Holding My Breath - A Blog Series

Remember back to when you were a kid. Do you remember a time where you tried to see how long you could 'hold you breath'? Sometimes this would occur with a friend in a pool and each of you would descend underwater and see who could last the longest. The last person to emerge from the water would 'win'. I have come to a place--as an adult--that the practice of 'holding my breath' can be beneficial when applied in a different way: to my thinking.

To understand a bit more about what I mean by this, let us break down the basic stages involved in holding our breath:

Inhaling - The act of 'breathing in' something; air, smoke, gas

Holding - The act of 'sitting with' the inhaled 'thing' and experiencing life as long as one can without releasing that which was inhaled.

Exhaling - The act of emission or releasing; to breathe out.

If we consider these basic stages and apply them to the idea of our *thinking*, we might be able to come up with a structure that looks like this:

Inhaling - The idea or 'thought' to inhale. I have found that "I am..." statements are particularly provocative as they suggest some statement about my *identity*. Our identity reflects the way we identify ourselves to the world. Identity can also be 'projected' onto me by others--how others templatize and objectify me based on my immutable characteristics or the ways I express myself. Consider the following 'identity' statements that are continually wielded throughout and across tribes in our current society: Racist, Mysogonyst, Groomer, Woke, Apostate, Oppressor, Idiot

Holding - The process of considering my 'existential truth' related to the identity inhaled. How does my mind evaluate the 'I am...' inhaled and what are the ways I consider it? Typically during the 'holding' process, several stages of resistance are encountered:

• Stage 1 - I don't know it to be true

• Stage 2 - I don't think it to be true

• Stage 3 - I don't believe it to be true

• Stage 4 - I don't want it to be true

Exhaling - The act of releasing and expressing the ways I might have changed as a consequence of the deep consideration given to the inhaled identity. Do I settle back into my 'old way' of thinking that I possessed prior to inhaling? What thought do I get 'stuck' on and cannot get past? Do I now possess greater clarity about myself?

This blog will act as my creative outlet for exhaling. I will seek to synthesize and narrate the various patterns of thinking and narratives that go on inside me as I wrestle with current issue "identities" brokered across societal tribes at war with each other. This act will be incredibly difficult because I must consider my 'existential truth'—things about me that only I know about—my secrets if you will. A quick note about me: I identify as "Tribe-less but for the human race". This is an aspirational statement. Typically, I have found that the last Tribe we consider can often be the most important "I am" statement we can make: I am a human being. Each blog will seek to stay rooted and grounded in my humanity. My act of "being and becoming". We rarely, if ever, change our identities. In my experience, I have found that often these moments--which rarely, if ever occur--come accompanied with crisis and suffering.