Breathing Room

Why the Quality of Movement Matters More Than Speed (Part 1 of 4)

After I published Embrace the Confusion, I was struck by the depth of engagement it sparked. Readers didn’t simply absorb the ideas in the essay, they wrestled with them in the comments.

One response stayed with me, challenging a phrase at the heart of the piece:

Move first, understand later.

“Perhaps breathe is a more appropriate verb,” the reader suggested. “Breathe first, understand later. To breathe is to both move and be still.”

That insight opened a doorway into deeper understanding of the essay’s themes, one I didn’t even know was there.

It wasn’t a disagreement about the need for action. It was a deeper question about the quality of our action. The reader continued:

“We breathe in the fog and make it part of us. Take from it what we need, some small understanding. Then we exhale that which we don’t require, freeing us from some small burden.”

Their words stopped me. Not because they contradicted what I had written, but because they revealed what I hadn’t yet fully understood:

Not all movement is created equal.

Some movement is frantic. Some movement is faithful. Some movement flows from stillness, and some movement flees from it. How we move after we embrace our confusion makes all the difference.

This is Part 1 of a four-part meditation on confusion, clarity, motion, and meaning, each sparked by that robust exchange. To begin, consider this preliminary question:

What if the most meaningful movement isn’t about doing more, but about learning how—and why—we move at all?

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The Spectrum of Movement

When I first wrote “move first, understand later,” I was thinking about the way confusion can harden into paralysis.

Those moments when uncertainty becomes a trap, a loop of overthinking and hesitation that prevents creatives from sharing their work with the world. We wait, we freeze, we analyze, hoping in each instance that clarity will arrive before we commit to anything real.

I’ve lived those moments.

I’ve spent days, even weeks, circling around a single decision. Not because the choice was so complex, but because the fear of making the wrong move kept me stuck. I convinced myself that I was being prudent and cautious. But in reality, I was paralyzed.

That was the spirit behind my original phrase, an invitation to act before full clarity arises. To move as a way of gathering information. To break the spell of perfectionism.

But the reader heard something different.

They heard potential recklessness. They heard movement without mindfulness, action without awareness, decision without analysis.

“To move is to make a choice in direction,” they wrote. “Choices made in confusion are more likely to be less considered and higher in risk.”

And, they weren’t wrong.

There is absolutely a kind of movement that is reactive rather than responsive, driven by anxiety and fear rather than wisdom and discernment. A kind of movement that creates more problems than it solves, that multiplies confusion instead of clarifying it.

I know that kind of movement too.

I’ve sent the hasty email, made the reactive phone call, uttered the defensive comment, forced the next step just to relieve the discomfort of not knowing. In those moments, I wasn’t responding. I was escaping.

That’s what I’ve come to think of as the movement of flight. A frantic motion away from discomfort and uncertainty, rather than toward wisdom and discernment.

But there’s another kind of movement this exchange revealed.

A kind that emerges not from panic, but from presence. Movement that is grounded, discerning, and connected to reality. Movement that is slow enough to carry the weight of intention, but swift enough to interrupt inertia.

The reader’s suggestion that we breathe captured this beautifully.

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Breath, Presence, and the False Binary

Breathing is one of the most mysterious actions the human body performs.

It is both voluntary and involuntary, conscious and unconscious, something we do and something that happens to us when we are not paying attention. We can control our breath, but we don’t have to. We can direct it, but it continues without our permission. Breath is a bridge between doing and being, between effort and surrender.

The reader expanded on this:

“Breathing is an active process that creates biological changes within our bodies. Our nervous system becomes more regulated, blood flow to organs increases, and changes in neural activity occur within our brains. That’s a lot of beneficial movement in a moment of stillness and focus.”

This helped me see something I hadn’t named clearly before. Some of our most powerful movements—such as breath—occur in moments that appear as stillness.

When we consciously pause to breathe, we’re not stopping our movement. We’re simply shifting its direction inward toward regulation, toward clarity, toward deep presence.

Breathing is not passive.

It is transformative. It regulates the nervous system, sharpens our awareness, and creates the conditions for wise action. It’s what allows us to respond, not simply react.

And spiritual traditions across the world have long understood this. In centering prayer, in mindfulness practice, in yoga and martial arts, the breath is both teacher and guide. Even in singing or public speaking, the breath determines the integrity of your gift to the world. You cannot fake your way through breath.

In this sense, breath is spiritual. It allows us to act without rushing into movement, to wait without disengaging from action.

Once we arrive at the conclusion that breath itself can represent both movement and stillness, we begin to understand how this dialogue about the dangers of embracing confusion revealed a false choice that runs through much of our thinking about action.

We are taught to believe that we must either move or be still, act or reflect, engage or withdraw.

But breath shows us a third way: moving stillness, active receptivity, engaged presence.

When we breathe consciously, we’re simultaneously:

• Moving (the diaphragm rises and falls, air flows in and out);

• Still (the mind quiets, the body settles, awareness deepens);

• Active (we’re directing attention, making choices about rhythm and depth); and

• Receptive (we’re allowing the natural process to unfold, following rather than forcing)

This insight challenges our binary thinking, suggesting that the most skillful responses to confusion might include both movement and stillness, both engagement and reflection.

In my own experience, when I’ve faced conflict—a tense conversation, harsh feedback, miscommunication or misunderstanding—there’s always the temptation to respond with defensiveness and over-explanation. To act. To clarify. To fix.

But one of the wisest choices I’ve made to improve my communication is the begin with breath. Just a few seconds of conscious pause. Enough time to notice my heartbeat.

Enough space to ask myself: “What’s really happening here?”

That breath—that preliminary movement—didn’t delay my response. It shaped it. It allowed my next words to come from presence, not panic.

Sometimes breath is the boldest action we can take.

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Integration and the Gift of Dialogue

What inspires me most about this exchange is how the reader’s challenge deepened—rather than dismissed—the original insight about embracing confusion.

They didn’t say, “You’re wrong about movement.” They said, “What about this quality of movement?” They didn’t negate the value of acting in the face of uncertainty. They expanded on the definition of what skillful action might include.

Their critique became a gift.

It revealed blind spots in my thinking and opened new pathways for understanding. And this is what generous engagement makes possible. Not a contest of perspectives, but a collaboration, an act of co-learning.

The reader’s insight about breath didn’t replace the original insight about movement. It enriched it. It added nuance, subtlety, and wisdom to what might otherwise have been a one-dimensional message.

Perhaps what the reader was really offering was breathing room, literally and metaphorically. Room to embrace confusion without immediately trying to solve it. Room to feel uncertainty without sprinting toward false clarity. Room to discover what’s lingering beneath the fog.

To be sure, this doesn’t mean endless analysis.

It means creating enough stillness—through active breath, through embodied presence, through conscious stillness—for wisdom to emerge.

Sometimes what arises is the clarity to act. Other times, it’s the recognition that action isn’t needed yet. And on occasion, it’s a question we hadn’t even thought to ask.

As I reflect on this dialogue that emerged within the comments section of my essay, I’m struck by how much it demonstrates the very principle that it explores: the delicate dance between movement and breath.

The reader breathed space into the conversation. They slowed things down. Asked deeper questions. Invited more careful consideration.

I responded by building upon their insight. Engaging, not defending. Moving the conversation forward with curiosity while letting it deepen with mutual engagement.

Neither of us was static. Neither of us was rushing. We were both moving, both breathing, both creating something new through our engagement.

This, I think, is what skillful action in the face of confusion can look like. Not choosing between movement and stillness, not chasing a specified outcome born from a desire to control the future, but discerning what the moment truly calls for.

Sometimes that’s bold action.

Sometimes it’s quiet breath.

Most of the time, it’s both.

And perhaps that’s the deepest insight of all. Confusion isn’t asking us to choose between moving and breathing.

It’s inviting us to discover how to do both—together—in service of what life is asking from us, right here, right now.

In solidarity,

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P.S. As always, thank you for reading this edition of Freedom Papers. If you found this piece meaningful, share it with a friend. If it moved you, consider supporting with a paid subscription or buying me a coffee. This creative exploration happens because readers like you believe words and stories matter.

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