Something we talked a lot about in my yoga teacher training is having a beginner’s mind. The art of putting all that you know or think you know about something you have a little or a lot of experience with to start anew, to bring to something an open mind and heart and begin again.

It’s tough to unsee something you already know. This is like having once been a server at a restaurant. As much as you try to unsee certain things when dining out when you’ve once been on the other side of table 61, you can’t. Soup spoon and steak knife are placed prior to the plate being set down, salt and pepper shakers are to be removed at the end of dining. A beginner’s mind requires we let all of that ‘knowing’, go.

I find yoga easier to capture a beginner’s mind. Maybe this results from having been taught from an early stage in my practice that there is no ‘right’ way to yoga. You come to you mat each time and re-evaluate based on how your body feels on that day, in that moment, in that breath. Beginning again is built into the practice of uniting our breath with movement, our disassociation with thoughts and our observance of the breath. We start again constantly in our practice and in the moment and practice non-judgement and coming back.

This unique time that we’re living in asks that we have a beginner’s mind. For one, we don’t really have a choice. This is something we have not lived through before, a pandemic is new and we have no choice but to begin to form our ways of being around this unprecedented global issue. Where the work lies in my mind’s eye these days is the ability we have to begin again in the familiar, the routine, the not-so-routine. To approach this new time with a beginner’s mind, open to what this time can be and the massive opportunity that lies in front of each of us and as a global community. We start anew each day, each moment — revisiting old patterns but having the space and time to really look at them. Evaluate their service in our lives and if they in fact serve us or don’t. We look at relationships, the ones that fuel us and the ones that don’t. We have space for new hobbies, picking up old ones, learning a new skill, nourishing our bodies and our minds.

This is also to say that’s it’s perfectly okay to not have had a COVID-life-crisis and uproot all of your old ways. Maybe you’ve been perfectly still and quiet. Watching movies, resting, reading, sitting in silence. Beautiful. This time doesn’t need to look any one certain way and it will look differently for every one. My hope is that a person gets out of this time exactly what they need — without the pressure and expectations of what social media tells you to do. Find out what feels good in this time and do just that. And if you don’t like it. Begin again.

I find myself less hurried, more space in the day, more space in the mind. I feel more mindful in my movements, mindful in my speech, mindful at mealtimes. My brain isn’t going 100mph so there’s room for gratitude, slowing down to see beauty in places I may have previously glossed over. I do find myself on my phone a lot more these days and that serves me at times and doesn’t at others so I will begin again, set it down and find something that fulfills that moment.

This time is scary, unsettling, new. It’s okay to feel scared, unsettled, and new, too. But in that newness is the opportunity to press restart. Over and over again. As much as you can, I encourage you to use the fear to find joy, use the unsettling to settle in and use this new and interesting time to begin.