Beginnings are often shaky.
A beginning can be messy, with false starts, stumbles, and even all out falls.
Beginnings often have a hint of hope. Even in illness or trials, there can be found a ray of hope of something new that might emerge from the trial.
Beginnings are humbling. It’s a time when skills are yet untried, and missteps happen.
Beginnings are a time of more questions than answers.
The concept of “beginner’s mind” is often taught in Zen Buddhism and mindfulness. I love this idea, but I’m not sure I always fully understand it in practice.
Over the past five months, I’ve had the opportunity to learn what it is to be a beginner. I have been a beginner at being diagnosed with breast cancer, talking with doctors, and understanding how to navigate a sometimes complicated healthcare system and lots of other parts of treatment and recovery. Every step over the last five months has held new experiences and conversations I had not had before. I am a beginner.
As a beginner, I learned to ask clarifying questions and then more questions. Everything was new. Words, concepts, procedures, instructions—I understood the words but not the meaning or the practical implications. I learned to ask all the crazy, obvious questions.
A funny thing happened as I embraced my status as a beginner and asked all the obvious questions, even the not-so-obvious ones. I learned a lot, and my willingness to ask questions resulted in moments when I felt like I could hear through the phone nurses tilting their heads to the side, pressing their lips together, and looking up, stumped by my question. These were not hard questions. They were obvious questions. (I thought!) More than once, I heard almost the same response, “I’ve never had anyone ask that question. I don’t know. I can’t believe no one has asked me that before. I need to ask the doctor, that is so interesting. Can I do some research and call you back?” They would call or send me information, saying, “Thank you for asking that question; I’m going to share that with other patients going forward.”
A beginner’s mind has come to mean a willingness to ask all the questions and approach everything with a sense of, “I don’t really know that I know what that means. Can you help me understand?”
I’ve been a beginner at having breast cancer. But every single day, I’m a beginner at that day.
Each day is a new one that I’ve never lived before, even though it can seem mundane and same-same… it’s new. I’m a beginner at living my life every day.
I’m a beginner today has given me an unexpected sense of freedom. (I can ask all the obvious questions. I don’t have to have all -or any answers. I can explore new ideas; I don’t have to act like I have my act together; I’m just a beginner today.)
When I remind myself, “I am a beginner today.” The unforeseen twists and turns become less of an obstacle and more of an opportunity.
I am a beginner today, invites me to humility. I haven’t lived this day before. I’ve never encountered these exact challenges, these people, or these opportunities in this configuration before. I don’t have to know how to handle them like an expert; it’s new; I’m a beginner.
Reminding myself that I am a beginner today lowers my internal expectations. Beginners are not experts in anything, and when I remind myself, “I am a beginner today,” I can embrace mistakes and missteps with a little more grace.
It’s good to be a beginner.
A Blessing for Being a Beginner
At the start of each day, as your feet hit the ground and the sun warms the sky, may your first words be a grace-full, personal blessing: “I am a beginner today. This day with all its twists and turns, quotidian and mundane, is all new. I have not walked these hours before. I am a beginner- and I’ll give myself beginner grace.”
When the temptation comes to chastise yourself with unkind words and graceless judgment, may you pause to whisper again and again…I am a beginner today...
I love these haiku conversations.
At Profound Living, you can see each haiku and our entire library (39 conversations!).
“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.”
― Meister Eckhart
For A New Beginning | (Listen to the poem read here.)
John O’Donohue- in To Bless the Space Between Us
“In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you”
Thank you for the reminder to be a beginner every day. I am sending healing thoughts your way more often than I remember to be a beginner. :-)
❤️❤️❤️