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Introduction
so now let’s talk about how to use mindfulness to Increase our feelings of self-love, each of the chapters here going forward is going to focus on one of the core principles of mindfulness that I talked about in chapter 2 then as you work along in the book there’ll be exercises and practices to help learn it and incorporate it into your daily life the focus of this first chapter is going to be beginner’s mind
Beginner’s Mind is Open
so beginner’s mind it’s also kn own as shoshin a Zen concept that describes an attitude of openness eagerness general lack of preconceptions it’s the attitude you bring when you enter a new experience and the experience hits you in a way where you just want to take it all in so imagine the first time you saw a mountain or a skyscraper or the ocean or something where nothing else matters I just want to take this all in you gave your brain excuse to stop thinking stop ruminating stop focusing on other things let’s take in everything because this is a new experience and I want to get all that I can from it well the hope is to bring this attitude into each of our moments or at least that’s our aspiration there’s a co ncept or word called hubris hubris hub ris and that’s basically when someone believes themselves to be so knowledgeable to be such an expert at a topic that they close themselves off to new ideas new perceptions new approaches new information this can have negative effects the least of which is you may just end up ineffective and incompetent after a while as situations evolve and move past the point of where you were maybe you were the best at your field at the time but as with everything in the universe things changed things evolved and if you’re closed off to incorporating these new ideas and approaches then it may move past and you may not be as competent anymore as you were in the past worst case scenario could be very destructive you can develop pride and arrogance that push others away or if you are in a position of influence or a position of power whatever you’re in charge of organization or whatever that you’re in charge of you’re now steering in direction that’s ineffective competitors are moving past you things aren’t going as well and destructive results can result from that especially if your pride and arrogance allow you to hold on influence you to hold on past the point of usefulness there’s a phrase to a beginner there are infinite possibilities to an expert there are limited or few possibilities the idea for ourselves is to try to open ourselves up to the infinite possibilities
Are Preconceptions Useful?
so you might be asking yourself is it even possible to have beginner’s mind whenever we enter into a new situation like how could I possibly not remember or applying my previous experiences to the present moment and is it even a good idea shouldn’t I take my experiences from the past and shouldn’t I use that information every time I enter into a new experience well I’ll put it this way yes you should if you’ve burned your hand on a stove before I don’t suggest you forget that every time you go to a stove you should remember that it’s hot and it can injure you what I’m getting at is that even if that had happened in the past if you avoid cooking all together you might be limiting yourself away from a very fulfilling or the very least useful activity that could enhance your experience all because of a perception that you brought in from a previous experience or on the flip side say you cook all the time say cooking has been become routine say that now you do it without much focus or energy your mind wanders and you just you could do it with your eyes closed if you wanted to well then I would say you’re limiting yourself in that situation as well too because each time you go to cook there could be something new something fulfilling something enjoyable about the experience that you’re cutting yourself off because you expect that’s just going to be the same old thing if you remember a time back when you first Learned to cook it could have been while you were younger maybe a parent or somebody brought you over and said Hey I’m going to teach you how to do this I’m going to teach you how to bake I’m going to teach you how to fry this food cook this food aespecially narratives w have about ourselvesnd you remember back then eyes were wide open you were taking in all the information it was really interesting it was something that really enhance your experience and it was giving you something new that’s what we’re trying to get back to we’re trying to get back to that curiosity that I want to know everything about this mom ent I want to totally be in this moment and I want to take it in as it is as it’s presenting itself right now beginner’s mind allows us to experience what is new and different about this time we’re doing it no matter how many times we’ve done it before it also allows us to believe that this time doesn’t necessarily have to be unpleasant even if there was an unpleasant experience in the past and we want to take that attitude and apply it to ourselves that just because something unpleasant I have to expect that’s going to happen this time and no matter how many times we go back through it we can get something new from this experience if we open ourselves up to it
so mindfulness practices are designed to help us reset with each breath starting over completely brand new each time we inhale and then exhale adding a beginner’s mind allows us to let go of any narrative and that’s how we’re going to apply it for the purposes of this book and if you’re working through this book that narrative about yourself is probably critical negative harsh and as we pointed out before that could be for a lot of different reasons it could be because of how people have tried to motivate us in the past and the fact of the matter is we’ve all made mistakes we’ve all gone through situations that we wish we would have performed differently the bad feeling we get after that yes is motivation to try to get us to do differently but by no means is it a requirement to take that feeling and repeat it till infinity so the exercises in this book are designed to help you approach your day the way you think with an open mindedness to new possibilities living life with no rear view mirror so I encourage you to work through this and in your mindfulness practice that you’re already cultivating and strengthening remember that with each breath there is a reset and each experience can have new information even if I’ve gone through it many many many times before and the narrative I have about myself how does it apply to this moment and this is a perfect bridge to our next principle that we’ll talk about next chapter having the attitude of non judging or being non judgmental about ourselves hope you enjoyed the video and I’ll see you next time