Being a Beginner in Life
This is my anniversary. January 24, 2013, I started going to the gym and that was the first step in a bunch of changes in my life. Obviously, we could focus on the physical changes that take place when someone joins a gym and commits to their goals, but there was a domino effect here that was apparent in basically every part of my life. There were of course physical changes, but beyond that there were mental and emotional changes that I went through as well. When I was first super active on social media, Instagram in particular I made a habit of posting about it. There were the side-by-side comparisons where I showed the weight I had dropped (112# for those counting at home) and then the posts transitioned to the new goals I was chasing. The first year it was about maintaining the weight I had lost while exploring new aspects of the gym. Then it was about building strength, then about specific lifting goals or competitions I had looming. But through it all, I was never the expert in my mind. Hell, even as I sit here and write this before my first session of the day, I am never the expert anywhere in my life. This is what I want to unwrap with you today.
The idea of being a beginner is something I have mulled over for a long time to write about. It has felt like this is coming up frequently both in sessions as well as in my readings lately so then the notion is something that is worth discussing. One of my favorite ways this has come up is Nick Offerman talking about a coach he had who said to always be a student, which echoed the ideas I had been exposed to in the book “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind” where approaching meditation as an expert becomes limiting. I have watched countless people both in therapy and in the gym (and with cross-pollination across both) approach things as if they were the experts and that they could not ask for feedback nor are they receptive to it. For some, it is the idea that they do not want to be seen or perceived as a burden to anyone else. For others, it is them being awfully full of themselves and thinking that their way is the right or only way. Maybe they read something somewhere and that is the only idea they are willing to waive the flag for, which we see a whole lot with certain diets or even exercise routines. Sadly, in these scenarios people often paint themselves in a corner where they may see some success, but it is often not sustainable because if they change one aspect it all falls apart. The concrete thinking causes them to fail because they do not create an environment where they can adapt. If they had acted like a student they would have not been so stuck in the framework and could have made minor alterations and continued to make progress.
People often come to therapy with a beginner mindset but can feel a sense of disappointment when what they get is not outright advice. There starts to become almost an existential rub when the challenges of therapy require execution and making changes in life. All of us have this same experience, and it is once we learn to accept that many skills we have held, and the patterns associated with those skills, are the very things holding us back, that we begin to accept we have to make these changes to alter the trajectory of our lives. This point is often where people may bail on therapy or a specific therapist because they feel therapy is not working for them. Maybe their therapist pushed too hard for these changes before they built a rapport, maybe they are simply not willing to make changes and will repeat this pattern over and over with multiple therapists, and of course, there are times when the therapist is just ineffective. Ultimately, the people who are willing to start therapy as a beginner and are willing to make changes that feel like starting from square one will see better outcomes. The people who are resistant to change, who act more in an expert sense will often remain in the place they have already felt stagnant. As a therapist, when I encounter someone who gets stuck in that circular space of “I want to not be stuck like this” “I can’t make this change” I always ask of they are truly ready to get unstuck. Often, they may be experiencing “learned helplessness” where they feel they cannot get away from where they are. If after we challenge that some, they stay stuck I will come back and ask of therapy with me is right for them, because either I am the issue (or our therapeutic relationship by extension) or they are not ready for therapy. That is the last-ditch effort I have to try to switch to the more amateur mindset, by either them realizing they need a different therapist, they are not actually ready for a change, or they will make the leap.
Personally, I adopt the student mindset everywhere in my life. I learn from clients, whether about their jobs, a new movie or tv show, or sometimes even what they feel works best in our therapy and I learn from my kids, often a new song or a new show or movie, although sometimes even a new idea about how the world should operate. I believe being open to others, receiving their ideas and trying to view the world in a different light is the very fabric of what makes the world a wonderful place. Having that openness means we have empathy but also it means we understand the commonality across cultures of simply being human. To me, sharing humanity is both a core tenet of my work as a therapist, but also, I believe connection is as important to us as water is, and that without it we wither away. That openness means you do not diminish someone else’s experience or worldview and that you are willing to evaluate the areas in your life that could be wrong, and make the changes needed to address them. For me, that all started in earnest when I changed my relationship to food and exercise. From there I tackled my boundaries (or lack thereof) specifically heavily in the aftermath of an abusive relationship, and all of the changes in my own therapy and exercise routines have led me to a place of authenticity. I would never have gotten here without acknowledging how little I knew and being receptive to the knowledge others could provide.