POETRY

Final Words of My Future Self

A hybrid prose poem & essay about a New Year's Day guided holotropic breathing session… with intentionality!

“This is as far as I can take you,”

said a voice I later realized as mine, but not quite mine — at least, not yet — but a bit more gravelly, a shade more grave, maybe older, braver,

perhaps a score more grizzled, weathered by weather, whether-or-nots, and other weary whatnots assumedly,

in my quest to find a future version of myself — or in his case, in the other guy’s quest to help a prior version of himself — eh, that is myself — into the wonderful realm of self-actualization — and there I go splitting hairs again

— forgive me, I’ve often struggled within the confusing, paradoxical, manifestation-of-intentionality self-help work — or to be honest, any type of self-help work — well actually,

as I’m constantly guided and encouraged on this path by a facilitator — herself a licensed behavioral health therapist — can this really be called self-help anymore? Quibbling with semantics while actively seeking to surrender rational thought

as the body is tasked with taking over for a spell, well this is but one of many fun contrarian internal battles roiling in liminal space between consciousness and whatever mysterious nonsense’s lurking just beneath.

The plan was to breathe into my diaphragm in a holotropic manner — that is, to a slowly intensifying shamanic rhythm provided by the facilitator’s sanitized tribal music — doing so with intention, moving towards wholeness,

and while doing so, closing my eyes, visualizing — again, with intentionality — which itself, is a word that seems to loom larger with each breath, insisting upon itself with each chanted repetition — conjuring a future version of myself on an opposite bank of a ravine,

or river, or stream, or crevasse, or some other impasse,

traversable only by viaduct, or ferry, or bridge,

or some other manmade causeway,

and upon crossing said impasse via said manmade causeway,

I was to look upon my self-actualized, holotropic-manifested future-self construct and interact with him with — and say it with me now; intentionality — seeking some type of words of wisdom that would compel or inspire present me to invest future hard work into manifesting future him

– or future me, I think you get the gist — into actuality,

which would eventually become be my actual intentional future.

Or something like that.

Whatever the plan was, what it did not involve was the wholly unintentional, massive wall I visualized in the space between me and the other guy — you, know… the other me that’s not here yet — yeah, I know

it all seems a bit muddy, but just take my word for it for now — with each breath, somehow it’ll all just fit into place — just stick with me and be intentional till the end, it’s going somewhere, I think.

I mean, at least, that’s what the facilitator said, and though I was initially skeptical, she sure seemed to know her stuff,

for I was instructed that should things go awry, should I doubt the process — which I kinda did at the time — or should I doubt myself — which I very much did all the time, every time, awake or asleep or within semiconscious holotropic stupor –

should things to awry — which they did — I should, in fact, just keep breathing holotropically — which, if I let spellchecker have its way, isn’t even a word yet,

but it was certainly what I continued to do until the impassible wall magically morphed into an imposing, nigh-impassible bridge, its midspan rising,

obscuring the opposite bank where future me allegedly awaited the arrival of present me,

but try as I might, I could make no headway, not even when I fast-walked within my oxygen-drunk mind’s eye.

Suddenly a gust blew me back to where I began, and there a storm swirled around me, beyond me, pushing left-to-right on the near bank, and right-to-left on the opposite bank,

the storm intensified, compressing the bridge before me into a swirling, broiling singularity

which brought me to tears each time I tried observing her

– and don’t even ask me how the odd, storming entity before me could possibly be feminine in origin because I don’t even know,

but all I know is that

she had grown powerful and enraged from decades of being ignored and marginalized,

so if that’s how she presents herself to me, then damn it all, I’ll believe her.

“This is as far as I can take you,” said the voice I later recognized as mine, but not quite mine yet. Though I still couldn’t see him, I somehow knew future me was speaking to me from across the ravine —

or river, or stream, or crevasse, or some other impasse, with impassable bridge now warped by oxygenated unreality manifested as raging, concentrated cyclone,

the path obscured, blocked by that storming, swirling singularity

that felt like ominous, inevitable, emotional obliteration to even gaze upon it.

That’s when it hit me.

Oh no, I thought to myself.

I began to weep uncontrollably, though there was no tangibility;

no semblance of sad thoughts attached to the tears.

Oh no, no, no, no, no.

As emotions overwhelmed me, while I couldn’t discern the specific cause, somehow, holistically, in totality, I knew.

Please, not that.

“So you finally recognize it,” said the voice of future me, almost bemused. “This storm which blocks the path between you and me. You know it well, don’t you?”

I nod grimly, saying nothing. I don’t know if he can see me. I don’t know if that matters.

“That is your grief,” he said.

“And yes,” he continued, “I say it is yours because it is no longer mine. For while still present, with time and effort, my grief no longer rules over me as it overwhelms you here.

“And yes, my unfortunate younger self, this is the sum of all agony you’ve ever tried avoiding;

“every trauma and abuse visited upon us in our childhood that you zipped-up, compartmentalized, and repackaged as so many tasteless glib jokes, they still dwell here, unprocessed, charged to full-capacity,

“poised to deliver their toxic payloads to that ravenous pain-body of yours the moment a trigger wanders close enough to close the circuit.

“Do you recall feeling every deep wound within you, the ones that nearly cleaved your soul from your spine, the ones left by former lovers that you foolishly thought you could outrun, or numb with whiskey, video games, and casual sex?

“I’m sad to say, but they still fester here too.

“But there’s still more,” the voice continued grimly. “All of the loved ones you’ve lost over the course of your fifty years — the ones that you couldn’t be bothered to mourn because there were always more pressing matters –

“they’re all right there between us, and to get to me,” the voice trails off, “well…”

I don’t know why he didn’t continue his thought to its logical conclusion. I don’t know if he needed to.

“I can barely look upon her, let alone touch her,” I whisper to both of my selves, with tears flowing freely.

“I know,” said the voice of my future self, and though I still couldn’t see him, I could feel the weight of empathy in his voice, as we both wept silently.

“That is to say,” he said to me, “I remember.

“But trust, you can. And bit by bit, I swear you will.”

“It’s time to start coming back,” said the facilitator, the tone and tempo of the music shifting to one of healing, renewal. As I began to breathe normally, the winds slowly faded, dissipating like dew-drenched dawn fog at sunrise, rising, dispersing as mist,

as did the presence of my future self, along with his voice — that is to say, my voice, eventually. But before my return to my reality, I heard the final words of my future self:

“And don’t fret too much about timelines, semantics, intentionality, and whatnot,” the voice of my future self said, and though I’d never laid eyes on him throughout this entire session, I could clearly tell by his tone that he was smirking.

“Don’t worry, young man; I’ll see you soon.”

Wikipedia describes holotropic breathwork as:

“A practice that uses rapid breathing and other elements such as music to put individuals in altered states of consciousness.”

Other work by Barry: