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we have found this to be one of the most challenging mindfulness practices we do. It is frustratingly hard to hear your own filler words and catch them before they are spoken—unless you are a trained speaker. In the Toastmasters clubs (groups that train in public speaking) there are people assigned to tally filler words during talks, assisting members as they learn to be effective speakers. Once you begin to hear filler words, you will hear them everywhere, on the radio and TV and in everyday conversation. A typical teenager uses the filler word like an estimated two hundred thousand times a year! You will also notice which speakers do not use them, and become aware of how the absence of filler words makes a speech more effective and powerful. For example, listen to Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, or President Barack Obama’s speeches with an ear for filler words.

Filler words seem to serve several functions. They are space holders, telling the listener that you are going to start speaking or that you are not finished speaking yet. “So . . . I told him what I thought of his idea and then, um, I said, like, you know . . .” Filler words also soften what we say, making it less definite or assertive. “So anyway, I, you know, think we should, basically, kind of go ahead with this project.” Are we afraid of provoking a reaction or of being wrong? We wouldn’t want a president or doctor who spoke in such a wishy-washy way. Filler words can become an obstruction to the listening audience when they so dilute the meaning as to render it silly. “Jesus sort of said, ‘Love your, you know, neighbor, as, sort of, like, yourself.’”

DEEPER LESSONS

Filler words have become common only in the last fifty years. Is this because there is less emphasis in schools on precise speech, elocution, and good debating skills? Or, in today’s multicultural, postmodern world, where truth is often regarded as relative, have we purposely moved to speaking in less definitive ways? Are we afraid to say something that might be politically incorrect or provoke a reaction from our audience? Are we sinking into moral relativism? If this trend continues, we will find ourselves saying, “Stealing is like, sort of, in a way, wrong.”

When our mind is clear, we can speak in a straightforward way, with precision, and without insulting others.

This mindfulness tool shows how entrenched unconscious behaviors are, and how difficult they are to change. Unconscious habits such as using filler words are just that, unconscious. As long as they remain unconscious, they are impossible to change. Only when we bring the light of awareness to a pattern of behavior do we begin to have some space to work to modify them. Even then, it is very difficult to change an ingrained behavior. As soon as we stop working actively to change an unwanted habit, it quickly returns. If we want to change ourselves, if we want to realize our potential, it takes kindness, determination, and steady, sustained practice.

Final Words: “I think you’re all enlightened until you open your mouths.”—Zen master Suzuki Roshi

4

Appreciate Your Hands

The Exercise: Several times a day, when your hands are busy, watch them as though they belonged to a stranger. Also look at them when they are still.

REMINDING YOURSELF

Write the words “Watch Me” on the back of your hand.

If your work makes this impossible, put on a ring that you don’t usually wear. (If you are not allowed to wear rings, say because you work in an operating room, you can use the time of hand washing or putting on surgical gloves to become aware of your hands as though they belonged to a stranger.)

If you don’t usually wear nail polish, you could remind yourself to watch your hands by painting your nails for a week. Or, if you do wear polish, you could wear an unusual color.

DISCOVERIES

Our hands are very skilled at all sorts of tasks, and they can do many of them by themselves, without much direction from our mind. It’s fun to watch them at work, busily living their own life. Hands can do so much! The two hands can work