How to Train an Elephant (book)

[Steve]

Hi Brad

I think you can just start at chapter 10. The book itself says you can pick and choose chapters, or the order, as the chapters are all separate practices. You can always catch up on the first 9 chapters at your leisure.

be great to have you join us as we work though the weekly practices - its great support and we learn from each others experiences and comments as well.

Steve

PS the book is available in both ebook and paperbook versions

[FeeHutch]

If it feels easier join us in week 10. It feels to me like each week gives us a different opportunity to bring mindfulness into our day and encourage us to view this as a way of being 24/7 and not just during formal practice

[Darley]

I have had this book for some time but didn't get past the first few chapters before I forgot about it and went on to something else. I have read through the early posts you've written and gotten interested in what you are doing here. I will read through chapter 10 today.

[FeeHutch]

Hi Darley
Welcome to our community
I'll look forward to hearing your thoughts at the end of the week.
Fiona

[Steve]

Hi Darley

That's great - look forward to sharing thoughts and experiences. I think if I was doing it alone, I would have just read through the book in a few days but not really applied it - but doing it this way is so much better.

Steve

[Brad]

I was reading back the exercises you guys have done and noticed that they include the exercises in a book called "Willpower" by psychologist Roy Baumeister. He suggested using your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth and eat, and to edit your speaking habits in order to build your self-regulation ability. So I'm wondering if you guys have noticed any improvement in your willpower/self-regulation ability.

Anyway, I'm going to start on week one and see how I do. If I get lonely I may jump ahead to you guys! I ate my bowl of cereal this morning with my non-dominant hand (which for me is actually my right hand), and I thought it was really effective at forcing me to stay mindful while eating.

[FeeHutch]

I don't know that I would term it as willpower. That task made me more aware of what I was doing, what muscles I was using and the way we can sleep walk through so many tasks. I look forward to reading your thoughts Brad

So week 10, taking 3 breathes when the phone rings or you hear a bell. I did struggle a bit with this one. As I wrote previously I had a mindfulness bell app on my tablet and I found it more frustrating than helpful and so removed the app. I reinstalled the app for this weeks task. What I discovered was that the bell sounding when I was alone, regardless of what I was doing, I could stop and take 3 breathes. If I was with other people I felt too self conscious to stop. In the book it talks about being the monastery where everyone stopped at the sound of the bell and it felt quite natural, I have wished for that environment this week but felt inhibited even in my own home. Something to reflect on further for me there.

Week 11 - Loving touch: use loving hands and a loving touch even with inanimate objects. This sounds like a lovely task to treat everything I touch with love and respect. I washed my hands yesterday and I really noticed and enjoyed the sensations. Sometimes I loose sensation in parts of my hands and/or loose the ability to fully control their movement and grip and I think I hold on too hard sometimes to try and compensate. I will try and be aware of my touch this week. And also look at how this effects my mood. If you are consciously treating all around you with a loving touch I think it would promote a feeling of peace and calm for the mind too?

Have a good week everyone!

[Steve]

Brad

That is a fascinating point you make. I think my will power has improved to some extent: I have kept up with this practice for 10+ weeks, I continue some of the weekly practices: cleaning teeth left handed, keeping my bedroom tidy so it a place of tranquility, meditating EVERY morning (even if for only a few minutes), eating breakfast sitting down, continuing to be more 'body aware'. As discussed some weeks back (can't remember if on this topic or another), I have also been working on reducing my alcohol consumption: I now make a bottle of wine last 3 days instead of 2 and have one alcohol free day per week, this has reduced by alcohol consumption from above the recommended limits to below.

I have been looking into using mindfulness to help overcome procrastination - still work in progress (LOL). Will power is probably just another way of looking at this so I may well look into the book you mention - how did you find it? I need to boost my will power to try not to give up on some other challenges in face of lack of progress (which I find very dispiriting).

Re starting at week 1 - if this is what works for you, no problem. As mentioned above, I continue to practice some of the tasks from earlier chapters and if you post your experiences from the earlier weeks as you do them, I'm happy to discuss these again - indeed this could be a very good form of 'revision' to re-stimulate the previous tasks so I would welcome this.

OK,last week. Like Fee, I found that I could stop and breathe when I hear my app gong when on my own at home or at work. Not so easy when in company. However, if I noticed the gong when in company, I still found this useful to remind me to be more in the present even if it wasn't appropriate to stop and take 3 breaths (although it is possible to be aware of your breaths when with someone else without them noticing). As an aside, I have the international symbol for mindfulness on my pin board in the office and was asked what this was by a colleague last week and I found I was able to explain that I was 'into' a particular form of meditation called mindfulness without embarrassment and without being seen as a weirdo!

I haven't yet succeeded in stopping to take 3 breaths when the phone rings so I will try to keep attempting this (the urge to answer seems to make me forget to do this). I'm also going to try to combine the 3 breaths with the thought 'may I be at ease' as mentioned in the book and to see the the 3 breaths as a 'pause that refreshes' - which seems a nice way to approach it.

Next week: loving touch. This will be interesting. I guess applying a loving touch to all that I touch will help approach things and people in a more caring way. A more difficult aspect of this is the lack of opportunity (or non-receptiveness) of loving touch with those closest to me

I'm looking forward to hearing how everyone else gets on with their weekly tasks.

Steve

[FeeHutch]

So week 12 was using a loving touch.
This wasn't as easy to remember as I'd expected but when I did remember it was immensely rewarding. In fact at times I had moments of feeling almost overwhelmed by the sensations of sight, sound, touch and taste.

Week 13 is waiting, using any time waiting to practice being present. The final words of this chapter say 'don't be annoyed when you have to wait; rejoice in extra time to practice bring present.' I found this to be true in the past. Our bus service is notoriously unreliable and under resourced meaning there isn't enough choice in catching a bus and its likely to be late too. The times I remember to accept my wait and use it to just be, concentrate on the breath or really look and listen are far less stressful than the waits that leave me frustrated and very annoyed. Neither make the bus turn up any quicker but one is far more enjoyable

[Steve]

I found this week quite hard - not just because I found it difficult to remember to be mindful of how I touch things but when I did I found only a few things that I touched carefully or lovingly.

Unless in bare feet, my movements seemed to be in a hurry and uncaring for the ground beneath, I found I tend to hold things quite tightly or in a grasp and even when showering I was quickly and soaping myself without much gentleness.

What did I touch lovingly? Some examples: pets (cats and dog), the ground when walking barefoot, my bicycle (yes, I my bike means a lot to me!), the PC mouse (amazingly) and my smart phone (you have to be careful and gentle with finger movements on the screen!).

I think this practice has revealed more impatience and inner stress than I was aware of and reveals how I need to do things more slowly, calmly and with more respect - and to enjoy whatever I'm doing rather than trying to get it done so I can move onto something else.

I's amazing how our experiences of this week have been so different - but that it what is good about hearing how others get on. Again, its an area I need to practice and be aware of more. Becoming aware of the how I tend to do things is a first step, learning to change the way I do things requires more practice.

Next week: being mindful in queues. I have tried this before and it is another way of stopping to take the opportunity for taking a moment out, being aware of what's around you and avoiding the usual (and completely pointless) stressing about wasting time.

Has anyone else tried the exercise this week or discovered that they interact with the world around them less carefully then they had realised?

Steve