The Erotic state of the pressure/fixed impulse—which occurs as aiming and directing attention—is the capacity for depth, unwavering focus, perseverance, discrimination, and ultimately, intimacy. When we are in the pressure impulse, we stay with and drive down to the essence of others. Driving down allows us to know reality below personality. The pressure mind has the willingness to look at details. The more we look at the details, the more attention activates and the more intimacy we have. The pressure/fixed mind aims to be slow and eternal, so it can afford details. The problem is that the intimacy and eternality of the pressure impulse is addictive.
We do not want to leave that spot. We hide that we cannot change speeds or frequencies, presenting that we do not need to. We feel we are inferior because we cannot go to all those places, rather than acknowledging we lack range and only know how to go to this one place. The addictive cycle perpetuates and we habitually return to what we know. Consciousness becomes deeply grooved as a way of avoiding relative reality, causing atrophy in our ability to make transitions and open to new frequencies.
This state is marked by an unwillingness to be moved by external forces, a hunkering down against the forces of the world. A fundamental sense of hypervigilance, the need to guard against possible danger, is present. This is an overcorrection response to perceived chaos and lack of control in the formative consciousness, brought about by overcontrolling forces of neglect. The choice was made to go in and down, avoiding anything outside of ourselves.
However, this over-selfing requires a perpetual state of pressure in order to counteract the natural rhythms that include levity. Levity occurs as danger. In this case, rather than consciousness being locked out, it is now locked in and held in place by persecution—both internal and external. Emotional abstraction appears as internal shame and external pride in an effort to build an impenetrable wall between ourselves and other/the world.
The fixed mind is activated by fear and an awareness of instability. As a pressure/fixed person, we are focused on our beliefs and positions. The fear and awareness of instability drives a search for answers, solutions, and ground to resolve this fear. This search for ground can be overly focused on control and thus unproductive, or it can be open-minded and skillful.
Unskillfully channeled, the search for ground attaches to static ideas or locations. Fixed becomes rigid. And in the process of rigidly attaching to stasis in position, instability seems even more apparent. These rigid attachments are expressed as immovable preferences. And as fixed becomes more and more attached to preferences, it becomes further and further imprisoned by them.
A fixed individual can become overly fixated on a certain pattern of foreplay, for example, and not realize times when they actually have a desire to move faster or slower than usual. In its tumescent state, the pressure impulse occurs as heavy pressure, fixated, dug-in, punitive, and critical. When hovering and pressure occur together, judgment exhausts itself and goes into checked-out neglect.
