Adopt a Beginner’s Mind

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You have the power within you to re-enter life, to reclaim happiness, and to experience fun and lightheartedness. This leads to better days and nights because you’re decreasing avoidance and anxiety while increasing the quality of your life.

ZEN BUDDHISM EMBRACES THE CONCEPT of shoshin, or beginner’s mind. A beginner’s mind is an open mind, one that isn’t pre-filled with ideas. The mind of a beginner isn’t a know-it-all and doesn’t think it’s an expert. A beginner’s mind is the opposite of an anxious mind. Anxiety is bossy and controlling, and it tells you what you should worry about and what you should fear. It is closed-minded. It tries to control your actions. Anxiety often causes us to be closed to the world around us and to our very lives.

Shoshin counters anxious beliefs. With an open attitude, you experience things like:

• letting go of the need to interpret everyone and everything around you

• freedom from the fear of your preconceived notions and what might happen if they’re right

• a break from relentless worries that arise out of the habit of prejudging

With intention, you can nurture a beginner’s mind. Anxiety will impose its preconceived worries and what-ifs on you, but you can train your brain to be open to alternate possibilities. Use these exercises during the day and in the middle of the night:

• Cultivate curiosity. Explore new thoughts and ideas and discover new facets of the world around you. Ask questions and seek multiple answers.

• Be fully present in each moment, open to experiences rather than stuck in anxieties about the past or the future.

• Let worries go by listening to them and then adding the phrase “… but I don’t know” after each one. This takes what anxiety says is definite and makes it indefinite.