My experience is that many of us hold a negative connotation of a being a ‘beginner’. We are supposed to already know, to bypass that frightening, vulnerable place of being at the start of something. We want to skip the part where we are ‘wobbly’ or ‘bumbling’ in front of the world. We desire to come out of the shoot cooked, done, already at the place we have envisioned at the onset. We fear this place in between so much that we are even willing to pick up those old ways of being that we were so ready to let go of and convince our self it was ‘not really so bad after all’. We allow them to shroud our fear and hold ourselves back from the beautiful place, the exquisite process a beginning offers us.  

As much, and as hard as we try to resist beginnings, they are happening all the time. Some we choose, others are chosen for us. Each beginning is a new opportunity for us to be here, fully present, a place of arising. In the Zen Buddhist tradition there is a concept called Beginners Mind – a state where we stand on the edge our experience, released of expectations, free of how it should be, detached from any intended outcome. That place holds a freshness, a brand-newness, moments waiting to happen, waiting to be. In the same instance it holds for us incredible vulnerability as it encompasses the unknown. The practice of yoga is the perfect laboratory to examine our relationship with this vulnerability, to expand our practice to connect to how we hold ourselves back from beginning, from being a beginner.  

Our mat offers us beginnings, possibility, places of initiation. A place to let the pose be brand new, the moment be fresh so that we can experience it exactly as it is and receive the benefits that the present is offering us. Each time we return to mountain pose, each time we bow in child’s pose we are asked to let go of what just occurred and extend ourselves fresh, renewed, as we begin again. We are also given an opportunity to acknowledge our direct experience and the messiness, awkwardness we may have experienced as we try a new pose, a subtle adjustment, or even what our old familiar poses offer us in that moment. It gives room for us to step into that vulnerable place of the unknown and feel the ground will be there for us. There we find the power to transform. Power to become more courageous. To become more fully who we are. A place that contains the potential to embrace vulnerability. 

Embracing vulnerability deepens in the opportunity to share our whole experience. Often the process is skipped over. We talk only of ‘this happened and now I am here.’ We leave out the middle – the moment when we begin, the moment when we must step, and our fear arises. The moments where we show ourselves fully as we learn, when the right word is not spoken, when we make a mistake in front of everyone, when we are clumsy, inexperienced, gawky. The moment we stand in the world in our less than perfect form, revealing our most real, true self. We have an opportunity on our yoga mat to be in that process – the start, the vulnerable middle, the messiness, the completion, the other side. Our practice can help us come in to acceptance of the process of our growth. To be the brave, authentic being, willing to share the whole story, not just the parts we think will be acceptable in the world, all in an effort to support each other toward the beginnings, toward the invitations waiting. All in an effort to be in our wholeness.

In many stores or places of business, a new clerk will wear a tag ‘in training’. Wearing the tag, they are treated with compassion, understanding, forgiveness in a way that we do not normally express to each other. They are forgiven when they do not do things correctly, seen with compassion for their laborious learning, held in understanding as they begin. As soon as that badge is removed, our expectations go up, and they must operate according to our expectations.  

The truth is that we are all ‘in training’, beginning our next new thing, new adventure, new relationship, new grief, new joy. In training when we take a risk and follow our heart’s calling, to begin despite our fears. In training when our world as we know it falls apart. In training when we show up in the world exactly as we are, released from having the perfect word to say, from our desire to prove our self, from our need to be accepted. In training for this next new moment that is right before us. 

The teachings of yoga offer us this place, it is what the practice gives us again and again – a condition of beginning, a freshness, unencumbered by the myriad of ways we protect our self from the unknown. It offers us a place to stay in the tingly, giddiness, unafraid to show our excitement, brave to be revealed in our unknowing, bold to be a beginner in front of all. It gives us all a place to wear our ‘in training’ badge with honor, starting from a place that we are already enough, already belong, are loved beyond belief.