The Gap Year
Reflection #46 Beginner’s Mind
Nothing great is ever achieved without enduring much. -- Catherine of Siena
We’ve come to the end of 2024, and 2025 is just around the corner. Each year teaches me something valuable and I trust that this coming year will do so as well. Some years I absorb the lesson better than others.
In my yoga classes I was invited to take on a “beginner’s mind’. Life is about many beginnings. Whatever we are doing, however old we are, wherever we are on the social-economic scale we all begin again and again.
Have you ever found yourself thinking or saying, “That’s just the way I am”. Or, “I’m one of those people who… (fill in the blank…) “doesn’t like to travel”, “won’t eat sushi”, or “hates change”. Doubtless, you’ve come to these conclusions from past experiences.
Now it’s worth taking a look at whether these characteristics still apply. Why not shift your identity and style? This gap year is a time when we set out to make sense of all the changing and becoming we have already done. This is the opportunity to take a refreshing look at one’s self. To learn to imagine yourself differently.
Shifting my identity has been a lifelong practice. I’ve moved every five to ten years immersing myself in entirely new atmospheres and cultures, reordering my entire lifestyle. Perhaps this has given me an advantage. It’s stretched me to view life differently at different stages of my adult life.
This is not a time to stop growing, but to begin again. It is the time to grow in new ways. So, keep chipping away at the status quo bias. Keep chipping away at the funk. Keep on until you can make the change—not stasis—your constant. In the end, the values and beliefs you hold dear will support your renewed vision. Keep a “beginner’s mind”.
Now it’s your turn.
Take time to reflect and, if in a group, share as you feel able.
With a “Beginner’s Mind” I am:
a) reexamining old beliefs about myself.
b) learning to imagine myself differently.
c) growing in new ways.
d) chipping away at my status quo biases.