Last week I let you know about some of the new beginnings we are having here at COR, including the 12 Pillars of Transformation (If you missed that one, here it is) and the start of our “Getting to the Cor/e” Podcast, next week on Tuesday, Jan. 16th.
The theme for the month of January at COR is New Beginnings, and we’ll address the qualities of “Beginner’s Mind” and “Openness to Receive”, two important pillars on the transformational journey, no matter if we are just starting or have been on the path for decades.
At the beginning of the year, many of us want a fresh start. We see great possibilities that we want to step into. Now, of course, we can have new beginnings at any time of the year, so these two qualities are always relevant. In fact, I would go as far as saying, if we don’t have a beginner’s mind and are not open to receive, our life will be dull, predictable and boring and we won’t truly grow and transform.
If we are honest, most of the time we live our lives from a place of knowing what we know and knowing there are specific things that we don’t know. In fact, we can filter our experiences through these categories. When we learn something new, it either becomes something we now know, or it emphasizes something we already knew. We listen to life – and to others – by unconsciously thinking: “How does this apply to what I already know to be true?” or “How does this relate to me?”
Yet there are many things that we don’t know that we don’t know. Little blind spots that surprise us. And this is where life gets juicy. Living life through a filter proving what we already know to be true or thinking that we already know it all can be so constricting. That’s how we stay stuck.
When we come from a beginner’s mindset, open to learning things we didn’t know we didn’t know, that’s when life get’s interesting. That’s when we get to receive all the gifts life wants to give us! That’s when we grow and transform. That’s what COR is all about. True and lasting new beginnings; with ourselves and with others, particularly others we hold separate from us, others we think are the perpetrators (or the victims), others we think are better or worse than we are, and so on.
So one of the invitations is to shift our way of thinking about the world and listening to others from “I know this already” or “They are different or wrong” to “What is this experience teaching me?” and “Who is this person really, and what is this person saying?” That way we are open to actually receive the present moment experience. Both when it confirms what we think we already know and also when it doesn’t, especially when it doesn’t. When we dive into another’s world, particularly with someone who has a different point of view, and are actually listening and wanting to understand what they are saying, we are open to learning something we might not have ever realized before.
So I invite you to ask yourself, where do I want or need a new beginning? Is it with the opposite sex, with my own body, with money, with my family…..? And am I willing to have a beginner’s mind in this area? Am I willing not to know already how this is going to go and let myself be surprised? Am I willing not to project my difficult past experiences into the future, so I can be available to the actual present moment? Am I open to receive this new beginning I say I want?
Every day brings so many opportunities to practice not knowing and beginning again. How about applying an attitude of Beginner’s Mind in your day-to-day life, starting tomorrow? How about waking up tomorrow morning and declaring: “ I am open to receive the gifts this day will bring!” I encourage you to write that statement on a little card on your bedside table. Have it ready to be read and declared in the morning when you wake up, before you grab hold of your cell phone and disappear into cyber world. Let’s do this for a month and see how our lives will change!
To many wonderful new beginnings!
Much love,
Britta
