Remember that 30 day inner journey I did for the month of June? Well, all I can say is that things just haven’t been the same since. On June 19, something happened. I was in Miami with a few of my closest friends enjoying a lazy day. That night all kinds of hell broke loose. Every kind of hell broke loose.

I was lying down in bed and suddenly I felt these intense surges of heat rolling through my body. But I was also shivering because of the cold rushes that followed. I couldn’t stand the flicker of the TV, the brightness of the room lights was blinding and the sound of the laugh track on the show we were watching made me want to pull my ears off my head and hide them in a drawer until I woke up on the morning. I was surprised by a sudden bout of the runs and a recurring urge to vomit. I didn’t know whether to sit on the toilet or hug the toilet. I thought it might have been food poisoning, but I was also overcome with fear, anxiety and a rush of illogical thoughts about my past. I was freaking out. And my friend who had the same dinner as me was happily watching Rupaul and his fellow drag queens teach repressed women how to find their sexuality. I didn’t sleep a wink.

All the way home, I was plagued with fear, anxiety and random rushes of energy through my upper body. I was sweating and uncomfortable the whole journey home. I tried to distract myself by watching 10 straight episodes of Sex & the City on DirectTV. It didn’t work. My mind was racing, my emotions were all over the place and my body felt like it was tightly bound in uncomfortable clothes. I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

I got home at 11:00 PM and the hot/cold energy continued to rush through my upper body, up my back and arms into my neck. I was sweating in bed at night while I tossed and turned. I got up a few times and walked over to my husband’s side of the bed to see if he was awake. He’s an insomniac, so I thought I might be lucky enough to catch him awake. No such luck. He slept like a baby that night and I cried in bed wondering what the hell was going on. I thought I was going to lose my mind. Then, the craziest thing happened. I suddenly zoomed out and could see myself lying in bed. There were two grey silhouettes in my bed and I had the distinct sense that one of them was my body in turmoil and the other was my consciousness witnessing the former. I watched them until they merged into one single form. Shortly after, I fell asleep.

In the morning, I told Bruce what was happening. He smiled gently and said “it sounds like kundalini.” That’s what I was afraid of. He asked me a series of diagnostic questions:

“Is there energy rising up your spine?”
“Yes.”

“Is your mind racing with fear and bullshit from your past.”
“Yes.”

“Are you overcome with anxiety?”
“Yes.”

“Are all of your senses on overload?”
“Yes.”

“Yep, it’s kundalini.”
“Yikes.”

In just a few minutes, Bruce counselled me on how to manage the energy and the thoughts so I could get through the day. “Breathe down into your feet, don’t buy into the bullshit that’s coming to the surface of your mind, and call me later.” Back in 1996, Bruce had a not-so-pretty encounter with kundalini so he was able to identify the symptoms pretty damn quick. At lunch, I called my mom and grilled her about what I was going through. She confirmed it to be a kundalini experience too; she had hers in 1991. She told me to focus on my exhale, breathe deeply and press my big toe into the Earth to ground me. My mom and Bruce both reminded me that I set an intention at the beginning of the June experiment and that intention was to become conscious, aware and to know myself. I guess I had hoped the experience of becoming conscious would be less painful. After years of hearing Bruce’s stories of his “kundalini days” and having witnessed the torture my mom lived through during her spiritual experience, I never wanted to meet kundalini face-to-face. But it seems we don’t always get to choose.

So this is how we met. Me and Kundalini. I can now confirm first-hand that she’s a force to be reckoned with. And she’s not done with me. Not yet.

Here’s a crude definition of kundalini from Wikipedia. And then there’s a woman named Swami G who has written a book on the kundalini experience. She seems to be the most well versed author on this experience and has definitely helped people integrate and recover from this experience. Her book Kundalini – From Hell to Heaven is a bible of sorts to those who are trying to reconcile their kundalini experiences. I haven’t read it yet, but I think it’s time.

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