Excess
_I: I think I spent too much time with too many people.
_AM: Why do you say that?
_I: Well… Some of my friends arrived a week earlier than expected, then the people from the trip came and we were all together for more than a week all the time. Then some of those friends left 5 days later than expected. I could say that I was accompanied by people for about 20 days, more than I have been in the last 600 days. And whether you like it or not, it affects you.
_AM: How does it affect you?
_I: For my Moon in Sagittarius they were happy days, because I felt happy every day, happy to share. It had been more than a year since I had seen several of my friends, and if I had seen some it was separately, and some of them for more than a year. I needed to interact with people, with those close to me. I think some of the people who came on the trip didn't realize that, and maybe I didn't have as much friendly energy in others because I was with those closest to me... But hey, I think that's normal, if you don't see your family and friends for a year, you will want to share with them. I have spent more time sharing with people on the Internet than with my own. But on the other hand, my Capricorn ascendant couldn't wait to be alone, calm, without schedules or plans, just my routine. Yesterday was the first day I was alone, and I needed to do something different. I went to the movies, had breakfast in a bar, went for a walk, wrote the post in a different place than usual. Little by little trying to come back to me. But despite everything, I am feeling a nervous acceleration, because in 45 days my I Am routine ends, and my Dragon path begins, from the North to the South of the Planet. That makes me feel a little like someone who is approaching the finish line and has to run harder the last few meters.
_AM: And this alters your behavior.
_I: I think it's always upset, because I'm always projecting goals.
_AM: Well you recognize it...
_I: Yes… And that makes my nervous system react.
_AM: And what does it lead you to?
_I: Let's eat... When I get upset, I get nervous, I eat a lot, I have a much bigger appetite. I can't stop chewing. I noticed it a lot while I was with people, I ate too much, I couldn't control myself. The worst of the days was when I found myself eating a Toblerone bar that had melted and lost its shape, and I was chewing it with my teeth, breaking it between my hands, and suddenly I saw a rat... I was like a rat chewing on a shapeless piece of food. The boys baptized me “the fat carbohydrate.”
_AM: Occurring…
_I: It's just... I don't understand. What is the relationship?
_AM: Excess, in your case, what has already been said, the excess of the future. Looking for things to happen when they have not yet arrived causes anxiety to see them happen, and until then, these events produce a very great inner emptiness. The physical body is not able to interpret emotional or mental emptiness, so it translates it to “empty stomach.” The body interprets that to achieve everything that comes ahead you will need a lot of energy, and begins to save calories for this. Eating incessantly is a way to fill that void of things that have not yet happened.
_I: It's true, I'm always thinking about the next step when I couldn't even put the previous one on the ground. “Excess of the future”…
_AM: Excess comes from the word “ex-” (exit, out) and “cedere” (leave, leave, walk and go). The concept translates as “going out of bounds”, going over the line. Its counterpart is the “Process”, coming from “pro” (to advance, forward), meaning that it moves in a direction. While the Process is what we all experience throughout a circumstance, the Excess is when that experience exceeds the limits of oneself. The excesses are all related to a mind that is outside of itself, thinking about the past or the future, generating voids in the present. If you are not complete here and now by living beyond, then your being will try to fill this space with similar or parallel things.
_I: And this becomes constant, it's almost a mechanism... Repetitive, at least in my life.
_AM: When the mechanism is repeated it is known as Addiction. The word addiction comes from “ad” (towards) and “dicere” (to deliver). Surrendering yourself to something is the result of putting your entire being in function of an external agent. Indulging in food when you feel emptiness, or indulging in drugs when you want to escape reality, begins to nourish a constant cycle that is difficult to leave. One can be addicted to a person, or a music, indicating that one gives oneself completely to it with all one's being.
_I: So addictions, related to excesses, arise on the contrary in lack, scarcity, emptiness.
_AM: That's right. It all begins, as we have said, when the mind, emotion and body dissociate from each other.
_I: What would that be?
_AM: When the mind looks for something different from what the emotion feels, both being contradictory to what the body needs. For example, your mind creating projects, when your emotion needs to interact with others and your body wants to be alone and calm.
_I: Oh, yes, that happens to me a lot… How do I correct it?
_AM: It is something that must be practiced all your life, basically because you are not a monk.
_I: How?
_AM: The person dedicated 100% to maintaining the coherence of the 3 bodies, cannot be mobilized by environmental factors. He needs to withdraw, remove himself from ties, be chaste and dedicated. External influences can constantly modify these factors, and therefore, if your mission is to maintain complete coherence at every moment, you must live isolated in a kind of priesthood.
_I: Difficult…
_AM: For you, it is not your mission. Your task is in the interaction, in the social. You need the environment to affect you to move. You have come to build the future, something impossible to create if you only live in the present 100%. You understand? Not everyone has the task of constantly being in themselves. Complete coherence is not a goal of every human being, but a guide for life. The way to correct this dissociation is to be aware of it, and look for intermediate points that allow the three parties to reach an agreement. But you should not get frustrated when you fall into a new incoherence, because if your life is destined for interaction and not for the priesthood, then it will be inevitable. It is as if seasonal trees become frustrated every time autumn arrives and their leaves fall again... When the environment changes, it is inevitable to lose what you have managed to gain in this new cycle. The challenge is to make it your strength and not your weakness. Evolution is the adaptation to that environment, so every time you fail to sustain coherence, you only gain one more way, a different way to reestablish yourself in a better, firmer way.
_I: So how to differentiate the evolutionary cycle of excess due to addiction?
_AM: In the evolutionary cycle, external factors become part of you, naturally; You can use them without necessity, but with harmony. Eating, for example, is a result of this evolutionary cycle, an excess of energy that in certain cases the body can interpret as unnecessary, but which in turn found its usefulness, such as the reserve of fats for the cold, subsequent actions or scarcity. . While excess would be exceeding the level of energy accumulation, which ends up exhausting the body, putting it in a state of depression, of immobility. The body interprets that it needs more and more energy to move, and falls again and again. Everything that is normal, in excess, is harmful.
_I: Drugs too?
_AM: The word drug comes from the Andalusian Arabic “hatruka”, which means “quackery”. The word evolved in Mediterranean languages such as Catalan and Balearic, from “hatruka” to “aladruca” and “aladruc” (which has its mouth open and says nonsense). The concept was used to define meaningless or indefinite things, such as those places where many diverse things without specific value were sold. These places were called “aladroguer” or “adroguer”, which led to “drugstore”. It is in these places that herbs for homemade medicines ended up being sold, which led to the medicines being popularly known as “drugs.” Although medicines are called that, the true origin speaks of those substances or objects that make us wander. Plants, roots, fungi, herbs, chemicals. Now, drugs, like any game, food, bonds, can be useful in development when used in the right amount, and harmful when used in excess.
_I: Why would I overuse them?
_AM: By the meaningless void. Playing a sport is healthy, until the individual interprets the sport or game as the only way to achieve happiness, and pushes playing this game to unsuspected limits. Just as a food becomes a physical problem when it tries to cover internal holes instead of nourishing. Drugs like marijuana, mushrooms, ayahuasca, are not bad, in fact they help open consciousness and improve the brain's capacity for adaptation and understanding, however, when used to evade this reality, the excess of it can have the opposite effect, relaxing the neurons until they sleep forever, turning off certain circuits and make people stupid. Two centuries ago, cocaine and heroin were chemicals accepted in workers' offices, like a kind of coffee. Excess ended up destroying minds, in the same way that smoking and drinking coffee can cause illness if you do it in excess. There are certain poisonous plants and animals, such as toads, fish, snakes, spiders, and berries, that in micro doses create life-saving medicines, while in excess they can take lives. You realize? There are no bad or good products, there are only excesses.
_I: With this you are saying that in a coherent society all drugs would be legal?
_AM: Exactly. Because considering a product of the Earth illegal is typical of the ignorant, who projects morality on objects instead of education. Think carefully, if the fight against drugs is because they kill innocent people, then why aren't guns and knives banned? Why is smoking still allowed? Why are white sugar and flour still legal?
_I: I don't know…
_AM: It has nothing to do with the product or the damage it causes, but with those negotiated about it. It is easier to prohibit and allow the mafia from which economic returns can be obtained than to invest in education to learn to use things without excess, in the right amount, almost even without needing them. Whoever takes drugs will do it legally or illegally, in the first option he will find educational support and security in his actions, in the second option he will become a criminal, constantly putting his life at risk.
_I: I understand…
_AM: Humans have to recognize that they blame objects that have no charge in themselves, since all value is set by human morality. If morality is transformed, and the being is educated to live in the right measure, in balance, objects will cease to have the weight they possess, and will become a simple anecdote.
_I: I understand... Excess is what we must work on.
_AM: In all areas of life. Excess of ideas, emotions, bonds, games, sex, food, drugs, information, entertainment, leisure, work, dreams, imagination, reality... Everything, absolutely everything in excess, It becomes an addiction in which one gives oneself completely, losing one's own power of decision, one's free will.
_I: The need to get something that I do not possess creates a void in me that seeks to be filled by other things... And if what I am looking for is so impossible, I will turn to the need for that which does fulfill my momentary expectations. Yesterday, while I was walking, I saw a boy who looked just like Wiktor, the person I fell so much in love with and thought I had surpassed. And my heart beat so hard knowing that I couldn't be with him even though he seemed so close, that I committed several excesses in the same day, compensation by looking for other people to give me what he didn't give me, eating only chocolate all day to activate my endorphin and dopamine levels, and buy clothes as that idea of “having something new to wear”, also called by me as “therapeutic clothes” hehe. But now that you say it, I realize... I notice it... My addiction to food, to shopping, to sex, are voids generated by expectations of the future, of wanting and not being able to... And that is why I surrender to it completely, relegating myself that there is no other option...
_AM: The only way to transcend Excess is with excess of excess.
_I: Huh? How is that understood?
_AM: If Excess is going beyond the limit, then what you must achieve is to break those limits that you have imposed on yourself, believing that you will only have love from that person, that you will only be able to nourish yourself with that food. Exceeding is also getting out of the box you have put yourself in. Set you free. Understand that you are going through a “process”, do not judge yourself for your addictions, recognize them, they are your allies when it comes to understanding your gaps, and you must honor them for having been filling those spaces that you did not know how to complete.
_I: Oh, that was unexpected… It resonates with me…
_AM: Recognize, then, your excesses as your allies to get out of the box, to free yourself from the limits, as indicators of your inabilities, and turn your excesses into processes. Do not deny them, look at them, recognize them, embrace them, thank them for what they have done in your path, whether bad or good, they have taught you, educated you, you have learned what was and what was not good. You have recognized from them that despite seeking to satisfy yourself, you have never achieved it, because no object has the value, the real weight that you give it, because that value only lies within you, and you are giving it to something outside of you believing that you don't have it.
_I: This is very important... Nothing outside has value on its own, I give it to them, and yet I think I don't have it... Wow.
_AM: Take the energy accumulated by your excesses as the impulse that makes you advance towards the liberation process in which you can find yourself fully within yourself.
_I: I convert excess into energy to propel myself.
_AM: Free yourself from the idea of being perfect, and be flexible in the transformation of life.
_I: I Am Enough.