Tumescence begins when undigested material in consciousness, extreme experiences, or repeated negative experiences accumulates and gets stuck. When these pockets of undigested experiences are activated, there is a disproportionate response. This backed-up energy is reactive, waiting to explode. Tumescence feels like inflammation, a buildup of pressure caused by the body’s natural response to physical, mental, spiritual, or sexual arousal. It is encoded with a message that it needs relief and release. That release usually comes through in the forms of reactivity that we are most habituated to: fight, flight, freeze, or fawning behavior. It is a cluster of energy that takes on its own life and gets activated with the introduction of arousal.
In many traditions, the answer is restraint. In Eros, we exploit it and convert it to energy in order to further power our attention. Tumescence often feels like a lurking stranger, yet its creep is all too familiar. It is constantly gathering sensations, emotions, ideas, and experiences of our raw Erotic wants and needs.
When we experience this arousal, we begin to fill up. We feel an upsurge in our bodies, our hearts begin to beat faster, our spirits awaken, we become more aware, we feel more alive. We often experience the desire to cast aside convention, to expose our true self, to live from our primal, animal nature.
One way tumescence is activated is when a situation occurs that is the same tone as a past circumstance that caused the block—something we avoided, turned away from, or denied. The undigested material is reactivated, and our response is not only to the situation in front of us; it also carries with it all the historical pain and trauma from when we previously experienced it and couldn’t express what we were feeling.
Another way tumescence can be activated is when a random influx of energy, positive or negative, enters and triggers the existing accumulation. Anytime there is an increase in energy, like when we experience a coveted event or we fall in love, that influx of energy opens the pocket of backed-up pain.
We could be suddenly consumed by a memory of loss, of a broken heart, or an overall feeling of sadness. We often have the faucets so tightly closed precisely because there is so much backed-up energy. When the spigot is turned on, we feel a loss of control, an overwhelming sense of what has been suppressed, and this can seem unbearable.
If not activated, tumescence can leak into the background, emitting an underlying feeling of irritability and dissatisfaction. If we do not deal with tumescence, we will always suffer from low-grade discontent. It often presents as complaint—“These things are not enough,” “I am not enough,”—as well as fear and staying small.
Once activated, if the level of energy is stronger than our attention, it will act through us, taking on an automatic and non-volitional quality. This is where we get the idea that energy activation is dangerous. The actual danger is simply the inability to match attention to the level of activation. It doesn’t even have to be our own attention, it can come from someone else. This is the role often played by healers, guides, and therapists.
Activation is met thoroughly when we are connecting with an attention stronger than our own. With attention and holding, this energy can be cycled back into our system and converted to power we can make use of in constructive ways. More often though, we constrict or try to block energy activation because we have no idea there is a way to confront it, and after confronting it, to use it for good.
