Beginner’s Mindset: Embracing Who You Are

When you’ve lived decades trained to revert to the beginning at a moment’s notice, you can’t help but be intrigued by the concept of a beginner’s mindset. You’d like to think that you have it and are well trained but what happens when you realize that you have no idea what it is?  

In my attempts to reset my mind and drop my unnecessary seizure preparation habits, I came to realize how crammed with preparation my mind subconsciously is before I leave the house. My mind chooses a persona to present, and all my mishap responses are ready for action. Even before I start anything, I am ready with concentrated focus and how to react to failure. I aim to go out to learn something new, but I am easily distracted by what is subconsciously there. As I take this apart, I start to see how it is that I can appear confident and brave in front of strangers. It is because my focus is on a set goal (what to get done and how to come back up) and it protects me from worrying about people. In a recent attempt to join a gathering without the defense of an exact focus, I was at a loss with how to face myself or to take care of the self that appeared. I was once again torn between giving my attention externally to accomplish my engagement or to focus inward. As much as I have previously appeared to battle fears to comfortably speak in public, I never had to face myself in the process because I was too caught up in seizure prevention and my reputation. My whole life I did everything I could to never use my condition as an excuse to avoid situations or learning but, despite this, it did become an excuse to repeatedly ignore myself and concentrate on reputation instead. I don’t feel that I know or recognize myself. 

With this realization, I wonder who I’ll meet when I go out there with a clean slate. Even to do that I have avoided it due to the unsteadiness of my body. The more I recover the closer I get to meeting my seizure self and it’s hard distinguishing that my sensations are not seizures. The anxiety built from a hidden fear of myself brings the sensations to a level that feels like an aura and my mind easily reverts to unneeded seizure defenses in public settings. It’s going to be a while before I fully commit to joining the world, but I am doing what I can in between to dig out all the barricades I have built to protect myself. With every story I let myself tell and every outing I decide to go on, I slowly become aware of who I am and what I no longer need to defend against. I look forward to going forward as a new student, learn the true meaning of a beginner’s mindset and will find the courage to be open to the whole me. 

Do you think that to be a beginner could be to learn from a closer proximity to who you are? Could it help you to know yourself more when you learn without carrying expectations of how you should be? Would you consider living with the beginner’s mindset? Please share your thoughts with me in the comments. 

Here is a small video describing the Beginner’s Mindset: https://youtu.be/ssqclf52ZpY