INNOCENCE AND WONDER<\/p>\n
In the Buddhist philosophy, the term \u201cBeginner\u2019s Mind\u201d means
approaching a situation innocently, like it\u2019s happening for the first time. No\u00a0preconceived notions. No previous experiences to influence you in any\u00a0direction, positive or negative. You haven\u2019t formed any opinions. You\u2019re just\u00a0curious to investigate and see what’s there.<\/p>\n
When babies see something they’ve never seen before, they\u00a0are filled with wonder. What is this new thing and how do I play with it? They\u00a0don’t feel danger. They\u2019re not programmed one way or the other. But it\u2019s not so\u00a0easy for us adults. We have a long history and we tend to base our opinions on\u00a0past events that didn’t work out so well. We\u2019re quick to make up stories about\u00a0why we should be afraid of what\u2019s in front of us and we can become so agitated,\u00a0we don’t see what we\u2019re looking at and we can\u2019t hear the music.<\/p>\n
I was working out with my trainer on my iPad, my living room
windows were open and she asked me if she was hearing live birds or if it was a\u00a0recording. \u201cThey\u2019re real birds,\u201d I said. I live at the top of a canyon where\u00a0birds trill constantly. They were singing all the time but my overactive mind\u00a0was so filled with random thoughts and judgments, I stopped hearing them. I was\u00a0blocking out the things that made me feel happy and grateful.<\/p>\n
Some years ago, an aunt was visiting me from another state.\u00a0She had been here the year before and I noticed that she looked restless. There\u00a0is a magnificent view from my living room windows so I opened them and suggested\u00a0she sit on the couch, listen to the birds that were very chatty at the time and\u00a0take in the loveliness that was all around her. A light breeze was bothering\u00a0the tree branches, brown hawks were swooping and calling out to each other and
wispy clouds were drifting and dissolving from one shape to another. How could\u00a0she not be moved by it all?<\/p>\n
\u201cListen to the birds and look at the view,\u201d I suggested.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw it last year,\u201d she said. She gave it the wrist and
turned her back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The same state of mind can arise when we tackle a new\u00a0project. We don\u2019t appreciate it and we create a worst case scenario that we\u00a0can\u2019t possibly make it work. Even if we conquered something similar before, we\u00a0tell ourselves that we are not up to the task and we spiral into despair. Instead\u00a0of anticipating something interesting and exciting, we drop into a state of\u00a0fear and dread, our anxiety soars and we believe there is no way we can do\u00a0whatever is being asked of us.<\/p>\n
Over the last few years, I\u2019ve been writing daily but I\u00a0didn\u2019t have a destination for my work. I didn\u2019t care about getting a book deal\u00a0like I used to, but I wanted to share my work with like-minded people. It felt\u00a0like I was writing into the wind until a friend suggested a website where\u00a0writers shared their work. I was enthusiastic about it. It would be fulfilling\u00a0to post my writings and exchange comments with other people, but when I\u00a0realized that I had to learn some new technology, my delight turned into dread.<\/p>\n
I scheduled a Zoom meeting with the website tech person and\u00a0I was anxious as hell. I imagined being overwhelmed with information and taking\u00a0in nothing. My sister Jill who is more savvy than I am with technology, gave me\u00a0some great advice. \u201cYou know why I do so well with computer problems? I stay\u00a0with it. I try a load of different things, I fail and then finally I get it. I\u00a0just keep trying. It\u2019s as simple as that.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Zoom meeting started, I listened. The techie talked\u00a0non-stop for an hour, I took in as much as I could, and when it was over, I began\u00a0setting up my account by doing the things I understood. I got through a lot of\u00a0it, I hit the wall here and there, and I was feeling better, but when my second\u00a0Zoom meeting was coming around, the anxiety started all over again. I told my\u00a0friend Michael how inadequate I felt. \u201cYou started several businesses from\u00a0scratch and they were successful,\u201d he said. \u201cHave you ever not figured things
out?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I always do. But this is different.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo it isn’t,\u201d he said. \u201cDo what your sister told you. Just\u00a0keep going and you\u2019ll sort it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt like the worst student in the world when I got on the
second Zoom call. I was afraid that the expert would tell me I was hopeless but\u00a0the opposite happened. \u201cYou\u2019re doing great,\u201d she said. \u201cYou’re practically all\u00a0the way there. You\u2019re a really fast learner.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had surpassed my teacher\u2019s expectations, I was at the head\u00a0of the class, not at the bottom like I\u2019d imagined, and I was relieved, but I\u00a0had wasted so much energy worrying. So much self-loathing and negative messages\u00a0about who I am and how badly I do things. So much labeling myself stupid or\u00a0inadequate. I don’t why those two words \u201cI can\u2019t\u201d are always there because most\u00a0of the time, I can. I guess it’s just a bad habit, one that really needs to be\u00a0broken.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0If you can see yourself as both innocent and intelligent,\u00a0unknowing but willing to learn, capable and interested, you can save a lot of
self-shaming and judging. \u201cStay with it,\u201d is the way to overcome obstacles. You\u00a0can do it. You can figure it out and if you can\u2019t, you can ask for help. When\u00a0we stay calm and stop the self-abasing judging, we have a great capacity to\u00a0solve puzzles and sort out information. We all have fertile minds and we all\u00a0have different talents and abilities to share with each other. If we didn\u2019t,\u00a0there would only be one of us and we would have no ability to enjoy the
wonderful way it feels to be innocent and trusting.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INNOCENCE AND WONDER In the Buddhist philosophy, the term \u201cBeginner\u2019s Mind\u201d meansapproaching a situation innocently, like it\u2019s happening for the first time. No\u00a0preconceived notions. No previous experiences to influence you in any\u00a0direction, positive or negative. You haven\u2019t formed any opinions. You\u2019re just\u00a0curious to investigate and see what’s there. When babies see something they’ve never seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2147,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions\/2147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}