Kundalini Overload: Grounding/Front Channel Block

[Yoda]

Jim and his good karma,

Congrats on your breakthrough!!

Your pal,
Yoda

[emc]

Yes, wonderful to hear about your experiences, Jim! Brings some resonance here! Particularly the abdomen breathing going to root breathing! I think that's the "expansion" I now have started to let myself do instead of holding it like a pressure cooker inside! Works fine so far! Thanks for all your wisdom you share here!

[Jim and His Karma]

I need to add that the lower abdomen and root breathing (mentioned in my previous posting) works like a charm for the heart palpitation symptom that comes with heart opening. That's about over energization in the heart, and these breathing techniques pull energy down from head, heart, whatever. Do read that PDF, it's a good one. And refer back to my previous postings on lower abdomen breathing in this thread.

Finally, for the jilionth time, please please take this to heart: all of this stuff is ONLY for people with severe grounding problems - people who've tried the time-honored yoga remedies (walking a lot, eating heavy, engaging more in daily life, self-pacing your practices, observing pitta-reducing diet). The stuff I'm talking about here is very much "under-the-hood" work, and that's definitely NOT the best way to go about yoga practice. I had an extraordinarily tenacious block that was affecting my life, health, and practice in really scary ways. I therefore was forced to resort to extraordinary means. This is not stuff to fool around with for fun or for handling minor issues!

[Tibetan_Ice]

Hi Jim,
 First, congratulations on your clearing!

 Second, thanks for sharing. I appreciate reading about your progress.

 Third, have you ever sat in a full lotus? The reason I ask is because somebody on another forum has put a lot of emphasis on sitting in the full lotus position. He claims that it opens the vagus nerves' pathways, which is the front channel.

  Yesterday I did a 1/2 hour meditation in the full lotus posture and immediately, yes, the front channel opened up. (1/2 an hour was all I could take, the pain is somewhat of a challenge).

  So now I'm thinking that the reason why yogis don't do the mc orbit is because they do the lotus posture (padmasana) and that takes care of it.
  Hence, my question about whether or not you have ever done the full lotus posture..

  Thanks.


TI

[Jim and His Karma]

I do full lotus as part of my asana practice, but not for meditation. FWIW, mantak chia insists that cross-legged sitting positions (including lotus) are a primary reason yogis often have trouble grounding. As you may know, the taoist practices are done with feet firmly planted on floor. And there's definitely something to that. Yogis have long understood the dilemma, which is why long walks are their time-honored grounding solution. Taoists build that element fundamentally into every practice.

I'm resisting thinking of this as "completing the mc (microcosmic) orbit" because my practice is yoga, not Taoism. I think the Taoists, as usual, have nailed  the under-the-hood landscape. But along with nailing the landscape comes a culture of mental and physical striving that is at odds with yoga (which is about letting rather than striving). Now that things are flowing a bit, I find it easy (and conducive) to slip back into a more yogic perspective. I'm not an energetic loop, I'm untold millions of nadis, and mantra will eventually get to all of them. I "cheated" a bit because of an uncommon problem particular to my particular plumbing, and borrowed some techniques to clear up certain pathways (wherever the heck they are, whatever the heck they're called) that critically needed attention. Things are flowing a bit better now, though there are still plenty of dead places that need to open to divine love. I'm not gonna catalog them and learn various voodoo moves to "make that happen". I'll just let the Cosmic Barber cut my hair.

[Yogajan]

I am glad to have found this site.  Since reading this, I have started taking long walks.  I have been having a lot of body fluttering, particularly at night, in my heart and pelvic area, some intermittent pressure in the area between my eye brows, and some facial flushing a few times a week.  The heat moves up quickly and my face gets red.  Also had some gastrointestinal problems, again, not all the time.  I have changed my diet to a pitta-pacifying diet (and not vata provoking) as suggested by an Ayurvedic practitioner.  I also have cut way back on spiritual practices doing only gentle and grounding yoga and breathing practice to relax.  All of this has freaked me out and I'm trying to find ways to balance myself.  I also am going to my doctor to make sure I don't have some weird illness although when I had a full check-up four months ago all my blood work was normal.  I can't imagine an illness that creates all this fluttering that moves around quite a bit!  Any thought in terms of practices, etc. would be GREATLY appreciated.  Your suggestion to get out with people was good although its been hard for me to want to be around people.
Namaste,
Jan

[emc]

Hi Jan, and very welcome to the forum!

It sounds like you have an awakening of energies going on there! That is a good sign, but they can get too "liveful" sometimes! Your actions towards self-pacing sounds great!

I must ask... are you following the AYP system of deep meditation and pranayama? Otherwise that could be a very good start to check out the Main lessons here.

You write "grounding yoga and breathing practices"... in my experience both asanas and breathing practices may boost energies. The pranayama spinal breathing we use here at AYP, though, may also have a very nice balancing effect. I came here to the forum with overload awakening kundalini, and the spinal breathing calmed the whole thing down very quickly! I didn't wait to do months of meditation first as suggested in the lessons - I took on the spinal breathing directly because of the great need and it worked great!

Please tell more about your practices, that may give us some hints for further recommendations.

[Yogajan]

I've been practicing Iyengar-style yoga for about 18 years and about 10 years ago had a kundalini episode, then last year developed a full blown release.  I am not doing AYP but have been looking at the lessons.  Have been confused about practices taking meditation classes focused on heart space, continued doing some yoga, then quit entirely both but have been occasionally doing some intermittent standing poses but this too has activated things.  Hip openers in general tend to arouse energy.  I did try the spinal breathing this morning.  I was a little confused about the directions.  The first inhale through the tube after relaxed breathing goes up to the crown and around to the forhead (ajna chakra) and down to the perineim and then up to the ajna area through the tube and exhaling down to the perineum for about 5 minutes. Its encouraging that your energies have calmed down and I appreciate your sharing about it.  Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I have started walking.  
Namaste,
Jan

[emc]

Every new practice may be a bit clunky at the beginning. It will settle in soon. Just be careful not to direct the energy up to the crown in any conscious or deliberate way during spinal breathing. It is supposed to follow the spinal nerve from perineum to ajna, and out through the ajna, but not upwards to the crown. The ajna is the "controller" of it all, and a crown opening does not sound like what you need at the moment!

Have you checked out the YOGA FAQ and all the links in those topics? For example

Excess kundalini
http://www.aypsite.com/plus-forum/index.php?topic=2146

Grounding
http://www.aypsite.com/plus-forum/index.php?topic=2165

Self-pacing
http://www.aypsite.com/plus-forum/index.php?topic=2139

[Yogajan]

Thanks Emc for the links.  I have been walking everyday and decided to forgo yoga until I feel less strung out.  its better,  The weekend was great but yesterday I was up all night with heart and throat fluttering.  Anybody have anxiety/fear associated with this?   Blessings, Jan

[Adam_West]

What a most interesting contribution Jim!  very informative.

[CRS]

A most interesting discussion!

I've just recently begun meditating after having my interest aroused by some kundalini symptoms that emerged after an illness.

All I do for the time being is pranayama followed by meditation around the I AM mantra. Nothing fancy. But it seems to be working quite well for me.

No explosive, ecstatic kundalini awakenings for me yet. I still don;t know what this sort of ecstasy that people describe feels like, but all in due time . . .  

[yogi_x]

Hello Jim and everyone else,

Thanks for your post Jim. I have been experiencing the front energy block for a long time now and it has been driving me crazy.

I realized that effort was useless, that the direction of energy flow here was some sort of effortlessness--it has been very perplexing.

In the last year of my experiences with energy, I have been feeling what I would call a phallic rush of sorts, and it was positive most times, but the past few months it seems like this energy wants to take a different direction from my head downwards, yet I cannot point it downwards. It has a direction of its own and *I* happen to prevent its movement.

Now my head at times feels completely misaligned with my body, I feel very spacey and ungrounded, and my eyes get blurry sometimes, like they are tired of seeing, and just want to close and rest. My face and head feel like they want to connect with the rest of the body and like I have been holding up my head to sort of hold up ideas of myself and the surroundings that must give way to some natural way. It tells me that the head is not any more important than any other part of my body, that it must become unimportant, but along the way it seems, there lies a lot of pain to uncover, and it feels scary.

My jaws seem to come in the way of this energy and they seem to be frozen in a sort of opposite of the smiling posture, sometimes my face takes very unusual contortions and my TMJ aches. I am at times horrified at what I may have to go through until this passes and when.

My experiences with K have been a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs. I have felt a lot of insights that I can call mind-body altering and during the ups there is a feeling of euphoria and of new ideas that is simply beyond words, but during times such as the past few months, I really feel like having a normal life without the ups or downs may have been a better deal.

But, there is no returning from here.....I know...

[ddingal]

I am also suffering from kundalini problem, i couldnot breath through my right nostril, always my breathing is through left nostril.
 I feel my breathing in right side restricted from getting downward.


Reagrds

[lucidinterval1]

Have you ever tried using a neti pot? This has worked wonders for me to clear obstruction in the nasal cavities.