfer quickly and swiftly just as a martial artist would shift energy in their body from one side to the next. Here is the sequence:

  1. Take a deep breath in
  2. Place the back of your tongue up against the top of your throat
  3. Exhale your breath out quickly you (with your intention) shift the energy to your non-dominant hand.

This particular exhale sounds something like “Haah…phuh!”  That’s what it sounds like. It is a very quick burst.

When you’re eating with family members, you might want to just explain this is just a fun way that you are experimenting with to shift energy from one side of your body to the other.  It sounds rather ridiculous I’m sure to many of you, but it actually does work.  You can shift the energy and balance out the right and the left sides of your body using this simple technique that is a standard technique used in martial arts practice.

Continue to practice using your non-dominant hand whether it might be a hand on the side of your body that is creating motor difficulties or not. It really does not matter.  What you want to do is to exercise the golden and precious practice of mindfulness. Bring your thoughts to the present moment. Live now, not a second before and not a second after.  Using your non-dominant hand requires full attentiveness so that you can get the tasks that need to be done of brushing your teeth, combing your hair and eating at least one meal a day.

May you have delicious fun with this activity all week long as you practice the art of mindfulness while using the hand that gets ignored all too often,. May the stress in your life vanish forever more.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery