I Learned This the Same Time You Did

On using an old tool for a very modern problem

Once again, I’m sitting at my desk. Yes, I know, it’s getting old, but soon, that will be a thing of the past. My new desk is a standing desk, so in the future, I’ll start every article with “Once again, I’m standing at my desk”. Fine, that was a joke, but since I try to make all of my articles sound more conversational, I just naturally start with my current situation, which, oddly enough when writing, is sitting, or standing, at my desk.

A quick aside on the name “article”. I, behind the scenes, call these essays. But for me, and probably you, essay carries a connotation of something forced upon you. Something required. Something that has to fit within certain rules. I wanted what I write to be a little freer, a little more voluntarily taken on. After some time, and a few well-timed YouTube algorithmic synchronicities, I saw a video, or two, raving about the craft of essay writing. Originally, Montaigne, the inventor of the essay, used them as a way to learn new things. In order to write an essay, you have to think. You have take new ideas, or new information, and incorporate them into your existing knowledge base. Like chewing a salad. The lettuce and the tomatoes all get mushed and mixed around, you swallow them, and after a while… Well, maybe this isn’t the best way to describe what I’m writing. Essay is what I call them. And they do for me exactly what they were designed to do. They teach me, or rather, provide the vehicle for my learning.

When you write an essay, you start with a topic, or idea, that you either believe or don’t believe. Then you start your research to prove, or disprove, that idea. And there’s a good chance you’ll come up with contrasting information with both pros and cons to the idea you’re working on. And that’s good. That exercises you beliefs and strengthens your critical thinking. And that helps you to absorb the topic deeper into your mind. You digest it rather than just pass it through the ear canal between the left ear and the right ear. It has time to ferment in the gray matter.

And when I started all of this, I knew so, so little. I knew some about the brain and how anxiety works. But I didn’t know about the exhale. I learned that in The What. And I developed that knowledge in The Way. I used the power of essay to learn new things that challenged and supplemented what I knew, or thought I knew. And you read those alongside my writing them. So we kinda learned it together. Maybe just off by a few days, but still, that’s pretty wild. Knowledge that humankind has known for centuries and now it’s ours! Mwah-ha-ha-ha! Feel the power!

When I started all of this, I knew exactly where it would go. I would share a few thoughts on the brain and then spend the next few essays telling you about Taoism and Zen Buddhism and then… Well, I’m sure more ideas would come to me. And that all went out the window pretty quickly when I started to learn things. And something magic happened. My topic list started growing. And growing so fast, I’m not even sure I’m going to be able to write all of them as essays. Or at least individual essays. I may have to combine some. Like this one. This was supposed to be about what I learned about the exhale, and I included what I learned about essays. I have so many ideas to share, I’ve decided some of them will probably be better as Substack notes. Or Tweets. Or Instagram posts. Some might be all of the above. It’s exciting to think I’ve got enough fodder for a whole mountain, when I was worried I would be pumping at a dry well.

So the essays became my discovery log. The topics are things I knew about, or had an interest in, but they were all at the surface level. Like The Optometrist Moment from last week. I didn’t know my eyesight issue was stress related until my optometrist told me. In The Way, I knew the breath was important, but I didn’t know the mechanism until I wrote the essay. I learned all of this at the same time you did. We’re walking that path, not with me in the lead, leaving notes for you along the way. We’re walking side-by-side and I’m telling you what I’m finding as I find it.

Right now, my wife and I are selling our current house and moving into our new house. Well, we’re in the process of both, and the stress levels are off the charts. My eyes aren’t helping as that adds a whole new level of anxiety. Even though I know the cause is stress, and I’m doing my breathing exercises, my Sarge is still armed and dangerous.

We were driving yesterday, and my wife, who’s dealing with maybe more stress than me, (I mean, she has to deal with me, on top of all of this other stress) was really feeling it. I told her about the exhale rule, to make the exhale longer than the inhale. She did. She did the breathing, 4 seconds in, 8 seconds out, for about 2 minutes. I watched her. Breathing in, breathing out. And I watched her demeanor change. After those two minutes, she was noticeably calmer. Her voice was more relaxed, her cadence was slower. She had calmed herself down with a technique I had just learned and that I was able to share with her.

I’ve been catching myself when my anxiety starts to peak, and I start my breathing. 4 seconds in, 8 seconds out. And it really does help me get back to me. Exhaling longer than the inhale soothes the vagus nerve and tells your body that everything is okay. That it’s time to rest and digest. And knowing it happens when I do it, and then seeing it happen, in real time, when she did it made me so excited that I was able to learn things that directly helped her. That directly made her life a little better. I mean, that’s the whole point of sharing your life with someone, isn’t it?

Three essays in, and I’ve learned that I’m still able to learn when I let myself be open to it. The potential in that is enormous. Suzuki, the great Zen master, says, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few”. Taoists say that not-knowing is the condition necessary for learning. A full cup has no room for more tea, but an empty cup has plenty.

So I think The Way is more than just a title about the exhale and how it affects your anxiety level. I think this whole thing, Relazation, is the way. The way to learn. The way to live with anxiety. The way to move forward. And now I’ve realized the best part, that I’m not ahead of you. I’m right here, with you, as you take every step along your way. So slow down. Be quiet.

— R