Today I made it my mission to be aware of those actions I take habitually and to run interference, to see how different it would feel, for example to carry my water glass in my left hand instead of my right.
It feels weird.
I gave myself a few passes. When I went out to run an errand, I didn't fool around with my driving habits. It felt safer to drive as I always do, not to get clever with it. I didn't try to write or eat with my left hand, because the idea isn't to become ambidextrous, but simply to wake up in those place where I have learned to sleepwalk.
I wore my Fitbit on my right wrist instead of my left, which felt weird. When I poured my daily La Croix and pomegranate drink, I held the can in my left hand and the juice bottle in my right, which felt weird. When I noticed I was reaching for something with my right (dominant) hand, which was most of the time, I would stop and reach with my left. One of the surprises was that when I stepped into my jeans with my left leg first, I felt terribly awkward and tippy. I always always always and for no particular reason put my right leg into pants first. And it was also amusing to learn that my left hand doesn't know how to untwist a bottle cap without considerable thought.
All though the day I've had numerous chances to see how often I make the same moves in the same way: drying off after a shower, opening a door, approaching a chair, opening my wallet, on and on. All of it done without thinking. Not that that's a bad thing. I just wanted to shake myself up a little. I don't know if this exercise is going to have any lasting impact on how I get through the coming days, but it has been stimulating, and I have felt awake and conscious. An ordinary day made interesting by itsy little changes. Maybe there's something to that.
Interesting that you chose to do this on "Mindfulness Day". You sure had to be mindful. My Bakersfield City School District colleagues and I used to do a workshop on Learning Styles. We began it by asking people to do exactly what you did today, notice how they operate and try to do things the opposite way they usually do. Noticing their preferred way of behaving got their attention and ready to understand how being aware of different individuals' preferred styles of learning meant better teaching and learning because students were not having to operate out of their most efficient style ALL of the time. Teachers could and should address/assign tasks and activities that encompassed varied learning styles. It was one of our most successful workshops. xoA <3
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