07/02/2010
Interesting article, Kundalini with a little
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Just-Demi's Blogs
Interesting article, Kundalini with a little
I just read this article, and I thought it made a lot of sense. Since my own spontaneous kundalini awakening, I can attest to the importance of understanding the nervous system. I rarely discuss this topic publicly unless asked; however, after I read the article, I felt inspired to write this blog because I think it can help people with their training. Before continuing on, I suggest reading the linked article first. Some interesting connections may be revealed that way!
What exactly is Kundalini? In Sanskrit, Kundalini means coiled like a snake. It lies dormant in the sacrum and when awakened, she rises to the crown chakra. Shushumna, the central channel, connects the base chakra to the crown chakra. We have no control over this channel as it regulates our involuntary nervous system activities. This is also the path from which Kundalini ascends. The Pingala, right channel, comprimises our mental and physical activities. When it’s too dominant, we become stressed and too aggressive. The Ida, left channel, represents our desires. Too much on this side makes us experience extreme elation and depression. It pretty much explains the first thirty years of my life!
All this ancient knowledge interestingly coincides with our current understanding of sympathetic and parasympathetic functions of our nervous system. It always blows my mind. How did they know so much? Anyway, I don’t want to get into the mechanics. There are a lot of websites out there that explain it better than I.
My own awakening was so explosive, it completely turned my world inside out. I used to suffer from chronic depression. Additionally, I’m what experts would label as a person who suffers from the hyper-focus type ADHD. What this means is once I’m fixated on something, it’s difficult to shut myself off. Thoughts run circles in my mind until something else enters to take its place. Today, I’m completely free of my lifelong battle with chronic depression, and I’ve found clever ways to work around my hyper-focus mode. My kundalini awakening was the catalyst that brought about these changes.
I don’t want to get into the religious aspect of kundalini as I don’t practice a religion. I just take in each experience without judgement and observe how it connects to everything in my life, including my fitness regime, which I’ll get into later.
I started practicing mindful awareness meditation to calm my active mind. On the day of my awakening, I was more depressed than usual. My brain seemed to be fixated on all the negative goings on in my life. Eventually I entered a deep state of calm. It’s not unlike the feeling you get when you’re about to awaken and not aware it’s happening. As time seemingly stands still in that state, I’m not sure how long it took before I saw this pinpoint of light that appeared like a small twinkling star. After a few twinkles it expanded and exploded leaving behind this brilliant afterglow of sheen and sparkle. Suddenly I felt this energy shoot to the top of my head. It literally felt as though the top portion of my skull was ripped from my head and my brain was plugged into this vast energy source. At first, it freaked me out. I always thought of meditation as something mental…not physical. The shock wore off, and I returned to that state. I felt such incredible bliss and joy. I was crying, laughing and didn’t ever want to leave that experience. I was everywhere at the same time. Quite a rush! I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. I view it as my first awakening. From my own experience, awakenings happen in never ending stages. Evolution is not a static experience. As atoms are in constant motion, so are we! One door always leads to the next.
Since my awakening, I’ve become sensitive to the flow of energy within me. I never try and force it along. I let it go where it must and have learned to follow rather than steer it. It wasn’t always easy, but from my own experience, going against the flow, so to speak, is a waste of energy. It’s important to state here that having a kundalini awakening isn’t necessary to understand and work with the energies. It’s simply a matter of listening to the signals our body sends us.
After a basic understanding of the nervous system, it makes sense to pay attention to the signals it’s sending us. One of the main reasons I continue to progress in all activities I’m engaged in is because I work with the energies and allow them to guide me through whatever I’m doing. If I’m writing, I sit and type without forcing myself to direct the story…or blog in this case. When I work out, I maintain proper form and allow myself to lift as much as I can without straining myself. No ego allowed! When I sing, I work with the flow of my breathe and never force out my voice. I listen to my nervous system, which never fails to let me know when I should ease back. This is especially important to me when working out because I have slight Thoracic Spondylosis and a slipped lower disk along with chronic neck pain.
Resistance training has been the best physical therapy for me. Through its practice, I’ve alleviated my lower back pain and have become virtually pain free. However, if I ever ignore my connection to the energies within, I risk injury. It happened yesterday when I overdid my push-ups. I started a new routine to strengthen my upper body for pull-ups. I wanted to do three sets of as many push-ups as I could with a five minute rest in between. All together, I managed to do 40 in solid form. A little later, I started to feel pain in my lower back that got worse by evening. I did some healing energy work along with some lower back stretches, and I’m okay today. I decided to do light cardio and will go back to my weight training and push-ups tomorrow. I hate regressing. Lesson learned!
I wish to make clear that I see my “ADHD” as a blessing and have no desire to be “cured” as it’s who I am. From my own experience, the ability to hyper-focus is a gift because it allows me to connect to my parasympathetic side which is from where creativity flows unobstructed. When I’m connected, I compose music, visualize, meditate and write. In fact, most art is created by this personality type, and at one time, it was viewed as a positive personality trait. I read this book, The Career Guide for Creative and Unconventional People. It was written some time in the seventies. I was floored when I noticed that each characteristic in that book is now an ADHD symptom! Seems like creative people are now viewed as being mentally ill! Here are some of my favorite quotes I copied from my review of the book:
“Again and Again, the findings from psychological and vocational studies indicate interests in art, music and literature are associated with more neurotic problems.”
“The creative person just does not fit in the average work setting.”
“The sensitive artistic person perceives a complex world in which certain elements are wrong or don’t fit. Such internal conflict may help produce the emotional state that others perceive as moodiness and histrionics.”
“Artistic types don’t want so much to be like other artistic types as they want to be unlike all types.”
“Creative people tend to be independent in their relation to authority figures. They want to do their own thing their own way.”
“A sensitive, intuitive, expressive nature is no advantage when the task is to handle everyday maintenance chores by established rules. In fact, you may find that you are less efficient and more tired by the work than other people would be. ”
What does all this have to do with bodybuilding? I’ve noticed most successful athletes hyper-focus as well. In fact, I’m pretty certain a high percentage of people on bodybuilding social networking sites can relate to a lot of what I’m saying. It takes a lot of hyper-focus to stick to a diet and exercise regime as intense as ours! If it was easy, more people would be doing it. I think it’s important to balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic side to get the most complete workout. The parasympathetic kicks in during the visualization process and the sympathetic brings the visualization into action. The two go hand in hand. At least it does for me!
Love and light,
Demi
What exactly is Kundalini? In Sanskrit, Kundalini means coiled like a snake. It lies dormant in the sacrum and when awakened, she rises to the crown chakra. Shushumna, the central channel, connects the base chakra to the crown chakra. We have no control over this channel as it regulates our involuntary nervous system activities. This is also the path from which Kundalini ascends. The Pingala, right channel, comprimises our mental and physical activities. When it’s too dominant, we become stressed and too aggressive. The Ida, left channel, represents our desires. Too much on this side makes us experience extreme elation and depression. It pretty much explains the first thirty years of my life!
All this ancient knowledge interestingly coincides with our current understanding of sympathetic and parasympathetic functions of our nervous system. It always blows my mind. How did they know so much? Anyway, I don’t want to get into the mechanics. There are a lot of websites out there that explain it better than I.
My own awakening was so explosive, it completely turned my world inside out. I used to suffer from chronic depression. Additionally, I’m what experts would label as a person who suffers from the hyper-focus type ADHD. What this means is once I’m fixated on something, it’s difficult to shut myself off. Thoughts run circles in my mind until something else enters to take its place. Today, I’m completely free of my lifelong battle with chronic depression, and I’ve found clever ways to work around my hyper-focus mode. My kundalini awakening was the catalyst that brought about these changes.
I don’t want to get into the religious aspect of kundalini as I don’t practice a religion. I just take in each experience without judgement and observe how it connects to everything in my life, including my fitness regime, which I’ll get into later.
I started practicing mindful awareness meditation to calm my active mind. On the day of my awakening, I was more depressed than usual. My brain seemed to be fixated on all the negative goings on in my life. Eventually I entered a deep state of calm. It’s not unlike the feeling you get when you’re about to awaken and not aware it’s happening. As time seemingly stands still in that state, I’m not sure how long it took before I saw this pinpoint of light that appeared like a small twinkling star. After a few twinkles it expanded and exploded leaving behind this brilliant afterglow of sheen and sparkle. Suddenly I felt this energy shoot to the top of my head. It literally felt as though the top portion of my skull was ripped from my head and my brain was plugged into this vast energy source. At first, it freaked me out. I always thought of meditation as something mental…not physical. The shock wore off, and I returned to that state. I felt such incredible bliss and joy. I was crying, laughing and didn’t ever want to leave that experience. I was everywhere at the same time. Quite a rush! I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. I view it as my first awakening. From my own experience, awakenings happen in never ending stages. Evolution is not a static experience. As atoms are in constant motion, so are we! One door always leads to the next.
Since my awakening, I’ve become sensitive to the flow of energy within me. I never try and force it along. I let it go where it must and have learned to follow rather than steer it. It wasn’t always easy, but from my own experience, going against the flow, so to speak, is a waste of energy. It’s important to state here that having a kundalini awakening isn’t necessary to understand and work with the energies. It’s simply a matter of listening to the signals our body sends us.
After a basic understanding of the nervous system, it makes sense to pay attention to the signals it’s sending us. One of the main reasons I continue to progress in all activities I’m engaged in is because I work with the energies and allow them to guide me through whatever I’m doing. If I’m writing, I sit and type without forcing myself to direct the story…or blog in this case. When I work out, I maintain proper form and allow myself to lift as much as I can without straining myself. No ego allowed! When I sing, I work with the flow of my breathe and never force out my voice. I listen to my nervous system, which never fails to let me know when I should ease back. This is especially important to me when working out because I have slight Thoracic Spondylosis and a slipped lower disk along with chronic neck pain.
Resistance training has been the best physical therapy for me. Through its practice, I’ve alleviated my lower back pain and have become virtually pain free. However, if I ever ignore my connection to the energies within, I risk injury. It happened yesterday when I overdid my push-ups. I started a new routine to strengthen my upper body for pull-ups. I wanted to do three sets of as many push-ups as I could with a five minute rest in between. All together, I managed to do 40 in solid form. A little later, I started to feel pain in my lower back that got worse by evening. I did some healing energy work along with some lower back stretches, and I’m okay today. I decided to do light cardio and will go back to my weight training and push-ups tomorrow. I hate regressing. Lesson learned!
I wish to make clear that I see my “ADHD” as a blessing and have no desire to be “cured” as it’s who I am. From my own experience, the ability to hyper-focus is a gift because it allows me to connect to my parasympathetic side which is from where creativity flows unobstructed. When I’m connected, I compose music, visualize, meditate and write. In fact, most art is created by this personality type, and at one time, it was viewed as a positive personality trait. I read this book, The Career Guide for Creative and Unconventional People. It was written some time in the seventies. I was floored when I noticed that each characteristic in that book is now an ADHD symptom! Seems like creative people are now viewed as being mentally ill! Here are some of my favorite quotes I copied from my review of the book:
“Again and Again, the findings from psychological and vocational studies indicate interests in art, music and literature are associated with more neurotic problems.”
“The creative person just does not fit in the average work setting.”
“The sensitive artistic person perceives a complex world in which certain elements are wrong or don’t fit. Such internal conflict may help produce the emotional state that others perceive as moodiness and histrionics.”
“Artistic types don’t want so much to be like other artistic types as they want to be unlike all types.”
“Creative people tend to be independent in their relation to authority figures. They want to do their own thing their own way.”
“A sensitive, intuitive, expressive nature is no advantage when the task is to handle everyday maintenance chores by established rules. In fact, you may find that you are less efficient and more tired by the work than other people would be. ”
What does all this have to do with bodybuilding? I’ve noticed most successful athletes hyper-focus as well. In fact, I’m pretty certain a high percentage of people on bodybuilding social networking sites can relate to a lot of what I’m saying. It takes a lot of hyper-focus to stick to a diet and exercise regime as intense as ours! If it was easy, more people would be doing it. I think it’s important to balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic side to get the most complete workout. The parasympathetic kicks in during the visualization process and the sympathetic brings the visualization into action. The two go hand in hand. At least it does for me!
Love and light,
Demi
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Comments
Some very practical information there too