Healing the psyche is no more dramatic than learning to stroke the mind and allowing life to stroke us. We get caught up in the content of our discomfort, but the content is the outcome of skillful or unskillful internal stroking. We then abstract our discomfort into ideas about ideas that proliferate into branches rather than following it down to the root cause. And so we have abstractions chasing abstractions. We have ideas about cures chasing ideas about causes, which in turn, because abstractions can never heal reality, cause more discomfort.
They bring us further out of the body and into more abstract causes. Soon, we are diagnosing and prescribing ideas, never touching cause nor cure. At this point, the disconnected body cranks up the communication as a call to the abstraction-chasing mind to return. It develops louder and louder symptoms, employing the use of heavy pressure as a means of getting our attention.
The most common cause of psychic discomfort is a lack of facility with heavy pressure stroking the mind. Because the mind can get overstimulated in the world, we can attempt to stroke down using pressure that is too heavy or that has impurities. A good, heavy pressure mind stroke faces the sensation of hyperarousal, panic, and catastrophic thinking with a direct, clear, clean pressure. It increases solidity and power of awareness, and applies steady and direct pressure on these sensations.
For example, panic or catastrophic thinking happens and uncontracted attention, occurring as anger, says a simple version of “no” until the agitated or panicked mind is subdued. We use the power of attention to cut through pockets of tumescence, freeing up the knotted spots. As the knots are undone, the content released alchemizes into power. Our attention directs that power to penetrate the threshold of tumescence that otherwise obscures the mystical state.
Three aspects are important: we must look directly at the agitation; we must apply firm steady pressure without engaging thought; and we must not add anything such as punishment, judgment, self-beratement, or self-pity. In essence, we are watching the tumescent mind gnawing and biting and running in circles, standing up and out of the body, so our attention must demonstrate that we are the master and it can relax and let go.
It will continue to try to lead until it is clear there is someone leading. Just as in OM, the strokee will try to add in all kinds of extra until she knows her stroker can stroke her better than she could stroke herself, and until the pressure is strong enough to break through tumescence.
If the looking is not direct enough, steady enough, or with enough pressure, attention will end up spinning in a circle of tumescent tail-chasing. We must hold it down or get carried away by it. There is a part of the mind that can cower in a corner afraid of itself—this is the part that must stand up within, and face down the voices of tumescence. Of course, the tumescence dissolves when it knows we will not stop the steady, direct pressure. It will go down, release, and relax—discharging the energy back into the body.
It is quite simple except we have had tremendous mis-training with the mind. First and foremost, we have minds trained to not surrender to the body, but in fact, fight the body. The body is the only location of a power strong enough to contend with the wily nature of the tumescent mind. OM is good for this in that it begins to build a line of connection not only with the body but with the Erotic aspect of the body where power lies.
The next aspect is that we have been trained to respond to hyperarousal with sensitivity, and to tumescent discomfort with light strokes of affirmation or positive thinking. This simply does not work, ever. It only adds another layer of tumescence on top. It is like giving sugar to a tantrum-throwing child. They will not only be temporarily appeased, but the sugar will then turn to rocket fuel to heighten the tantrum.
Affirmations given to a tumescent mind only affirm tumescence. Positive thinking given to a tumescent mind only positively reinforces tumescence. We become ever more fragile, terrified of our own minds, withdrawing consciousness further and further from the body until the body is then forced to revolt. A body in revolt is a body where the tumescent mind did not get the heavy pressure it needed. Tumescence loves company, and just as two Erotic bodies can connect, so, too, can two tumescent minds.
Once they are locked, it is very challenging to unlock them. A favorite lock is a shared injustice. It works well with the favorite positions of the tumescent mind: victim, villain, and savior. In the position of shared injustice, the tumescent mind connected to another gets to perform the glory and drama of one who is living in purpose without risk. They can play savior to the other tumescent mind, offering what their own tumescent mind would want: company without the pressure or truth that would dissolve the tumescence.
They get the exaggerated feeling of being the one who will come to the rescue and develop a commerce of being the victim who the other person rescues, without the risk of exposure that the Erotic body would require. This locked pair can recirculate affirmations to each other’s tumescence without ever penetrating or threatening it. In the training of the mind locked in heavy pressure, something of great importance is to not allow that mind to close the loop with another tumescent mind.
The mind in this state is an open loop. If it locks in with another tumescent mind it will begin to affirm the tumescent state, and the mind will close down. It then begins to circulate the panic, rationalizations, and negative thinking of tumescence. This is the worst form of golden handcuffs because there is just enough comfort in the connection that the mind is not forced to seek out the heavy pressure that would heal it.
If we are the person who closes the loop with someone in this state, we are the person who ensures they will remain there no matter how positive, kind, or well-intentioned. The only solution is the firm application of direct pressure to the source of tumescence. When the person does not make themselves available for this, we can simply not stroke so that they can hit a state of discomfort that makes them willing to find the true healing of firm pressure.
A final misunderstanding is a confusion between heavy pressure and the sources that often stimulate it. Heavy pressure is in no way punitive and it should be quite flexible. If we are endlessly beating ourselves up for example, this is a misapplication of heavy pressure. It is a mind addicted to climax that goes into overdrive between torment and then explosion. The minute it comes back to normal, the tumescent mind takes over and untrained awareness gets to work beating it up in overdrive to create a great mental crescendo.
This takes the form of anything from a breakdown, a fight, yelling, crying, to self-hatred. If the mind has so positioned itself against the body that it cannot express these climactic forms, it will turn to sickness. Shame, self-hatred, and self-criticism happen when we are attempting to stroke ourselves poorly. It is the unconscious version of heavy pressure. The answer is to wake up and determine that you will stand up in your own mind and that the only way to have the power to stand up is to have deeper attention firmly rooted in the body.
The mind will want to collapse under the tumescent buildup or it will revolt with increased catastrophic thinking. The way forward is to anchor even further into the body with even more determination. It is as if the mind will test us in whether or not it can let go. It will try everything and be at its worst right before it is ready to go down. We will know it is subdued when there is a feeling of calm comfort.
The tumescent mind will almost nestle up to us as an ally. Eventually, as the capacity to stroke the mind increases, just as with OM, we will be able to appropriate the qualities of the tumescent mind for Erotic purposes. The shame will evolve into compassion, the anxiety brought down to the right range will become inexhaustible energy, and the catastrophic thinking will be a great, protective ally that allows us to perceive real— and not imagined—dangers far ahead of the course.