We can know a person so well that we stop listening for anything new. We can replay an old mistake until it becomes a permanent description of ourselves. And we can assume that strength means needing less from other people. This morning’s reading pushes back on each of those habits. One writer looks for freshness in familiar places, another offers a way into self-forgiveness, and a researcher finds a surprisingly tender lesson in the social lives of great apes.
The Power of Beginner’s Mind
Mindful · Shamash Alidina · September 25, 2026
Shamash Alidina begins at a park café, watching a child play in a puddle and another learn to ride a bicycle. The scenes are ordinary enough to disappear into the background of a daily walk. That is precisely his point: when we think we already know a place, a person, or a routine, we may stop noticing what is actually happening there.
Alidina draws on the Zen idea of beginner’s mind, sometimes called shoshin. He isn’t asking experienced people to forget what they know. He is asking them to leave a little room for surprise. His example of a familiar conversation is especially good. If you are already rehearsing your reply because you “know” what the other person is going to say, you may miss the slight change in tone that matters most.
For coaches and mindfulness teachers, this goes beyond a pleasant exercise in noticing trees. Experience helps us recognize patterns, but it can also make a client’s story sound familiar too soon. The article is worth reading for that gentle challenge to professional certainty. It offers several short practices, and its best invitation may be the simplest: pay attention before you decide what this moment is.
Try this: During one familiar conversation today, catch yourself preparing your answer. Pause and listen for one detail you had not expected.
Read the original: https://www.mindful.org/the-power-of-beginners-mind/
Forgiveness Is an Inside Job
Mindful · Carley Hauck · September 21, 2026
Some hurts last partly because we keep arguing the case in our heads. Carley Hauck writes about the stories that gather around a difficult exchange: what the other person did, what we should have said, and what our own reaction supposedly says about us. Her starting point is to notice and name the feelings underneath that story before trying to resolve it.
Hauck offers two self-forgiveness practices, including writing a letter to yourself and finding a kind phrase you can use when blame takes over. Neither requires you to decide that someone else’s behavior was acceptable. She explicitly makes room for boundaries. That distinction matters, especially for readers who hear “forgive” as an instruction to return to a relationship or dismiss a real injury.
We picked this piece because it gives a word like forgiveness somewhere practical to begin. In a coaching or personal-growth setting, people can feel pressure to announce that they have “let go” long before they understand what they are still carrying. Naming anger, disappointment, or embarrassment is a smaller and more honest first move. Hauck presents these as contemplative practices, not as a guaranteed way to repair every relationship.
Try this: If an old exchange keeps replaying, write one sentence beginning “I felt…” before writing anything about what the other person intended.
Read the original: https://www.mindful.org/forgiveness-is-an-inside-job/
What Chimps Can Teach Us About Male Friendships
Greater Good Magazine · Jake Brooker · September 21, 2026
Jake Brooker studies social behavior in great apes. His article takes aim at a familiar image of the “alpha male” as someone who wins by dominating everyone around him. Chimpanzees do compete, sometimes fiercely. But Brooker describes alliances, grooming, reassurance, and care among males as parts of the same social world. One scene stays with you: after a dominant chimpanzee is badly shaken by an attack, other members of his group gather to comfort him.
The human lesson is offered with care. We cannot simply copy animal behavior or use it as proof of how every man should live. Brooker’s research does, however, make the claim that tenderness is somehow unnatural to males look rather thin. He also moves from observation to two modest suggestions for friendship: spend time alongside someone without demanding an intimate conversation, and make contact before a crisis rather than waiting for one.
This is a useful read for anyone who works with men, but it is just as relevant to the rest of us. Support often looks less like the perfect question and more like being regularly available. A drive together, a game, or a walk gives a friendship room to grow without making each meeting a formal discussion of feelings.
Try this: Invite someone you care about to do an ordinary activity together this week, with no problem to solve and no special occasion required.
Read the original: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_chimps_can_teach_us_about_male_friendships
