Being a beginner

pushing hands @ Cal Anderson Park

When I was in grad school at Tai Sophia Institute in Maryland, I had to take what they called a philosophy class named SOPHIA skills.  It stood for School of Philosophy of Healing in Action.  The Program catalog from 2003 describes the course as such :

Based on the cycles of nature, this 10-day intensive unit introduces the notion of life force as well as a language and theory of healing.  Students learn observation skills as well as the language and concepts of Tai Sophia's philosophy of healing.

The class continued on past the intense 10 day, 8-hours-a-day, aptly named, intensive (maybe brainwashing seemed a better term, I thought at the time).  Every week we would learn more about rapport building, sensory awareness, being an observer and interpersonal skills.  A lot of the time I resisted the strict adherence to the language chosen by the school.  We could not veer from the "language" of SOPHIA.  Ever.  Here are a couple rules I remember:

"Replace but with and...we do not use the word but here."   

Example:    

       "I like the class, but I have a hard time with the language."  -NO                  

       "I like the class, AND I have a hard time with the language." -YES

Or the one where you can't say to someone... 

"You look beautiful in that color shirt."   

Instead, you could say... 

"In the presence of you wearing that purple shirt, I know life as beautiful."

I also resisted the way the class (and teachers) would bring me to my edge, of learning about myself and life.  I would see this image of myself standing at a cliff, timidly looking over the edge as rocks started crumbling beneath my feet and falling way, way down into the unknown.  It was an image I had seen before in my mind.
Every time, I would turn and run to solid ground.  How dare they push me?  They don't know what lies over that edge.  They won't be there with me at night when I lose it because I went too far.
I found the whole thing irresponsible on their part.

I was a beginner and I was afraid.  Ironically, it was in SOPHIA class where I learned the concept of honoring being a beginner.  I found myself talking about it today in my kitchen with Amy.   Back then, I was not ok with being a beginner in learning about my edges.  I got all indignant about the people that I perceived as pushing me, instead of being gentle with myself and being ok with where I was.  I was not ready to jump off that edge. And somehow I saw interpreted that as a bad thing.

In life, I find that we often stay on comfortable solid ground.  We find what works for us and we keep doing that.  Even when it is no longer working,