If we get too far from excellence, tumescence goes to work, manifesting as an incessant, gripping voice. It will use any means necessary in an effort to drive us to bottom out—the place where our pride cannot survive. Using the gravity of shame and self-loathing, it pulls us in the downward direction, eventually making its way into the body, where it likely presents as illness.
This is the experience of unharnessed tumescence; eventually, it will lead us downward. It will erode our ability to act from self-will until it can take us over, and we become pliant enough to allow it to come through us. This process requires us to reach a sense of helplessness. We will be brought down until we surrender to the process.
It is essential to understand that all downward motion is toward emptying, for the purpose of healing, and all healing is the release of what is not necessary, so that what is may enter. Anything that takes us out of optionality—our capacity to consciously choose our experience—will cause tumescence.
Our bottom lines must be based in desire rather than avoidance, and held lightly without gripping. Avoidance leads only to pressure, which will move us out of the optimal circle of optionality.