The Benefits of Kundalini Yoga
Housekeeping ...
I love it when my house is clean. Everything is in its place. The thin film of dust that covered the tables and countertops has been wiped away exposing vibrant color and shine. The air is fresh and fragrant. As I move around my space, I feel the spaciousness inside of myself as a reflection of my external experience. Things are easier to find again! I’m no longer irritated and confused when I can’t seem to locate the one knee sock that goes with the other knee sock that perfectly goes with the dress I want to wear. I know, as they say, first world problems, but it can be maddening not to be able to find the missing piece to your ideal outfit. For me, laundry always seems to be my downfall when attempting to keep a tidy home.
I know you might be thinking, "This is a blog on Kundalini Yoga so why the heck is she talking about cleaning her house and finding her socks!" As I was contemplating what I wanted to share with you about my experience with Kundalini, I realized there is SO much I can say about how it has changed my life. One of the most valuable lessons Kundalini Yoga has taught me is how to cleanse and organize my internal experience. When I have a more clear inner landscape, I am more creative, joyful and on purpose.
Through Practicing Kundalini Yoga, I have cultivated more spaciousness within myself. I have more access to the information my mind, body, and spirit has to offer me. Ultimately, I experience more clarity and awareness so I'm able to find the "sock" within myself, or should I say, my soul, that completes my whole self.
Yes, I’m saying that Kundalini Yoga will help you find the missing sock in your soul! It is an ancient technology that works to cleanse, balance, and activate the self-healing superpowers inherent within you. We humans are pretty complex beings with a lot of bells and whistles. The amount of information we process is mind-blowing, literally, and we manage to do all this processing as we accomplish our daily tasks at work, spending time with our families, traveling, planning for the future and tending to all the other threads that weave our lives together. The way we manage all of this data is through the subconscious mind, and it’s called SUB-conscious for a reason; It’s not conscious. If all of the info we take in on a daily basis were at the forefront of our consciousness, it would short circuit our minds. It's just too much. However, just because it's not at the forefront doesn't mean it's not within us somewhere.
The Subconscious Mind and Autonomic Nervous System
Our subconscious is associated with the autonomic nervous system that manages all of the functions our bodies carry out without us having to think. For example, we don’t consciously tell our heart to beat-beat-beat; it just does that. We don’t have to direct our food to metabolize, or our cells to regenerate. Miraculously, our bodies carry out these functions through the silent work of the autonomic nervous system. Our nervous system keeps us alive and functioning on all levels while the subconscious mind records all of the data it needs to keep us on track. Sounds good right?! Thank you Autonomic Nervous system!
So what does all of this have to do with Kundalini Yoga and finding our socks?
As evolving humans, our physiology is continually changing to meet the needs of our modern environment. Unfortunately, our consciousness hasn’t quite managed to sync up. Actually, we haven’t changed that much since cavemen and women were traversing the earth except for the ability to use language, which happened about 4,000 years ago.
When we examine how our autonomic nervous system works, we gain some insight into this fact. The nervous system is categorized into two different functions: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the “fight or flight” mechanisms in our system. For example, if we are in the jungle and see a sabertooth tiger, this will activate your sympathetic nervous system which fires up everything in your body to run or pick up a big stick and fight! The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for resting, regeneration, and relaxing.
The subconscious starts recording information from the time we are in the womb and stores info on how to stay safe, comfortable, and out of danger. It saves the threatening experiences, imprinting trauma right into your system, so you will be activated to move away from that same danger again through the sympathetic nervous system response. The problem is that in modern society we experience so much stress and pressure that our nervous system’s ability to recognize a real threat can be off base.
Is it a tiger about to eat you, or just your boss breathing down your neck to finish a deadline? Our ability to switch between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system becomes abnormal when we experience our everyday environment as a threatening place. This perception contributes to fear, confusion, disorientation, and anger. When spending more time activated into a sympathetic nervous system response, our adrenal glands secrete high levels of adrenaline and cortisol hormones. These hormones increase blood flow, heart rate, and send more nutrients to our muscles so we can get the power we need to escape the threat. The problem is that it takes away resources from other bodily functions that lead to lack of sleep, irregular metabolism, fatigue, and dis-ease in the body.
When we are more often living in a state of fight or flight, and experiencing the consequences of that, we can feel blocked, cluttered, or like there isn't enough space to complete things. It can feel like having a messy home, dust-covered, where we can't find our darn socks or even know what we are looking for, or what we need!
Kundalini, The Healing Life Force Energy
Practicing Kundalini Yoga infuses you with fresh life force energy and regulates the nervous system. It is a practice that cultivates awareness and through that awareness, you have more choice in how to respond to your environment instead of being in the reactionary place of fight or flight. You are able to recognize the triggers that happen in your everyday experience that re-stimulate you into experiencing the trauma of the past and consciously clear them instead of having them lay dormant in the subconscious continuously activating fear and protection. Soon your experience becomes more neutral, you are more embodied and present, and have more space to bring forth creativity from a deeper connection with the soul and our whole self.
Kundalini Yoga combines all of the aspects of yoga practice: physical, breath, sound, service, and intention to quickly and powerfully realign the energetic centers in the body connecting you with your whole self.
It is a quantum technology that if practiced regularly will give you the ability to transcend time and space and create the life you want to have through the power of vision and directed positive thought.
The life force energy, or Kundalini, moves from the base of the spine, through concentrated energy centers called the chakras up to the crown of the head and out into the aura, the electromagnetic field that surrounds the body. You can think of this energy as a healing salve that washes through your entire system to regenerate you – mind, body, and spirit. This practice unlocks you in such a way where old trauma is brought up from the subconscious to the conscious so it can be healed and cleared.
If you are looking for a yoga practice that gives you the full package of physical, mental, emotional, and nervous system fitness, give Kundalini Yoga a try.
Because it’s so powerful, you might have a range of experiences with it. Sometimes it’s pure bliss and at times as it wears away the layers of fear and protection, it’s uncomfortable. Practicing yoga teaches you how to stay present with that uncomfortableness, however. In allowing that stuff to come up and move, you experience more presence, liberation, and ultimately more joy and expansiveness in your life.