…by Matt Robert…
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.” Shunryu Suzuki
A friend of mine has a son who had to present at Show-and-Tell. He came up to his dad with a conundrum. “I don’t know what to talk about — this really cool rock I found, or about my stuttering.” He chose the latter to his parent’s surprise and his teacher’s chagrin. Jason started to talk about his stuttering to a rapt audience of 3rd graders. A lively Q&A followed:
“Is it fun to stutter?”
“Does it hurt to stutter?”
Jason put his stuttering out there as a thing, an object that he had. Just some thing like his cool rock or a broken bone that he got treated. He put it out for the class’s examination, and it lost the stigma, emotionality and embarrassment usually associated with stuttering. He helped his audience approach the situation and the object with beginner’s mind.
In early recovery, we lose beginner’s mind when we need it more than ever. We lose it for two reasons. First, for many of us, the stigma of addiction, the shame of 
association with it, overcomes our ability to see freshly. We shut down because each possibility for new learning is blurred by shame.
Second, we are experts in our addiction, and in the expert’s mind there are few possibilities. We have done this so many times — relapse after relapse, rehab after rehab. We’ve tried the same thing over and over again expecting different results — in relapse and recovery. We’ve listened to the confident voices of so many counselors, judges, and group leaders laying out exactly what addiction is and how we must treat it. We are experts of the most hardened kind.
Because we can’t access beginner’s mind, for one or both of these reasons, we can’t see recovery as the learning process it is. And it is a learning process, just like our addiction was. We lose sight of options. “It’s a disease, treat it like one. Keep taking the medicine.” The problem is that the same “medicine” doesn’t work for everyone. We need to see all the options.
Try to hang on to your beginner’s mind. It’s not something we are, it’s something we can do at any time. Go to your “first” recovery meeting, not closed off in fear but open to the possibilities that are all around you. Find your way around a problem, instead of stubbornly trying to solve it. Recovery is a process, an experiment. Try what feels right for you. You can always let it go, come back to it, or incorporate it into your satchel of helpful tools.
There’s a familiar story of how many tries it took Edison before he got his light bulb to work, until he found a metal with just the right amount of resistance and the right amount of flow to get the electrons to behave in the way he was looking for. In beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. We need to be open to them so we can light our path to a new life and not give up till we get there.
Informed by unparalleled neuroscientific insight and written with his usual flare, Marc Lewis’s The Biology of Desire effectively refutes the medical view of addiction as a brain disease. A bracing and informative corrective to the muddle that now characterizes public and professional discourse on this topic.” —Gabor Maté, M.D., author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction
I appreciate this wise post. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the state of “expert mind” Matt Robert describes is called “fusion”, a state where the mind has developed a rigid, “it’s true”, relationship with thoughts and beliefs. In fusion, we become prone to confirmation bias – we only see what fits with the story and we lose touch with other evidence and information. Beginner’s mind, on the other hand, is open and flexible. It notices what’s happening, but responds with curiosity and an ability to learn. The state of fusion is not “sick”. It’s normal and common. But often it’s not helpful.
The most important element of this post to me is how it applies to recovery. Do 12-step programs work? Sometimes for some people, but not always for everyone. Is addiction a disease? Some people find that formulation helpful, others focus on its shortcomings. Beginner’s mind doesn’t become fused with any one dogma – it isn’t certain enough to get too attached to a single framework. It learns as it goes, taking what works and leaving the rest, and recognizing that what worked yesterday might not work today. I admire and strive for this flexible approach to helping myself and others, and am appreciative of Matt Robert’s tightly written post!
Fred
I was so happy to see your post, and how you so eloquently encapsulated what I was trying to say.
Hey Marc,
Finally! And thank you 🙏🏼🙏🏼 You have just summed it up in this post.
Much gratitude.. I read your posts a lot but rarely say anything. Because of Eckhart Tolle, His Holiness The Dalai Lama, AND this blog… which I started reading a couple of years ago, and a few other people I have been fortunate enough to have enter my life, I now have an incredible set of tools that I use regularly. I honestly cannot express my gratitude enough with words.
I found this blog at a time when I realised I needed to move on from NA, and you have helped me to understand how important it is for me to remain open to life, to other ways of thinking. For me, this has improved my life and serenity in ways I cannot begin to explain.. Life is grand. In fact someone asked me what my hobbies were today. I replied “my life is a hobbie” because everything I do I now enjoy. And.. I’m still drug free.
Thank you,
Jo
That is so lovely to hear, Jo. Really, thank you too. I am grinning widely for the first time today (just flew in to Toronto from Minnesota and feeling slightly lost). This blog has been a grand hobby for me, extending into many other domains as well.
But for this little gem of wisdom, you’ll have to thank Matt, a long-time contributor here and someone who knows a thing or two about addiction — and how to leave it behind.
Oh my apologies to Matt! I think I was so relieved to read something that was so simple and yet so very true I didn’t see your name..
🙏🏼 Jo
Marc,
Did you speak in Minnesota or were you just passing through? Bummer if I missed an opportunity to hear you speak.
Jo
Hmm…No apologies necessary. I thought you were thanking Marc for posting it on his blog and for creating this inimitable forum to begin with…
…with which I totally agree and can’t thank him enough! I’m glad it spoke to you.
An interesting idea from the Zen tradition. Thanks for sharing Matt
So when I get recovery I can forget about Beginners Mind? (Caution, trick question)
Well…since it’s an attitude toward life and being in the world– not just recovery– I’d have to say no. Am I missing something?
That was the trick, baby. You some kinda expert or what?
Yes, yes, yes, to the stutterer’s openness and bravery. Like him, I try to be more open more often than is comfortable about my mental health and my past addictions. But I try to find the words for it that don’t demean me. I think that when we recoverers do that, we give a tremendous gift to those we converse with: a surprise chance for them to talk about what’s really important for them too, not the chit-chat that characterizes most daily talk. I struggle with putting this doctrine into words: not trying to defend oneself is the most powerful defense that exists? openness allows no foothold for an attack? what’s in there to defend, anyway? [Amusing coincidence: Jehovah’s Witnesses just came to the door. Within a few words we’d established that I was a Buddhist writing for a recovery community and had a faith that was working really, really well for me already. They were fine with that and I was truly able to thank them for stopping by anyway. Life’s good.]
So true, Tom. Openness, vulnerability…courage. When we let go of the baggage we’ve been so compelled to defend for so long, it can lead to positive change. The kind everybody benefits from, as you say. Letting go of defenses isn’t loss, it’s freedom. When you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to lose…
For so many years people would say to me “Richard grow up” I think they should have been telling to “Grow down” instead. Like this post, as we grow up we lose that beginner mind. growing down has allowed me a new start, a new beginning. For some call this “Born again”…
Today I have grown down, as a child again, with a new appreciation for life, and all the little things life has to offer.
So many years being locked up and released, I appreciate my freedom.
So many times being sick and hungover, I appreciate feeling good clean and sober.
So many times doing harm onto others, I appreciate my family and friends.
The list goes on and on, all I can say is today I love life, each day is a love and a joy of the next to come, a new appreciation for all the little things..
Always remember Happy Thoughts, Happy Heart, Happy life…
Thanks for this, Richard. In many ways this is a positive reframing of that sage life advice “It’s important to remember where you came from.”
Hi Matt, nice message, and well said!
You wrote:
“Recovery is a process, an experiment”.
Yes, and experiments lead to discoveries…and that segues into one of Marc’s themes;
A person may discover self-trust again, which is something that is deeply appreciated and valued when re-discovered….particularly when the freedom to trust yourself had been limited during the period of being dependent on an addiction.
The re-discovery of Self-trust may be one of the reasons many people don’t return to maintaining an addiction. There is an appreciated sense of freedom in being able both laugh and cry uncontrollably again, without relying on a recovery group for help, or returning to the addiction.
And as to the trick question;
I remember the artist, Yves Klein pointed out; “It may seem that the stars disappear when the day comes, but they are always there, even in the blinding light of mid-day. “
and in the same way, perhaps the beginners mind is simply part of you. It may be temporarily eclipsed by something else, but it is always there.
Matt (and Marc),
This message arrived at a perfect time for me. I am often approached as an “expert” and I was concerned that my message was getting stale; that perhaps I was stuck in a model. This reminds me that it is as important for the people who are helping people who are struggling to heal, to keep their own minds open and curious. To always be fresh and not complacent that their approach is “the” approach. Thanks for the inspiration which I will share with my colleagues.
Karen
I like the idea of a “Beginners Mind” kind of reminds me of “A Clean Slate”! However, “Re”-covery still feels a bit icky to me. I really like the term “Discovery” because the process, if it is a process, of so called recovery, for me, has been a real discovery of learning new things for the very first time.
It isn’t easy to break from the “spell” of external and then internal conditioning falling into a state of guilt and remorse perhaps ending in an abyss of shame. I believe it was John Bradshaw who was talking about being “confused” he indicated that many of us get “Conned” and then “Fused” thus the word confused in the context of the family, community and society as a whole.
The paradox, for me, in attempting to make sense out of non-sense or perhaps finding meaning in that which is meaningless. I’m not sure if “recovery” is necessarily a “process” because I have experienced what might be deemed sudden ruptures of clarity of that which needs to be changed and quitting smoking was one example. Once I could see, with clarity , I acted and found that the last time I quit smoking was in fact the easiest compared to any other time. That was 25 years ago.
I had a motto a number of years ago that went like this; “Whatever you reveal you have a chance to heal, and whatever you conceal has a chance to steal”. Reminds me of the young lad sharing about his stuttering, once it was on the outside and appeared to change.
One thing that I have learned over the past twenty years working in the field of Addiction and Mental Health Services is that “I don’t have the answers” but realize unequically that people with problems are people who can, with assistance, resolve thier own issues. Change can happen in an instant but if I keep saying it takes time ot its a process I’m not confident this is necessarily correct or most helpful. One thing I do is continually examine my own reasonings, ideas and thoughts.
One thing that really struck a cord with me is a statement made by Jiddu Krisnamurti…”The observer and the observed are the same”.
Gary,
Agreed, the current term; “Recovery process” can imply a drawn out, eventual, medical thing, but the apt phrase: “sudden ruptures of clarity” do happen.
Perhaps a new term, like “Discovery process” or something…
By definition, it would then include and individuals personal realizations, sudden ruptures of clarity, even epiphanies if you will.
And to refer to Karen’s post above, it may then be more about the individual with no implied reliance on a recovery approach, method, or time frame .
Maybe there could be a place where people could post there own individual discoveries. it could be of interest and bolster hope and motivation for people looking for help.
Hmm…maybe a term that means something more like” Re-Discovery”…of something that’s always been there (like what you were getting at in your previous post, Carlton). Wouldn’t it be cool to have a web-based clearing house of everyones’s experience, expertise and wisdom about different paths to recover?
Perhaps a term from a similar type of life experience other than an experience with a disease?
And yes, some sort of Source-Of-Reference or Clearing house could be a touchstone for people to refer to when they are experimenting and making there own discoveries during the effort to regain freedom from an addiction.
It truly seemed impossible to ever be free from the endless want and desire that was felt and experienced.
For a large percentage of people those feelings may remain throughout life.
A Source-Of-Reference or Clearing house would need to be well considered and aware of the gravity of the vast spectrum of situations that exist…yet also be a source of motivation for those naturally drawn to something of this nature.
Is there some pithy way to say “intractable habit resolution”?
Then the Source of Reference of Clearing House could be populated with the experiences and wisdom of those who have been through the struggle, know the landscape, and what is the most helpful, inspiring and motivational information to impart and share. And make it available to everyone…
Matt,
Perhaps people could add some catagories, for a
Source of Reference of Clearing House like:
General Insights;
Specific Insights:
Unexpected Insights:
Discoveries from Relapses, (In-hindsight:)
Changes during the re-discovery Period:
1) First notable change
2) Most notable Change
3) last notable change
Gary’s “sudden ruptures of clarity/Epiphanies”?
and perhaps a few Fill-in t-the- blanks :
“it was like….”
It was not like…”
others….
BTW- several years ago I began a little “collection” of this type for things, figuring people would run across in there wanderings.
I couldnt figure out how to structure it and it ended up just a long single page and it fell by the wayside. I recently found the address on an old hardrive and it is still up (!)
Here is the link:
http://dcbalyn.blogspot.com/
perhaps some of these bits could be used to prime the pump of a real site or something…
This is very cool! Thanks Carlton.
I think the musings at different stages in the addiction and recovery cycle/process/experience can be mined for valuable info. They are all transient states and once they’re gone, they’re gone…
Hi Carlton, Matt, Marc and everyone,
The Source of Reference of Clearing House is a wonderful idea. My friends and I were thinking along the same lines. We are keen to be involved in this initiative. I wonder how can we convert this idea into reality. If there is anyone who is serious about doing this, we are keen to participate and work together.
Julie,
Good to hear, and perhaps there are others interested too.
The internet could offer a nearly global access to something to a Source of Reference/ Clearing House thing.
Perhaps Wikipedia could be utilized in some way as a venue, or could advise in some way?
BTW- since this is based on specific Recovery methods or approaches, nor confirming or denying any addiction/recovery program, It is hard to identify or categorize what this is.
The reflections and insights could be of value to people in all stages, situations and walks of life.
correction:
since this is “NOT” based on specific Recovery methods or approaches….
Julie,
If it is designed properly, an ongoing Source-of-Reference or Clearing House type-thing could be self-sustaining by the progression of generations of individuals that experience a recovery process.
As in Music, Film, Literature, etc, each generation seems to re-define itself, and relate most readily to their immediate piers, yet are also free to their own way.
This may also be the case for realizations and discoveries that can occur during the recovery process.
Please keep in touch if you and/or a group of friends start such a thing.
Best,
Carlton
carlton.bright@verizon.net
Yes. The idea of “Re”-covery is icky…like one is being dipped back into some vat of sticky glop that is incredibly hard to wash off. Instead of being freeing, which is what this is all about. Freedom…
I don’t think the ideas of “process” and “ruptures of clarity” are mutually exclusive. Life is a process, and how would we learn anything if it weren’t for moments of clarity? As you say (and Krishnamurti), continual self-examination is key.
I think your motto is right on, if I’m reading it right [“steal” or “steel” ?:-)]. An apt definition of addiction might be that we are hiding the truth from ourselves.
I think in terms of Addiction and/or Mental Health Disorders, health professionals attempt, continually, to get people to both look and see what it is they are doing in hopes to help change or alter the behaviour. However, the percentage rate has remained steady and relatively low for quite some time.
We may say that it takes time, that it’s a “process” and not an “event” or something someone has to “learn” or be taught regarding, change/recovery. If this is true, a person may think that there exists a mechanism somewhere, externally, that is going to lead them. Indirectly, this belief and/or method could further instill a sense of powerlessness. My thoughts could be that I don’t have it within me to change unless and/or untill someone teaches me or I learn the right way through a process.
I’ve witnessed and have had my own experiences with people who have altered their behaviour only as a direct result of “seeing” the reality of a particular dilemma automatically. “Thinking” can become its own problem, I mean, how long does a person “think” about how they ought to change before ever making an attempt, if ever?
If I investigate my behaviour in terms of addiction with judgements, perceptions, stories of guilt and/or shame then what I cannot do is “See”. To truly see and examine anything, if there are distractions, such “thinking” then what i am attempting to view is seriously distorted making change appear overwhelming, impossible or too difficult.
Looking isn’t attemping to see the clinician’s view of the world, or even your own view of the world but just looking at what is where there is non-judgement. The methodologies, ideaologies, paths, processes, have thier own value in specific domains but not necessarily in attempts to change behaviour. If a person happens to change, they may change for awhile but only to please you and then eventually (relapse) or conform back to their original state prior to the change.
It would just about appear that we know more about anything than we do about what it really means to be a human being. I absolutely believe that the brain and intellect gets in the way of how one ought to be and live with one another. Internal conflict exists in both the addicted as well as health professionals rather known or unknown which is the root of all problems internally and externally.
It’s one thing to learn about living its quite another thing to Live!~
Excellent discussion. I have often described to people in retrospect, that the day I quit was like a new birthday and that from that day forward, my brain was experiencing things from the perspective of a baby and not the 38 year old person I was at the time,
I was not recovering from anything. I was discovering and learning about an entirely different life without my massive gambling addiction. Who knew I could live without gambling? At the time I quit, I would have laid 1-10 odds I would never be able to do it. (bad joke)
In my experience, this is what happened.
Truth (I really need to change, no more want, need)
Willingness (I am willing to try)
Openness (I don’t have the answer, but will ask questions and investigate a way that may work for me)
Faith (for no real apparent reason I can discern, something is guiding me)
Mindfulness (I need to learn and understand the reason for my behavior)
Through all sorts of discoveries, that was my process.
Thanks for this Mark. I think we do move into recovery in phases (although our brains and egos want it otherwise– as in “NOW!” :-)).Phases tempered by all the mental states you mention. I definitely felt a shift in my view of the world and myself that affected my personal and perceptual predispositions. The so-called “moment of clarity.” My explanation for this profound state was most likely a shift from some core values to actual beliefs about myself and the world. That’s why religion becomes involved for many people, although it doesn’t necessarily have to. My “truth” was I didn’t have to do this to myself anymore (and everyone around me). It was actual, visceral acceptance and recognition that I had a problem, and I was the only person or entity that could do anything about it. I learned the important skill of looking at what I was telling myself and the evidential evaluation of it. So I was in control– not the “itty bitty shitty committee”:)
Gary,
Yes, ”The observer and the observed are the same” seems to apply to addiction and recovery
A similar realization occurred to me in the later recovery phase.
The realization that in the big picture, my confrontation with the addiction to alcohol was like a single person holding court in a courtroom, where the Judge, the Jurors, The Plaintiff and the Accused, were all one person…. myself.
The next important realization was the realization of freedom from continuing with that scenario.
In fact, what Mark P mentioned describes a similar part of my personal recovery process;
“I was discovering and learning about an entirely different life without my massive gambling addiction.”
where the words: “Gambling addiction” can be swapped with “that scenario”.
It was like a massive weight had been removed.
Post is very nice addiction recovery is need it healthy life give long lives.