Kundalini Rising

As the past year unfurled, I found myself drawn into Kundalini energy work.

Rooted in yogic tradition, Kundalini is yet another perspective of the animating energy that makes your body responsive, erotic, emotional, creative, and alive.

(If you missed Rewiring ‘Spirituality’, we tended to what spirituality actually is, and how living spiritually simply means tending to the ‘spark’ that makes you, You.)

Kundalini teachings and practices explicitly deal with where energy lives—in your body, your spine, your nervous system—not metaphorical or symbolic energy.

In other words, Kundalini is raw, energetic voltage: the force behind sexual arousal, creative drive, emotional intensity, instinct, spiritual insight, ecstasy and terror alike.

Activating, containing, and wielding this lifeforce energy has nothing to do with becoming enlightened, taking psychedelics, meditating all day, or being ‘chosen.’

Integrating Kundalini is simply upgrading your nervous system’s capacity for holding, circulating, and regulating higher and higher levels of charge without collapsing.

That’s it.

Albeit easier said than done, for Kundalini is easily, often blocked and locked away: 

Through subtly held bodily tension (like that unconscious tightness in your jaw), shame and repression of desire, fear, trauma, emotional suppression, and bracing.

Which results in the energy leaking out via anxiety, compulsive behaviour, sexual dysregulation, burnout, emotional volatility, addiction to intensity and/or numbness.

The ‘work’ focuses on removing your blocks so this energy can flow, not spike.

Body scanning, shaking, yoga, dance, slow-paced breathwork, emotional alchemy, shadow and trauma integration, and tantra are all means of unblocking the flow.

So imagine a house wired for less voltage than you try to draw on at once. 

The lights flicker, circuits trip, things blow, and fires can start.

The intention behind Kundalini work is to rewire your house. Slowly but surely, in small doses that push your capacity, then resting, allowing the expansion to settle. 

The goal being a house where charge flows smoothly and cleanly, without short-circuiting, and can flare to life or ground down as circumstances demand.

In reality, this looks like the ability to stay present during intensity; move through sensation instead of clenching against it; allow emotions to exist peacefully; self-soothe at depth; and release stored charge without dissociation.

Personally… 

Kundalini work is what’s enabled me to handle high dose psychedelic experiences without collapsing; rave for hours on end without feeling overstimulated; no longer have adrenaline spikes when driving with spirit; circulate sexual energy instead of discharging; and create consistently—whether through writing, singing, or mixing. 

I share these as real world venues where I’ve noticed a tangible difference in how I show up, feel, and process the experience as a result of Kundalini activation. 

Your venues should and will be different.

Also know that this kind of work isn’t for everyone. You will have to explore the deepest, shadowiest, strangest parts of yourself. You’ll have to let go of ideas, beliefs, and values that no longer serve you—or were never truly yours in the first place.

This path is intense, has no set or uniform timeframe, and will force you to confront the most confusing, challenging, uncomfortable parts of yourself.

This is wonderful, incredible work… if you’re curious and want to explore.

In closing, know this:

The more open you are to life’s charge, the more life will pass through you.

You can only experience as much life as your system has capacity for.

If you don’t have the capacity or ability to hold the charge generated by an experience, partner, income, job, responsibility, or however you want your life to look…

You might get bites, licks, and tastes of what you seek, but nothing lasting.

…

…

And you deserve to sink your teeth into and savour all that you want from life.

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander