10 months ago, a trauma-processing motor switched on inside of me.
It was about 10 p.m., and I was sat in the bath, listening to a podcast about the nature of consciousness — minding my own business, relaxing before bed. All of a sudden, my head tilted back, and my experience went black. My awareness seemed to switch off and on again, like a computer rebooting itself, and when I came back online, there was a strange, frenetic energy at the base of my spine. It felt a little like I was now in the bath with a snake flailing around beneath me.
I had a sense of what this was, based on my years of reading about spiritual awakening. On instinct, I rushed to my bedroom (still rather wet) and lay down. Immediately my body began contorting itself into strange shapes — shaking, constricting, and scrunching itself up into a kind of spontaneous supine fetal position. I would have been terrified if I were not already certain what was happening: my body was now spontaneously releasing trapped emotion.
Kundalini awakening is a phenomenon not well known in the West, because it usually occurs after many years of dedicated spiritual practice — and most of the people who are dedicated enough to reach this point have historically been in the East, in countries like India, known for their spiritual heritage and culture.
But in recent times, there has been a resurgence of cases of people in the West spontaneously having these awakenings. A friend of mine from the same town as me had recently experienced one, in fact. A quick search on social media, and it seems people were popping up all over Europe and America with their kundalini now active.
The ultimate reason for these awakenings is hard to gauge, to say the least. I’d give you my opinion on it, but you’d think I was crazy, so I’ll save that for another time.
As for me, the awakening set me on an irreversible path of what appears to be an exhaustive process of trauma release. No stone will be left unturned — and that is what it feels like.
I have since spent hundreds of hours processing the emotions of fear (and its scary older brother, terror), shame, sadness (and its scary older sister, grief), anger (and its not-so-scary partner in crime, disgust, which together constitute hatred).
This has been very intense, to say the least. I do not feel it is an exaggeration to say that, in the past 10 months, I have processed more trauma (trapped emotion) than the vast majority of people do in a lifetime. This is what the kundalini does — it cracks you open and radically transforms you, because somehow the universe thinks you’re ready for it.
I have not always handled it well. Often I have turned to less-than-ideal means of coping. I have absolutely developed some egoic attachment to the idea that I have somehow been upgraded by the cosmos. These create new issues, and become part of the new emotional work I have to do.
On the whole, however, the experience has been incredibly positive, since it has given me what feels like extraordinary insight into my own suffering — and, as a result, the suffering of many others. We are all very different, and yet our minds function according to universal principles embedded deeply into the fabric of reality. Perhaps this is the purpose of the kundalini awakening — to give certain people a kickstart in deep healing so that they may play a larger role in helping others do the same.
I was already writing about the nature of consciousness, beauty, morality, spiritual awakening, and other deep matters before the awakening — but when I finally got seriously in touch with the well of feelings I had unknowingly been running from most of my life, I was able to connect so many more dots.
And so I began The Art of Breaking Character as a book, a website, a spiritual coaching business, and a wider intellectual project — an attempt to tie everything together under a single framework. I see breaking character as the essential task of all healing, awakening, and liberating endeavours — including religion, spirituality, and psychotherapy — and the many ways in which it can be approached imply it can be considered an art.
I would not recommend trying to activate your kundalini. I did not choose for this to happen. I can only deal the hand I have been given. And the hand I have been given means I feel I have no choice but to heal deeply and continuously, and spread what I learn in whichever ways I can.
You do not need your kundalini active to heal deeply. And given that many people who have kundalini awakenings experience symptoms of psychosis because of the speed with which the process can unfold, it is not something that should be considered desirable for most.
The kundalini makes it much easier to heal, but it can also be incredibly isolating. Who do you talk to about this? How do you live a normal life when every second of every day there is a chunk of trauma stuck in your system asking you to stop what you’re doing and feel it? Emotional suppression suddenly becomes a much more conscious and tactical game. Processing hatred whilst walking down the street will scare people. Processing grief when you’re staying with your parents will give them cause for great concern. Talking to others about the shame you feel will likely trigger their own shame — which they usually know very little about.
Very few people will understand that you are fine now (for the most part), but you are faced with processing every moment of unprocessed feeling from your past, bit by bit— which, it turns out, even for supposedly mentally healthy and traditionally “sane” or “trauma-free” people, is a lot.
It is somatic therapy on steroids, and very few people know how to offer the kind of support and guidance you need. So writing about it helps. 🙂
Anyway — there you have it. Some context for this website, for my writing, and for me. There’s a lot more I could say — but where would be the mystery in that?
If you enjoyed this post, and want to stay updated when I post new writings, which I aim to do regularly, consider subscribing.
If you are interested in learning more about or supporting my work in any way, please see the page About The Art of Breaking Character, at the bottom of which are detailed some types of help and support I am looking for in my mission to bring the path of healing/wholeness/awakening to as many people as possible.
If you would like to explore the possibility of working with me 1-on-1, I offer reasonably priced, flexible spiritual coaching. Find out more about this here.
Thanks for being here.
Love
R
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