Binges
from Awareness Journal, Vol II, No 1, Fall 1993
Please do more on binges. I always thought binges were eating or drinking excessively.
They can be, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The human being was not designed to live in a state of anxiety, called "stress." He is designed, though, to handle emergencies quite well. When an emergency (a threat to his purpose of living) is perceived, Awareness "reports" this to X immediately via the medium of feeling, and X responds immediately with extra energy to cope with the emergency, extra energy to flee the situation or to fight it.
You have probably heard stories of a mother lifting a car off her child who somehow got beneath the wheel, or other amazing feats where enormous energy was provided to cope with a true emergency. These are examples of the process working perfectly. When the crisis is over, the person's strength is no longer super-human, but just as it usually is, appropriate for what's going on.
The way the process works is that the emergency is "reported," the extra super-energy is mobilized, and it is used immediately, restoring everything to balance. Where distress arises is when this energy is mobilized but not used. Man is not designed to function properly when this mobilized energy is floating around in his body unused. It has to go somewhere, do something. We mobilize fight or flight energy when we perceive emergencies. When we perceive a situation to be an emergency (because it threatens our purpose of living) and, because the purpose of living is in error, there is no true emergency, we have put ourselves in this emergency mode for nothing. But the mobilized energy has to do something, so it begins working on the cells, causing unusual cellular activity, leading to an unusual sensation and tissue cell alteration ("symptoms") and eventual breakdown. This we call disease. It is an adaptation, made in an effort to use up the mobilized emergency energy.
If the purpose of living is to be non-disturbed, these symptoms, which are disturbing, are seen to be yet another emergency, and the whole process starts over again. This The Science of Man calls The Vicious Cycle. It leads to disease and, ultimately, to death - man was not designed to live in a constant state of false emergency.
Now disease is one way to handle false emergency energy. There is another way, and that is to "work it off" with violent behavior. Violent behavior is unusual behavior, unconscious violence is anti-Life. But violent behavior is not "bad" in an emergency. For instance a 5'3", 120 lb. woman lifting a car by herself could be considered "violent" - but not disadvantageous - behavior. Directed into a situation where there is no emergency (based on a false interpretation of events), it would definitely be considered disadvantageous behavior, and most unusual.
We don't go around lifting cars when we have excess energy to get rid of, but we could. Rather we do other things. Stuffing oneself with food is an obvious and very common one. But any unusual violent activity uses up this energy. I know a man who didn't sleep for two whole weeks because he was busy writing by hand backwards every work in Moby Dick in order to prove its "true message." While this is pretty far out, people do all kinds of thing that are far more dangerous to use up mobilized emergency energy. For instance, they do have surgeries (women, especially, are seen having organs cut out in big ordeals ... this is a way of using up violent energy - it is almost human sacrifice, offering up one's organs on the altar of the god of violence.) Some people will go on a medical binge, having every test in the book, submitting to needles, "scopes," scans. Theses a way of using up emergency energy. (Of course, they summon up more emergency energy while waiting for the results, which Not-I tells them are definitely going to threaten his purpose of living.) Someone might go rent five movies and have a marathon of this type (my idea of pig heaven). If they do this so they can identify with all the intense things going on in the movies, this could be a way of working off the energy, though they probably would never see it that way.
Shopping sprees can be binges. Sprees where you try on everything in the mall and don't buy anything are definitely binges. So is buying a lot of stuff you find you don't even want by the time you get home. Gambling, partying, promiscuity can be binge activity. People screaming like maniacs in stadiums are working off false emergency energy. Same goes for facial ticks, drumming fingers, other such movements. Any compulsion or addiction burns up mobilized emergency energy, even though it appears habitual (the false emergency state is habitual.) Cursing is another way it is done, though one has to curse every other word these days to get enough shock value to cancel out emergency energy. If you observe someone who never curses let out a string of it, you will know that he is using up violent energy. Anger is always the false emergency work-off of mobilized energy. There is absolutely nothing to be angry about - we live in a place of challenge where every single person feels right, proper, or justified in what they did to you. It is holding an ideal to think they "should know better." When you read about someone blasting everyone in the post office or fast food place with an Uzi, you are reading about someone who has been in such a state of false emergency (based on resentment, self-pity, revenge) that it takes a cataclysm to cancel out the emergency energy they have summoned.
We were designed both "to go with the flow" and to Initiate. Neither is violent in any way. Initiating will dredge up lots of resistance, thus taking lots of energy to carry out the Initiative, but it is not violent, it is conscious and creative. (Anyone knows, violence = destruction.)
Neither disease nor violent behavior are to our advantage in the long run, though they save our neck in the short run by attempting got re-establish balance. Once the process is started it must be completed. But if disease leads to more false emergency because it scares or hurts, if unusual activity leads to more false emergency because everyone gets ticked off at you, what is one to do? Quit reporting false emergencies, of course. But we are not perfected and so it does occur. When this has happened, I want to use a little intelligence and find a way to work it off harmlessly. When I have just escaped annihilation on the freeway by half an inch and my heart is pounding like thunder, I scream at the top of my lungs to restore balance (it works, you will know precisely when to stop; of course you might not want to do this if you have passengers! - in which case do it at your earliest convenience). If you know you have made it important, and are anxious because your mother-in-law is coming to dinner, use up that false emergency energy by cleaning up the house with a vengeance. This will restore balance. Or you could even beat the bathtub with a wet towel. (I have done it and it works). You do it until you start laughing hysterically, which will finish up the last bit of emergency energy.
There are all kinds of subtle ways we binge. Anything out of the ordinary may well be a binge. (Even big self-improvement programs are just this process going on . That's why they peter out long before the "goal" is reached ... the energy is used up in short order and the binge is no longer needed.)
Once we see how this works we have come a long way toward not getting caught up in it. But the real way to be free from binges for all time is: Make a new purpose, one that's accurate, conaining no conflict. You will then expect and befriend challenge and there will be no false emergencies in your life, no disease, and no violent behavior.
