Big Energy
Last week I had a ‘panic attack’. I don’t share that to have you worry about me. I’m writing about it because it was such a fascinating experience - the absolutely out of control, physically intense, impersonal nature of it. And because it felt like a direct experience of the deep underlying energies stirred up at this time. My guess is you’re feeling them too.
However I approach it - mythologically, scientifically, politically, astrologically, or my preferred combination of all of the above - it’s clear that potent, provocative forces are moving through with intensity right now. Covid, wildfires, election politics, police brutality, climate change, Brexit, add yours here: _________.
I can easily see the expressions of it around me. As well as the expressions of it within me, just like I can in friends and clients. Fatigue (anyone exhausted, even after 8 hours of sleep?), physical pain, depression, anxiety, agitation, fear. I’ve been hearing all of these from clients and getting the fun of a few of them myself. Regardless of its expression, in erotic shorthand: huge tumescence is at play.
When energy is high, we all get a personal demonstration of where our tumescence is at. I think of it like rising blood pressure, showing where arteries are clogged. 25 years of Buddhist practice has trained me in recognizing the clogs - the thoughts, feelings and sensations arising and passing inside - as impersonal habits or “sankharas” expressing through consciousness. When I remember this, I’m much less likely to get lost in them. 13 years of Erotic practice has trained me in identifying and working with the underlying energies fueling it all, and using that energy to bring the sankharas into conscious awareness where they can be transformed. Together, my work (with both myself and others) is to recognize what is at play, not collapse into taking it personally, and actively turn to engage with it.
By “engage with it”, I don’t mean jump in to analyze all the thoughts and feelings - as compelling as that is. I mean, there is information inside of those sankharas, unconscious elements to be understood and, like I said, transformed (just like we’re getting the opportunity to transform a lot of our conditioning around race as a society). Yet, it’s rare to get clear insight or initiate resonant action from inside of a tumescent fog. In there, it’s mostly fear and delusion running the show.
Instead, here is what I’ve found to be helpful:
Know big energy is at play
Recognize how it is showing up (blocked and/or flowing) through your experience
Turn towards it and move it, as you attune to its lessons
The panic attack was a big fat wake up call to just how much energy was inside of me. It was a spectacular display of tumescence blowing through, in both thought and sensation - a massive, deeply unpleasurable climax. Climax being a way for the body to release built up erotic energy and return to homeostasis, before it blows a fuse. I don’t recommend this course of action. I’m aware that in this past month, I haven't been doing what is needed, to the degree needed, to move the intensity of energy arising around and through me. Not enough sex, expression, creation. And if energy is arising, but not moved or expressed, it doesn’t just disappear, it has to go somewhere. While we may not have choice in whether or not it comes through, we do have choice in how we move it through. So my mantra these days is just keep it moving. As they say in 12-step, the cure for depression (insert: any stuck energy) is action. And that’s my recommendation to everyone.
And remember, working with the energy in this way isn’t a path to avoid very resonant feelings we may have about societal and planetary upheaval. It’s a way to convert pain to power and then put that power in service of having clear insight and positive impact. To not get knocked out as we feel through a time of huge unrest and uncertainty, but to use the incoming force to move more of what’s in us - our creativity, care, love, sex, insight and vision, rather than our fear, hatred and delusion - out into the world.