Let’s continue Joyfully Exploring the hand. Feel one hand with your other hand. Is it hot or cold or somewhere in between. Do you experience pain in your hand? If not, are you grateful that you do not feel pain? Or is a pain in some other part of your body distracting you so much that you are finding it difficult to focus on your hand.
Just observe without judging. Is your skin soft or rough? See if it’s possible to just feel without naming the sensation. Have fun with this! Use your hand to gently caress your face. Put your awareness first on your hand, then on your face. Feel the difference between giving and receiving – your hand giving the caress, your face receiving. Move each finger, bending, circling, stretching, making a fist. Massage your fingers and hand with your opposite hand. Which hand was the receiver and which the giver? Which is your dominant hand? Did you go get your favorite lotion or oil or just feel what it was like to touch your bare skin?
Did the 5 minutes go fast and you felt you were just getting into it or were you bored, wondering when the heck the 5 minutes would be up? How do you feel at the end of 5 minutes? Do you want to continue – it’s ok, take as long as you like! Do you feel a greater appreciation for your hands and your fingers? Does your other hand feel neglected? Or did your other hand have more fun doing the exploring than the hand receiving all the attention?
Switch hands. Which hand feels better as the giver and which as the receiver? Or are they the same?
Most of us have 5 physical senses with which to explore our worlds. Touch, sight, taste, smell, hearing. Are you grateful that you have all 5! Or if one sense is limited or missing, are you grateful for the amazing ability of the other senses to take over? Have you ever played with imagining you do not have one of your senses? Perhaps tied on a blindfold to experience what a sightless person might experience? Do you see how Joyfully Exploring our own hand has turned into an exploration of so many other things!