Seeing ourselves clearly

Returning to Beginner's Mind in our own healing

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A song I’ve been enjoying:

Marin Headlands on Polaroid, 2008.

As someone who has been doing “healing work” for a long time (decades), it is easy to feel like I should “be somewhere else” by now; even when my brain knows better, my body can at times think I am behind. When I enter into seasons of deeper healing and greater personal need, shame can quickly return and find a home in my spirit. It can tell me things like, “you’re a therapist so you shouldn’t be struggling with xyz,” or “you have so much information about self-compassion and healing — use it!”. And then there’s the internalized pressure of being someone who talks and teaches about these themes in public — this pressure to be the person people think I am, which seems to be someone who always knows the right thing to say, the right thing to do, the right way to be with myself. And I am not always these things. No one is.

I’ve been integrating a new diagnosis over the last few months and it completely rattled the notion that I should have it all figured out by now. It has unraveled my stories about why I do what I do and how I’ve come to be who I am. It has uprooted some deeply-held beliefs around why I am the way I am. It has transformed the way I’ve been conceptualizing so much of what I’ve struggled with in the past (and present). It has shifted my idea of why I thought certain things were hard for me. It has blown open my view of my own patterns, my own behavior, and my own exploration of how I’ve been impacted by various elements of life. It has reminded me that there is so much under the surface we might not have yet tapped into, even when we think we’ve seen and felt and understood it all already. And it has offered a new lens to view myself through, which has created so much permission to forgive, to offer compassion, and to stop thinking I should be anywhere other than where I am.

One of the greatest gifts I’ve given myself through this integration (and the entire last year of diving into a new season of motherhood and healing, really) is the permission to have a Beginner’s Mind — a concept I learned about years ago through studying Buddhist philosophy. Beginner’s Mind is a way of viewing ourselves and the world with fresh eyes. It is the practice of approaching ourselves and the moments we face as though we are a constant beginner. It allows us to stop thinking we know it all or assuming we’ve already gotten what we need from a situation, and to instead view it as if it were the first time we’ve experienced it.

I have been using the lens of Beginner’s Mind with myself a lot this year — approaching my felt experiences, sensations, patterns and feelings with curiosity and openness instead of assuming I know what they’re about or why they’re here. I’ve been allowing my healing to take the form it needs to by removing my own projections about what it all means. I’ve been doing my best to practice being with myself from the perspective of a curious companion instead of insisting I should be more healed, more figured out, or more adept and quick at knowing exactly what is causing what, and what is needed to make it all “better.” And it has allowed for an expansion in my own self-concept, for movement in how I respond to things that arise, and an even deeper well of compassion for my human experience.

For those of us who have been doing healing work for a long time, it’s easy to feel like we should know it all by now, not need as much support anymore, and never return to places we’ve previously been. Yet these are just assumptions we make based on stories we hold about ourselves and what it means to be human — these shoulds are not truth. When we create just a tiny bit of space to let our bodies release shoulds as truth and instead see them as an opportunity to approach ourselves in new ways, we make room for growth and compassion to take root within us. We make room to see ourselves clearly. And from this place, we can show up for ourselves more fully.

Instead of shoulds, we can ask ourselves: what might I need from this?
Instead of shoulds, we can approach ourselves with curiosity and openness.
Instead of shoulds, we can allow ourselves to not know it all.
Instead of shoulds, we can let ourselves learn new information.
Instead of shoulds, we can remember we’re only human: we’re nature.
Instead of shoulds, we can soften into all we don’t know.
Instead of shoulds, we can give ourselves permission to be in practice forever.
Instead of shoulds, we can trust we’re functioning with our own safety in mind, even when it feels dysfuntional or illogical.
Instead of shoulds, we can expand our ideas of what our healing path looks like.
Instead of shoulds, we can practice compassion and acceptance of what is.
Instead of shoulds, we can meet ourselves exactly where we are with grace.
Instead of shoulds, we can forgive ourselves for handling life imperfectly.
Instead of shoulds, we can practice Beginner’s Mind.
Instead of shoulds, we can lean deeper into self-kindness.
Instead of shoulds, we can let ourselves not know it all and not have it figured out.

The world we live in makes it so hard to let ourselves embody and integrate these things. We receive messages constantly that we should be somewhere else, that we’d be happier if we had more, that healing is as simple as thinking positively, that it’s all our fault and therefore all up to us to shift how we view ourselves and the world… we’ve been tasked with the impossible job of holding the weight of being human in a world that doesn’t make it safe, loving, or easy to do so. We deserve any and all ways of finding a little more ease, of eliminating the harsh inner voices so we can better recognize what is and isn’t ours to hold, and return to what is true about ourselves.

If you find yourself assuming you should know it all, thinking you should have it figured out by now, believing you’ve already figured yourself out and so you should just know better…
I invite you to set those assumptions down and explore what else could be.
I invite you to try on a Beginner’s Mind and see how it shifts the way you approach yourself, your patterns, your feelings and sensations.
I invite you to let go of the idea that you’re somehow behind.
I invite you to practice infusing compassion into your cells.
I invite you to trust that your body is responding in certain ways for a reason.
I invite you to create space for something else to be true.
I invite you to think back to your newborn self and see their goodness, their wholeness, their enoughness… and to remember that newborn self is still in you.
I invite you to notice the external messages you’ve internalized as your own truth.
I invite you to see where you may actually be wrong about yourself.
I invite you to explore how Beginner’s Mind might support you in holding yourself a little more gently, a little more tenderly, a little more softly.

It isn’t easy to see ourselves clearly. So much gets in the way. Yet Beginner’s Mind can allow us to move through the cobwebs of gunk that have built up between our true selves and the versions we believe ourselves to be. Approaching ourselves and our patterns with curiosity instead of assumptions can let us have a new experience. And giving ourselves grace through it all creates just enough space for something new to unfold, for new ways of seeing ourselves to emerge, for who we truly are to take up a little more space. And what a gift that is — for us, for the world, for everything.

△ I’ve been diving into somatic work and finding it especially supportive lately.

△ The concept and work of Journal As Altar inspires me.

△ Forever re-visiting the incredible wisdom of Robin Wall Kimmerer

△ Eating the same breakfast every day (Oats with seeds & berries and a side of turkey bacon or avocado on toast) has been a little boring but incredibly grounding. Eliminating decision-making has been a profound way to take care of myself.

△ This brought me a lot of joy:

△ This lovely interview with writer Jenny Zhang

△ Portraits of Motherhood

△ The awe and wonder of my daughter at our local library

△ Escape the couple-envy trap

△ This house tour is full of reverence and beauty.

With care,
Lisa