"Strength and Ease for Body and Soul."

William Wittmann, M.Ed., LMP
Life Coaching and CranioSacral Therapies

Old Dogs Learn Beginner's Mind

You know the saying, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." As a CranialSacral Therapist with over thirty years of practice, I AM an old dog. And I just learned a whole passel of new tricks.

I don't know if it was ever a true saying as applied to dogs or not; I think some old dogs just couldn't be bothered, but this dog loves to learn.

I just completed a five year certification training in Cranialsacral Therapy with Ursula Popp at Natural Health Resources Center. I am now the bomb. I am now the bee's knees. I am now a Jedi Master. I really know my stuff.

"That's nice, William," but you're wondering, "How's this affect me?"

For starters, you could come see me and take advantage of the new tricks. When you come to see me, you will get excellent, finely honed skills applied to helping you live the life you want. Book an appointment.

But, you want something more out of this article, don't you… Here's what I really learned.

Be Fearless and Creative with Beginner's Mind

What's in it for you right now is you can learn what I did. I learned about Beginners Mind, and it has made me fearless and more creative. You can be fearless and creative, too. As you read on you'll see how it applies to your life.

Beginner's Mind is a potent idea from Zen.

The idea is simple. Perform all your activities as if you were a beginner, who has nothing to lose. Because you are just a beginner and no one expects anything out of you.

You can see how great this would be, right?

Perfectionism Kills

In the family I grew up in, I always felt that I had to be perfect the first time I did anything. My "beginner" was a perfectionist and quite fretful about performance, sometimes to the point of paralysis.

Can you imagine always looking over your shoulder for the harsh hand of judgment to fall? Is this a productive way to work? Nope! It doesn't work.

Beginner's Mind means you get to be playful and have the attitude of exploration, a feeling of freedom. Playfulness, freedom, and an attitude of explorations work really well for keeping the juices flowing and stimulating maximum learning. Don't you agree?

Here's How It Works -- Case Study

In the certification program, I felt I always had to know everything before it was taught. I felt I had to defend my 30 years of hard work and skill acquisition. You can guess that this was a stifling mind set to work in.

To shift to the healthy haven of Beginner's Mind

• I carried the intention to be playful and to explore.
• I cultivated the attitude of having nothing to lose. For me this meant cultivating a good-natured willingness to look stupid or to be wrong, to be a happy fool in other words.
• I endeavored to stay conscious of my inner child's need to please Mom and Dad with how well I was doing with the material. (Our teachers usually step into this role of Mom and Dad even if they don't want to by simple virtue of their being an authority granting rewards and punishments.)
  I did this mostly by reminding Little William that Wise William loved and appreciated his playfulness and his good heart. And that Mom and Dad might disapprove sometimes when they were cranky and needed a nap, but when they were well rested and fed they loved him and liked him just the way he is.
• I stepped into the mode that my classmates either liked me and accepted me or just didn't care because they were working with their own demon and the very arduous material in the courses.
• I turned off my inner judge and just stayed present. When I was dragged away from the present by getting one of my buttons pushed, I came back to present.

This was the heart of the training for me, and each of these aspects was extraordinarily difficult for me. I stumbled often. Eventually, I got stronger and happier and more resilient.

The harvest of the effort: I am much kinder to myself and more playful with my work and my life. Any CranialSacral work I learned was purely incidental, and I learned an immense amount of CranialSacral work.

Because of all of this work, shifting to Beginner's Mind and the CranialSacral training, five years later I am a much better therapist and a happier, healthier human.

Want Another Example?

You may be familiar with brainstorming or other activities that utilize creative principles. All creativity coaches, including me, ask you to suspend judgment and just play. That's all Beginner's Mind.

As I approach my 58th birthday and look out at age sixty five the traditional age of retirement, I can't imagine retiring in just seven years, I have way too many things I love to explore in my practice, in my book writing , in my classes, and in my sacred landscape etchings.

That's why I read constantly and network all over the globe to uncover the best Tools for your journey.