When an idea catches my mind more than once, I begin to observe the idea more closely.  I hold it up to the light, roll it around, set it in new places, and view it from odd angles.  I take it apart, getting a good look at how it works, holding each piece on their own before putting it back together.  I rearrange it like furniture and experiment with how it can be used in ways I hadn’t yet imagined.  

I have been doing this recently with the phrase “change your mind,” and exploring how the expression means much more than simply being open to changing my opinions. 

It’s true I see this call to change as an invitation to open my mind to alternate perspectives, find where my assumptions may be limiting, and simply continue learning. But I have also begun to form a new framework.  As I played around with different ways this phrase could be useful and applied in my own life, I understood it not to be a moment of redirection, but of practice. 

I am in charge of changing my mind, unbound to anything I’ve been or done before. I cultivate who I want to be tomorrow in this moment.  I extend the calm of meditation through the day and breathe a prayer for strength over my coffee—though sometimes I feel lonely and anxious.  I am a mountain. Strong. Stable. Steady.  I fuel the adaptations of growth with hymns of self-love, poetry of gratefulness and presence, with playfulness and moments of joy, with intimate connection and deep rest, because sometimes changing your mind isn’t a radical shift of opinion or even an “aha” moment, but a slow, graceful practice of faith.