A Deeper Space of Knowing

Mindfulness practice allows one to live life from a deeper space or sense of knowing.  Somewhere I saw two models of how we learn compared to one another.  In the traditional model, if I am recalling correctly, it was a linear path of growth.  In the non traditional model it showed a beginning and then a slightly concave line to an end and then the line returned to the beginning and the concave part went deeper....and it continued on like this...returning to a beginning and growing deeper each time.

Brene Brown seems to have exposed the concepts of shame and vulnerability in her research...(if you haven't seen her Ted talks on these subjects you might like to...she also wrote a book called 'Daring Greatly').  I liken the 'return to the beginning' to vulnerability.  Brene connects vulnerability to courage.  It is courageous to return to a beginning.  When we allow ourselves to do this, we grow deeper...and when we allow ourselves to do it again...we grow deeper...and again...and deeper still.

Maybe the idea of 'returning to the beginning' has to do with the yoga term 'beginner's mind.'  When we choose to have a beginner's mind we consciously bring fresh eyes into our moment to moment experience.  A popular social emotional curriculum uses the term 'one up'.  Within the curriculum (in the pages that we skip through to get to the lesson) there is a section that explains the concept of 'one up' and how to embed the concept into our teaching.  The section is written for the facilitators of the lessons to recognize our own need to 'one up' those that we are instructing and to release ourselves from the whole idea of being 'more than' those we are instructing.  In a recent back to school teacher's meeting we were all asked to share what teacher in our life had made a difference.  One of the teachers answered 'the students have been my greatest teacher.'  I agreed.

In the busyness of a school environment it's easy to dismiss the depth of a concept and quickly attach a meaning that makes sense to us.  This is how we live out our lives when we are not mindful to reconnect to our deeper space...the space that connects us to a deeper sense of knowing.  An experienced school employee taught the curriculum that I spoke of in the previous paragraph.  We taught it together and when I mentioned the need for us as facilitators to relate to the 'one up' principle...the other person assumed 'one up' meant that the students shouldn't try to 'one up' the other students with a better story as they shared out in the class.  In the context of a school environment it is unlikely that the depth of 'one up' was going to be considered during a quick conversation in the hallway as we walked to the classroom together.  The deeper meaning of a simple concept which had the potential to bring us back to another beginning and an opportunity to grow deeper was lost in the hurriedness of the day to day experience.

Perhaps our beginner's mind will allow us to consider the idea of growing deeper within as opposed to growing further without - that the growth path of a human being comes from growing deeper inside ourselves as we develop the courage to constantly begin again and look at our life situations with openness.  I Am. Attached to nothing and open to everything.  Vulnerability is courage.