You see, there was once a Japanese Zen Master named Nan-In. One day, a highly educated scholar came to Nan-In to inquire about Zen. This visitor thought of himself as being very intelligent and ready for anything that this quaint old man could possibly teach him.

“Tell me about your most complex teachings,” the man said, “for I am a scholar and able to comprehend the most challenging ideas.”

At first, Nan-In said nothing, but served his guest tea and began to fill his cup. He kept pouring, and pouring, and pouring…

…as the tea overflowed the cup and began to run all over the floor.

The guest suddenly became distressed and agitated.

“Stop! The tea is overflowing! No more can go in the cup!” the scholar cried.

To this Nan-In replied:

“Just like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

This is true for so many people who wonder why they struggle to improve!

In order to truly grow, sometimes we need to make some space.

And while getting rid of old dysfunctional ways of thinking and acting that don’t serve you anymore sounds great...

…rooting out and deleting these old mechanisms isn’t always easy to do.

We often instinctively resist anything that challenges our preconceived notions about ourselves and the world around us because we’ve become deeply identified with our own ideologies and conceptions.

When our minds are already full to overflowing with our own ideas and opinions, there’s no room for anything else. That doesn’t mean we have to abandon all our beliefs. But it does mean we have to be willing to empty the tea cup from time to time in order to improve our lives with a new, hot cup of tea.

Now me? I’m not much of a tea drinker. I like my coffee, and as all my friends and colleagues know, my first cup of coffee in the morning is my favorite part of my morning routine.

But sometimes I pour that first cuppa joe and get busy or distracted before I can get around to drinking it. When I finally take my first sip: ugh! What’s worse than a cold, stale cup of coffee? (Okay, plenty of things, but you get my point).

To expand on Nan-In’s lesson…

…sometimes a full cup of tea (or coffee) can go cold and stale.

And so can our opinions and ideas about who we are and how we should be living our lives.

These beliefs and opinions may have been fresh years ago. But sometimes they can go bad, meaning, they no longer serve us and can actually hold us back or even poison our attempts to grow and change.

At Centerpointe, we often encounter clients whose beliefs or ideas or values aren’t serving them anymore. Maybe they inherited them from a well-meaning authority figure. Maybe they got them from their parents or peers. Maybe they adopted them from their teachers, pastors, or other older, wiser influential mentors.

And sometimes, they got their ideas from decidedly unhealthy influencers.

Yet we can become so attached to our maps that we confuse them with how the world really is. And as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the world is an ever-changing place.

So what happens when we mistake the map for the territory? What happens when we becom e so identified with that map of beliefs or opinions that we become closed off from change and growth?

Sometimes we resist examining our values and beliefs because we fear losing them, or we’re convinced that our beliefs are correct and that questioning them introduces some element of uncertainty into our lives we’re unwilling to tolerate.

But what happens when we fail to “empty our cups” and hold onto old, dysfunctional beliefs and patterns of behavior?

• Negative & toxic emotions like depression and anxiety steal our happiness and create a life of disappointment and frustration.
• We resist change and new experiences that hold opportunities for more health, success, and happiness.
• We develop an adversarial and cynical relationship to the world around us, seeing only the negative in life.
• Our relationships can suffer as we lose the ability to relate to others in our lives.
• We might feel threatened when others around us are changing and we’re not.
• We sabotage ourselves in dozens of ways, like procrastinating, indulging in bad habits or even self-destructive behavior.
  

It takes some courage to empty the cup and be open to new ideas and ways of living. And it means mustering some self-honesty and taking a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror. Asking ourselves some questions is a good place to start.

Am I getting the results I want in life? Are my relationships healthy ones? Am I making good decisions? Am I taking care of myself? Am I happy?

Socrates reminds us that “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

We’re all capable of change, but only when we’re willing to take a look at our map, and make room in our tea cup for something fresh.

With the help of a skilled coach or therapist, along with some applied mindfulness and awareness, we can update our maps to better guide us on our path and make room in our cups for new opportunities to learn, grow, and succeed.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can examine your own internal values and beliefs and see if it’s time to update your map of reality, remember that Centerpointe offers professional coaching support and guidance with select Holosync suites and programs.

Reach out today. We’d love to hear from you!

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