The Madness of Excess

In this episode of Third Eye on the Prize, I reflect on a powerful writing circle about maternal ancestors, the collective feminine, and the difference between nourishment energy and performance energy.

From stress hormones and urgency culture to wealth disparity and the madness of “never enough,” this episode explores imbalance — in our bodies, our relationships, our communities, and our world.

What happens when we’re constantly pushing, striving, chasing?

And what would it look like to feel supported, grounded, present, and nourished instead?

If there’s a topic you’d like me to explore, or something this episode brought up for you, feel free to email me at info@thirdeyeontheprize.com. 

I’d love to hear from you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hey listener, welcome to Third Eye on the Prize. I did a lovely writing circle last night, led by Tanya Rubenstein, about maternal ancestors and wounds to the collective feminine. It was great. At the end, she said something that felt like such a gift. She said once a day, it can be very brief. Give yourself nourishment energy instead of performance energy. It can be just a thought, but one that's sustaining, not depleting. And by the way, this applies to everyone, not just women. We are all steeped in a shared experience, a lineage of many, many generations, of what we could call by different names, performance, achievement, pressure, accomplishing, proving, acquiring. The internet is saturated with this kind of energy, which, you know, is also selling energy. Pushing, chasing, relentless striving for more followers, more subscribers, more money. Whatever the numbers are, the energy is, it's not enough. Needs to be more. Never enough, of course, is the ego's favorite thing to say. Whatever is isn't enough if you're listening to that voice. But that ramps up the cortisol, the stress hormones, the adrenaline. Real genuine situations in life do happen when we need them. The ability to act quickly and decisively in true emergencies. The buildings on fire, get out. Or the need to act quickly because something important truly has to be done right now. But those situations are pretty few compared to the countless other ones that happen every day, thousands of moments that don't have that urgency at all. Really, if I get there at 9 or 9.05, is that a big difference? No. Yet it's almost like there's a switch inside us stuck in too high a gear a lot of the time. It's extremely stressful and also deadly. Leads to heart attacks and strokes. So it was a lovely gift to be reminded to make it a habit to notice and switch from that ramped up energy to, you got this. You're good. There was another powerful image in this writing circle of a line of female ancestors going back in time. One standing behind me with her hands on my shoulders, and another behind her with hands on her shoulders, and so on and so on. An unending chain of support, love, groundedness. We all need that. I got to thinking there's probably a similar, beautiful, powerful male lineage too, but so many men didn't experience that. A few lucky ones did. A father, uncle, grandfather who gave that loving but strong support, but so many others did not. And there's a hole left inside when that's missing. When tenderness and strong but gentle support were considered too feminine, soft, or weak or some crap like that. So I was really thankful for this practical suggestion. Once a day, think about nourishment instead of performance. And then I started thinking about how this connects to the crazy wealth disparity that exists in the world. We know there are ultra-rich billionaires who may be trillionaires before long, but I was wrong in thinking wealth disparity is worse in the United States than anywhere else. There's this thing called the Gini coefficient or Gini Index, it's spelled G-I-N-I, and assigns a number that tracks wealth disparity by country over time. The most unequal country in the world is South Africa. Namibia and Colombia are also way up there. Slovakia and Slovenia and Norway are most equal. But I'm thinking about this phrase income inequality, and honestly, kind of laughing because it doesn't even come close to describing the current state of things. It kind of sounds too polite or academic. It doesn't really capture tickets to the Met Gala costing a hundred thousand dollars. A hundred grand to go to a party. We can't really call people who can casually shell out that kind of money well off. But doesn't cut it anymore. I keep thinking we need a whole different phrase for this. Wealth discrepancy madness? Wealth discrepancy mania? I don't know. It's become so extreme. Even the phrase rich and poor doesn't fully describe it. And of course, money compounds, you know, so the situation becomes more and more insane over time. So to circle back to energy and thinking about it on a larger scale, this is another kind of imbalance, isn't it? So much of a resource concentrated in one place and too little somewhere else. And it reminds me of the body. Too much cortisol or adrenaline when they're not needed. It's harmful. In an emergency, those chemicals are great, but chronically showing up when there's no emergency, damaging. Excess energy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Looking at the world now, it feels like a planetary version of that. Imagine you're on Google Earth, you know, looking at the whole planet, and then you zoom all the way in to an individual person, and then deeper still to the microscopic biome. Everything is affected by these wacky imbalances. Everything. I've got to think, even people at the top very top, like the 12 richest billionaires in America, whose wealth has quadrupled in the past five and a half years, realize how crazy this is, too. At least I hope so. I hope somewhere inside them there's an awareness that there has to be a better way to use the resources of the world than this. Because these imbalances aren't just harming poor people, they're harming everyone, the whole system, the whole planet, all living things on it. But we always have to start with self. It's home base. And I honestly think the single most important thing in life is energy. The kind of energy in an exchange between two people. The energy in a group, a class, a performance. The energy of a neighborhood. You drive through an area and immediately you feel, oh, wow, it's nice here. And then you might go a short distance away and suddenly you feel, whoa. It's not really about outward appearances as much as it is about energy. So we can check in often and ask, what is my energy right now? Is it pushing, striving, chasing? Is it conflict? Are my cortisol and adrenaline elevated? Or is my energy nourishing, supported, grounded, present, loving? Thank you as always for listening. If you liked this episode or another one, or there's another topic you'd like me to explore, please email me at info at thirdeyeonheze.com. I'd really love to hear from you. Until next time, keep your third eye on the prize. And remember, truth is beyond belief