Woke up with the Binary in my bed.

Good Morning reader,

I woke up today thinking about the binary. And I don't mean the math stuff. I'm not a genius. I mean opposites and pairs. This or that. Black or white. Man or Woman. Right or left. Rich or poor. Gay or Straight, etc. 

It's almost as if we as humans stopped exploring the fluidity of things after learning opposites in the first grade. We are so extreme in our desire to label things as right or wrong or good or bad that we miss out on the entire grand rainbow of experiences that this universe offers us. The paragon of people, of life. 

Maybe she's born with it. Maybe this clown fish is a hermaphrodite! (photo AAP)

How many times in a day am I attempting, poorly, to fit myself neatly into the binary of life? I'm constantly weighing my options, my words, my choices to judge if they pass. I guess I feel more comfortable when something is CLEARLY this or CLEARLY that. So I'm hoping to organize my life into concepts and collections of tiny boxes. It's like I would rather have a tiny box of "Right" than a mysterious, non-binary, formless experience of "Who knows?" That is too scary. Where do I put everything if there are no tiny boxes????!!!!

My brain and society wants to put all of us in our place. But I am finding as I age like a fine, fine package of half-eaten Oreos that the binary and my place in it is a childish illusion. The categories we put people and experiences in is harmful. The way we judge life and others in harmful. 

Why? Because none of us are This or That. We are all all. Your heroes are also capable of doing monstrous things. As am I. I am not all good. Neither are you. How grand! 

How can we hold all of the things at the same time? Is it possible? Won't we drop something important? Won't people get hurt? Won't we all be so confused that we will malfunction or some shit? If I can't label you, how will I exist near you?! We are like little human robots with iphone cameras looking at each other going "Hmmmmm. What are YOU." When we see something that does not fit into our diametric understanding of life..."Beep Beep. Boop Boop. DOES. NOT. COMPUTE." Malfunction!

So today, I'm challenging myself to challenge the binary that lives inside me. It is not all or nothing. It is all AND nothing. The essence of life, of everything is the same. So I can be gentle on life. I can be gentler with myself. And I can be gentler with you. 

So when I get overwhelmed and scared, when I see other scared people doing scary things... When I look at all these experiences and concepts and influences and energies in life --- and I want to run away or put them in a box and store them on my binary shelves--- I'm going to take a deep breath. 

One breath. In and out. 

I know that in that one breath, in inhaling and exhaling, I am able to hold all the things, just as they are. Because even in that binary action of pulling air in and letting it out, I am taking care of thousands of functions inside of my body. I am not actually doing two things - I'm a multitasking, mysterious, multifaceted creature made of star stuff doing my part as a living organism here on this earth. I'm connected to it all and can hold infinite possibilities at the same time. 

To me, that is the power of breath. In a simple in and out, I smash the binary-minded bigot inside

and find my everything. With one breath, I can learn to hold myself in all my multifaceted beingness. Which means in one breath, I can learn to hold you too. 

Breathe more. 

Label less. 

Let's taste the rainbow* together. xo

*Skittles gets credit for this.