Are You Willing to Begin Again?

Terri Wingham is the founder and CEO of A Fresh Chapter, a cancer survivor, and someone who believes that we are not defined by the most difficult aspects of our story.

Written by Terri Wingham | April 9, 2015

Life is a constant circle of endings and beginnings. Beginning is never easy. Here is a perfect passage by David Whyte that one of our Delhi 2015 tribe shared with our group. Are you ready for a new beginning?

BEGINNING

well or beginning poorly, what is important is simply to begin, but the ability to make a good beginning is also an art form, beginning well involves a courageous clearing away of the confusing, the cluttered and the complicated to find the beautiful, often hidden lineaments of the essential and the necessary.

photo-43Beginning is difficult, and our procrastination is a fine, ever-present measure of our reluctance in taking that first close-in, courageous step to reclaiming our happiness. Perhaps, because taking a new step always begins from the central foundational core of the body and leads to an equally physical, radical and internal simplification; where, suddenly, very large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, parts of us still rehearsing the old complicated story, are suddenly out of a job. There occurs in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us too afraid to participate or having nothing new to offer, are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma. In effect we must sit by the death bed of our own old, now departing wishes and come to the new step, learning that this new, less complicated self, and this very simple step, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead.

It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: which is why we so often prefer to live in an almost world, why we prefer the story to be more elaborate, our identities to be safely clouded by fear, why we want the horizon to remain always in the distance, the promise never fully and simply made, the essay longer than it needs to be and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.

‘BEGINNING’ From CONSOLATIONS:
The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning
of Everyday Words
© 2015 David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

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