Beginner's Mind ?

©2008 Joan M. Newcomb

Shirley MacLaine talked about taking a dance class after years of having been a professional dancer. She found it challenging, because it took her back to the basics when she'd developed all sorts of shortcuts to the various moves and steps during her career.

It reminded me of my recent experience with participating in Eckhart Tolle and Oprah's New Earth on line event. I'd read the book quickly, thinking, 'yeah, I know all this', and rolled my eyes during the first class with how elemental people's questions seemed to be. I've been doing this work and teaching it for more than half my life, 'been there, done that', I thought. Then I decided to reread the book a chapter at a time, on the day the class was held. And started to have some very profound realizations. Also, during each of the subsequent classes, someone would make an observation or relate a story that either echoed what I'd been thinking or illuminated a new insight. It reminded me that even kindergarden can be re-experienced at a deeper level.

It was my ego that rolled it's eyes and thought 'been there, done that' and it's Ego that feels like it already knows it all.

Over the last several years I've been offering Life Transformation Classes, and about a third of my students have taken classes from me eight or ten or even fifteen years before. Although some of the basics are the same, the classes are different in that I've added eight or ten or fifteen years of new awarenesses to them, so they've evolved over time. New techniques have been added, and new topics have been incorporated, and the courses now go to a more advanced level than ever before. Also, the students themselves have also grown and changed, so their learning experience has been deeper as well.

Whenever I feel like I've mastered something, whether it's basic metaphysical techniques, the twelve steps, or whatever, opportunities arise to expand my practice of them. Three years ago I made the decision to teach people everything I knew, and formed the first year-long Life Transformation Class. In the eleventh month, I took my first Matrix Energetics seminar and it tipped everything I knew on it's side. In order to fully open to learning Matrix Energetics, I had to set my ego aside, along with my preconceived notions of how to do energy work. Even now as a Certified Practitioner, I find it helpful to approach each session with a beginner's mind. When I sense that I don't know what I'm doing, then I know I'm doing it right!

I invite you to notice when you're rolling your eyes and thinking that you already know something, and take a closer look at whatever it is. It could be your Ego blocking you from your own Truth. Nothing is what it originally seems to be nowadays, and there's always room to go deeper.