There are three aspects of mind: the body-mind (Erotic impulse), the tumescent mind, and the Erotic mind, which is the combination of both. Eros, seated in the body, is the impulse toward pleasure, nourishment, and connection—the source of psychic energy or power. Its focus is on principles rather than consequences. Its aim is toward unfiltered authenticity.
The tumescent mind’s primary purpose is to communicate what is appropriate in the world and keep us in line through prohibition, regulations, and a strict adherence to rules. It acts as a parental authority, promising safety and protection through moral and critical shoulds and should nots. It focuses on risks and consequences. Its demand for obedience is so great that it hijacks the rewards system entirely. The only means of relief—which is not real relief but mere reprieve—is total compliance. It wields a forceful sense of power that orders us to deprive ourselves of our human yearnings and desires. However, its influence is temporary, and in order to maintain control it must be perpetually fed with ever-increasing contraction and drive.
The tumescent mind is fundamentally noble. It aims to protect and serve. It learns the patterns of the external world and develops ideals of how to act within it. The basis of all social animals is dynamic connection, and when connection is ruptured, the mind will become disoriented and start losing its balance. It will lean on ideals instead of the reality it gets from the body, and begin calculating consequence-based solutions. It will propose connection was ruptured due to human failing and, were that obstacle eradicated, connection could be restored. What it does not take into account is this “fixing” is expensive and robs a person of the very life force energy needed for connection.
The fixing leads to an endless cycle, one so unpleasant to be around it only further ruptures the connection, confirming more work on the self and self-monitoring are needed. Thus the life-force energy must be turned down because it endangers the process of constriction necessary to be acceptable. Normal, spontaneous expression is curbed nearly entirely. What connects human beings, the activities of the involuntary musculature—laughing, crying, arousal—become enemies of the state of control. It is essential to understand: the tumescent mind is seeking to repair connection by killing off the very thing that brings connection, with ever diminishing returns.
The Erotic mind is the union of the tumescent mind and the body-mind. This is the seat of consciousness, the organizing aspect of how we see, what we feel and think, where we have access to our intuition and genius, and where we can sense and know. There is an optimal place for action when the Erotic mind is both nourished from the Erotic impulse and directed with the underlying injunctions of the tumescent mind that allow for presence, radiance, openness, and ease.
Therefore, the Erotic mind is the “result” of the connection and harmony between the tumescent mind and the Erotic impulse that originates in the body. The union between the two is marked by true relaxation or ease, unified and harmonious agreement of what is desired and that the method to attain it is aligned and also safe. Without the mind engaged in debates between these poles, psychic energy is then liberated and a sense of transcendence occurs.
Not only timelessness, but access to a voice that seems to know and guide that goes far beyond the criticisms of the tumescent mind. This voice feels original and calm, even humorous. Because it is both strong and flexible, there is a sense it can be relied on to carry out the deeper principles in the world where there are consequences. The negotiation between these two is now effortless.
When there is disconnection, the tumescent mind becomes a dictator and the Erotic impulse, an impetuous child. This state is marked by dissatisfaction, insufficiency, and discontent with self and the world. One “lacks power” to first act, then perceive the right action, then make decisions. There is a sense of being both stuck and tense, where what to do is unclear but the energy to take action continues to build.
The tumescent mind, reeling in discomfort at this point, can grow tyrannical, dictating orders in a battle with Eros. Only a narrow margin of acceptable behaviors and feelings are considered safe enough to be permitted. Any communication from the body about hungers, desires, needs, perceptions, and emotions is seen as a childlike disruption to the important activity of survival and is met with derision and dismissal.
The environment becomes toxic. There is no honoring or listening between the tumescent mind and the body; there is no following
its lead or working with it. The tumescent mind will often vilify the life-giving force of Eros, asserting it is intrinsically dangerous and must be tamed. This is because it expects to have control and judges Eros on the basis of production and safety.
What it does not remember is that without Eros there is no “life”—no feeling of aliveness or meaning. We get stuck working in order to appease the tumescent mind, which “rewards” us by letting up on the whip, but never actually providing genuine fulfillment of any kind. And yet, the moment we relent doing its bidding, there is a threat that to let go, to allow for nourishment and openness puts us in danger. The threat of danger is greater than the call for fulfillment.
With this, what would bring union to both—the Erotic power that can bridge—is perceived as the enemy. We end up in vain attempts to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of the tumescent mind, first with the restriction of self, then through imposing restrictions on others. When the tumescent mind and the Erotic impulse are polarized rather than in dynamic tension, the Erotic mind—the field where both would come together—becomes a war zone. Chaos, vitriol, and polarization ensue inside the individual and leak out onto others.
The tumescent mind becomes swallowed in reactivity, responding unconsciously with transgression, resentful withdrawal, and escapism. The individual, unable to contain this much discomfort, again begins searching for causes in an aim to fix. Once it has identified an external enemy, the raw power of Eros and the tumescent mind unite, both aiming for survival of the individual to destroy whatever threatens. The process becomes self-perpetuating until there are fewer and fewer “safe” external phenomena left. Everything has become a threat and the tumescent mind has backed itself into a small corner where it feels in control and safe.
Its capacity for resilience has been entirely eroded as the life-force energy is depleted from the losing fight. At this point, the call for replenishing the life-force energy of Eros cannot be heard. Energy is spent before it can be felt. What is needed for full, healthy, safe, and authentic expression of self is entirely diminished.
Anything that is not superhuman, pious, perfect, or pure—in other words, all of humanity—is deemed evil and dangerous. A last-ditch effort of the raw Erotic impulse may be to override the tumescent mind altogether, creating a hostile internal landscape. It looks like gorging or addiction or will to power, the action of starvation despite having an overdeveloped temperance. The mind swings from rigid control to hedonism, from restriction to indulgence, and uses the extreme of the other to justify itself.
The middle, where all naturally resolves, where polarization becomes dynamic tension, is lost to an internal state of static tension. The key is to recontextualize Eros, to understand that rejection of Erotic impulse is rejection of the primal self. Rejection of this self becomes a strategy for rejecting life. At best, there will be an internal state of dissatisfaction and an unremitting critical mind. At worst, we have a disposition of seeing the world as an enemy that we must at all costs, including destruction, protect against. The solution is counter to absolutely everything the tumescent mind would suggest; to incrementally cultivate a relationship with the resilient force of Eros, to reintegrate it back into the psyche, to let it do what it does— heal, nourish, connect—and to allow the exhausted tumescent mind to nest inside of it.
