A Lifetime of Exploring Within + Without

Laura, 57

Stripped clean of my known self-identifiers and doing my best to rebuild what I had always known and found great success doing, I traversed the awkward time, following a powerful, originally blissful, Kundalini-guided Awakening.  This accelerated my spiritual path and I found myself then deeply immersed in a Dark Night of the Soul. The Kundalini Awakening is a solo journey through connection to higher spiritual energy — released at the base of the spine, tied to the Chakra systems and to beyond, on the spiritual plane.

Following the early months of bliss and mysticism, I moved onward within, through the deep dark woods of the unconscious, facing ingrained fears, while experiencing high levels of anxiety, disorientation and seeing hidden aspects of my (shadow) self, with clarity. More than ever, many speak of this path online and in essays, but few have truly experienced the deeper realms beyond feeling moments of Kundalini activity. It requires an all-encompassing act of surrender, and none of the glamour, of living from the Ego. This is the ultimate Spiritual Path back to the Soul.

We live, in many ways, amidst a sea of confusion and conflicting world-views. A massive paradigm shift is emerging, 20 years into the new century, with ever changing ideas about caring for the earth, wellness, work, sustainability, human rights. The last few years or so of insular living, in isolation, has encouraged a rest from the frantic yang Western-style of living allowing many to self-reflect. Question. Consider new ways of looking at Spirituality.

For me this journey began a decade ago, when I found myself supporting my partner through treatment for addiction issues. This led to completing three years of Alanon, and working the steps with a Sponsor. This program advises looking at ingrained family patterns in relation to co-dependency and then sourcing freedom from this state, through surrendering into “spiritual awakening.” I spent three years talking with a therapist about my challenges and patterns, twice a week. I was seeking grounding amidst the emotional chaos. Through this part of the process, I made discoveries about my own ancestry’s history and patterns and how they came into play with where I found myself.

During this time, I educated myself on Borderline Personality disorder, as a lifelong relationship, within my “sphere of influence”, brought these behaviors of unbalanced emotions and tantrums into my world, and this too shaped me.  As I explored Alanon and asked questions about family history this probing had the disruptive effect of triggering dormant familial patterns of energy and I was being seen as provocative and in many ways was at the same time ignored and disallowed. It takes enormous inner strength to step outside of tribal thinking.

I then fell into a divorce at age 46, from my 20 year marriage (which means losing half your extended family system and part of your connected network of friends). I had to let go of my newly remodeled, decorated and landscaped northwest modern home, one block off the Puget Sound, during the mortgage meltdown/stock market crash, breaking even after 10 years in real estate investment and essentially starting over coming into middle age. The divorce was unexpected and awkwardly announced. 

This main relationship was an anchor for me for many years. We were a Team. Our time together included driving cross country from DC to Seattle. Working in the outdoor industry for a decade in which time we backcountry skied, climbed all of the PNW volcanoes. Regularly road tripped all over out west to explore various mountain ranges, on long distance backpacking trips. We loved to play the role of Lewis + Clark, put on Filson clothing + gear (this was the nineties before hipsters, ha ha) and drive out to Eastern Washington to stay overnight in a big wall tent, with a woodstove, sipping pine needle tea and frying up steaks. We’d wander through the desert with handmade bows, randomly shooting arrows. And scramble up basalt towers with our husky.

We also lived in Homer, Alaska, learned to fly fish and hiked in Grizzly country. We circumnavigated the Brooks Range, and rock and ice climbed all over. In this time I also climbed and explored in Africa and South America, trekked in Asia, kayaked down the coast of Baja and went on cultural trips to Europe. I lived a life of outward adventure, pursuing my dreams with a big and wildly open heart.

My partner was adopted - from the Netherlands. He grew up with a family very different from him with parents who had high powered careers in DC and played golf for relaxation. His birth mom found him in his thirties and opened up a lot of psychological unrest, anxiety. Deeper issues came to the surface. Ultimately the emotions were dealt with through drinking. Which grew out of hand from year 15 on.

So letting go of my relationship, identity tied with it, my house and in turn my place in our social community as a couple, I found myself in a deep spiral of an identity crisis. With strong discipline, I was rolling out my yoga mat daily in my newly found small studio apartment, to process grieving this loss of family, home and the “idea of security”. I had a long history of leaning into my yoga practice as a way of managing the stress of my fast paced career as a Creative Producer and to manage emotions as a sensitive person. My practice began in 1998.

In the time, coming out of my divorce, I attended a regional yoga retreat, and experienced an unknown energy at the base of my spine. I found myself moving through rotational rocking, in conjunction with explosive energy bursting out like a sonic boom as a “heart opening”, while quietly meditating, during a 45 minute crystal bowls and gong session. A friend sat with me, it was dark, she put a comforting hand on my knee. At the start of the session, we were asked to set an intention for our sound journey - mine was to remove the darkness sitting over my heart, full of cynicism and anger from betrayals that came forward at the end of my marriage in addition to some challenges happening with bullying at work.

“Following the breadcrumbs”, I worked with this same Seattle Sound Healer, for a year after, responding strongly to Reiki and sound therapy. This slow, methodical, once-a-month energy work, + daily yoga and meditation, allowed me to gradually shift my perspective, heal and incorporate deeper-found learnings. (I can look back now and see the many incremental steps that were taken and absorbed to allow a gradual expansion into Transformation. The Kundalini was responsive to the psychospiritual work I did along the way, within my Chakra system, through talk therapy and energy work on my unsupportive ingrained patterns.)

Leading a double life, I continued to outwardly pursue all of my known ideas of success and “safety”. Growing up in a career family in DC in the Reagan years of the 80’s, I brought forward a value system of upward mobility and living the long-game. I was heavily invested in my career in corporate branding, and real estate, with an eye for retirement pay-off. My social and career network, followed the national capitalistic norm, of the long slog through career, family, mortgage. I was ironically living in Seattle, the epicenter home to a giant tech revolution’s second wave with expansion efforts from Amazon and Microsoft leading the way from 2007 forward!

I did my best to make small pivots. To allow myself to maintain a foundation of knowns, while exploring new perspectives. I bought my own newly built modern townhome in West Seattle, two years after my divorce, but ultimately found that my high stress job of 10 years, and large mortgage (a very standard $2500 a month) were draining me. At this time, Seattle housing costs had bounced back, and the region was being called “San Francisco of the North.”

I did my best to push through a four month illness, after pulling off a huge complex project at work. I began noticing a shift in the Seattle culture from the laid back 90’s city, close to Nature, and proud of its music and liberal intellectualism, to a fast paced competitive capitalistic city, now made up of big brands. Acupuncture, a clean diet, yoga and massage pulled me through this illness. It was time for a change.

I met someone online who was also coming out of a 20 year marriage. He was looking for a partner who was more adventurous and creative. He encouraged me from the start to focus on just what pleased me like art, travel, design, spirituality. After leaving my LT corporate gig, he joined me on a 6 week trip to France and Spain to to explore food and art. (He’s a Chef.) We visited all of the major museums and ended with a week in Paris. I was so filled up with Art inspiration! Miro, Picasso, Kandinsky, Paul Klee! We also roadtripped through the desert southwest and up the Oregon coast, camping along the way in our tent.

We decided to try living in Portland. I found a job as a Studio Manager for a small graphic design agency of 15. Took on a role as a contractor for a few months. Managed to talk the Bank into lending me money to buy a home with the idea that my contract was converting to a FT position within 30 days. Got into a bidding war with 28 people but still managed to “win” the house after writing a letter about being a single woman buying her own home after a divorce. Then the week after being handed the keys, was sat down and told by the agency owner that she was laying everyone off and bringing the design business back into her own home as a solo designer again! I found myself once again in no man’s land and despite aggressive networking unable to find solid work - sold my home to a designer I worked with as a FISBO, put my household items back in storage and we returned to an apartment in a familiar neighborhood in Seattle. 

Now 2017, I explored other life options but the universe kept blocking my attempts at rebuilding the old as known. I learned to mt bike and took long walks along the ocean, meditating an hour a day, outside. With great discipline, I also was committed to 45 minutes of daily yoga. Always a go-getter, with a list of goals and ever busy, I was new to navigating free-time of this nature. Many numerous job interviews and networking were not delivering the usual results. 2400 people a month were moving to the PNW; my career path shows a bias towards the young and hip.

One night, in August of 2017 (having turned 50 in June), I sat down to my daily meditation and yoga and for the first time, brought my hands to my heart center, in a place of letting go — admitting to myself, and the Universe, that I was truly out of answers, very tired and humbly, I needed guidance in this place of uncertainty. Eyes closed, I witnessed in my mind’s eye  (the third eye), a wisp of smoke release from my hands in prayer, skyward. Having read Jack Kornfield's  “A Path with Heart”, for many years, as part of my 20+ years of yoga training, I knew that a mystical event was transpiring. Sitting in the witness seat, I watched as a viewer, within myself, behind closed eyes, a magnificent movie played out.

A white prana tube exploded out my head and released up to the heavens, from my crown chakra, driving the soul in me into the center of the universe, while a second drove down into the earth, deeply grounding, as energy rotated through my sacrum region. Peaceful white light shone down on me, from a place far away from the earth, and yet the center of it all. This went on, for what felt like 30 minutes. I experienced a cosmological energetic connection, to the source of all that is. There was a sense of rich love and euphoria, with none of my usual concerns weighing me down. And then it was over. I existed for that 30 minutes in a place well beyond personal identity. Spiritual books call this place The Void.

Uncertain what had just happened, I asked Google the next morning, and learned that it fit the description of a Kundalini Awakening. “Like Kundalini Yoga?” I asked. “Yes.” “Oh,” I thought. Hmm. I had always been a Hatha and Yin practitioner. During this time, my practice evolved and I turned to yoga to support me through grieving the loss of my marriage and security and for spiritual grounding during these times of uncertainty. My Ego never intended to release this ancient energy as I knew nothing about this part of the path. This door opened as a result of me coming to a place of deep SURRENDER. I believe part of my journey has been finding a balance between yin and yang energy.

As a side note, research has led me to consider my astrological chart as a driver to all that has arisen in this Life’s journey. I now have a strong belief in destiny within which we have a certain amount of free will. I am a Gemini Sun, Cancer Moon and Aquarius Rising. This combination is intuitive, sensitive, curious, driven to explore both the world at large and the depths within. Cancer is known to be spiritual, artistic and have healing powers. Aquarius Rising is an observer, a humanitarian and innovative. In my 25 year career, I have always been a leader of creative teams. 

It has been hypothesized that Kundalini activity often happens in tandem with generational transits. The Saturn return happens 28-30 when we are asked to turn into our path, Uranus Opposition 38-46 (with growing maturation of various energy bodies) and Chiron Return (50-51) is a time of full Spiritual Awakening. My KA happened a month after turning 50.

I have to say, part of me didn't really believe and was skeptical about the mystical. (I grew up in a Science family and worked in the corporate world after all.) I was rather looking to meditation trying to process emotions and ground myself. If I'm being honest with myself, however, a deeper soulful part of me has always been a spiritual seeker, deep thinker and wanting connection to something greater - while also desiring answers to how the Universe works. I was now at a place in my meditation practice, where I was easily able to move in to witness consciousness, and find a calm center, amidst internal emotions. The days right after the KA, my logical mind cast doubt. I had the time and so started devouring books on quantum physics, spirituality and yoga philosophy. (Not surprising - I was raised by two “researcher” parents.)

Ultimately, I feel blessed to have had this experience, with the spiritual dimension, and see the aid that Shakti, through Kundalini, offered in my healing all of the grief I held from my many losses, and the gentle guidance shown me energetically, to return to my soulful self, and establish a next vision for life. Lessons in humility. And always, I find myself returning to the yoga mat and to time in Nature as a source of strength and to find deep peace.

The month that followed my KA, I found myself waking up at night. Moved, in a deeper place of stillness, to roll out my mat and move through “kriyas”, deep yoga stretches, hypothesized to allow one’s energy field to expand. I also found myself guided through self-healing sessions. My hands slowly moving through “mudras”, dispersing healing energy, through each chakra point, spine to crown. And then removing bad energy, and releasing it outwards. Some of these hand movements, I found later on YouTube; most of them I had never experienced before or even paid much attention to in books.

There was an eloquent beauty to what was presented through these configurations such as hands joined, flying as birds over my body and a heart shape with my right hand, positioned over my third eye. I also found my hands moved to my root chakra area and creating a drumming pattern as I heard the names of those who had betrayed me in life, moving through my mind, as I released their effect on me. CranioSacral therapy and massage also helped release held somatic energy in the body, and Kundalini guided the process of letting go. I had some deep dramatic crying sessions when Reiki energy was poured into my Solar Plexus. The healer I worked with shared that this was tied to a past life.

My hands were very warm during that time, and my diet changed dramatically.

I also experienced the joyous bliss of a spiritual awakening. Seeing vivid colors outside. Experiencing wild metaphysical experiences with light. One day sunlight poured through the window blinds, creating a moving living artwork on a blank canvas on my wall, hung to inspire me to paint. Another time, the fractured light breaking through the blinds, threw light lines on to my desk, next to my journal, exactly extending stripes in a drawing I had just created that morning with colored pencils. Prisms started popping everywhere on my walks around the city. I saw mandalas on the grass that then slowly disappeared before my eyes. Ultimately, I was so elated to find out that reality truly includes these other realms. My father had always pounded into me that I needed to stop being a dreamer and accept reality as it is! (He's a scientist, an atheist and a cynic.)

Coming out of this time period, back living in a studio apartment, I followed my bliss and jumped head first into art classes, combined with travel and yoga teacher training. I went to Iceland, NYC, Esalen at Big Sur, San Miguel Allende, MX. This expansion of heart and creativity, was now built on a foundation of 20+ years of Yoga and Meditation practice, and a college education in Psychology at a small private Quaker liberal arts college, where I was immersed in class themes around feminist theology i.e. Miriam Shapiro / Judy Chicago / Margaret Atwood. And was schooled on Jungian concepts, the abstract ideas of Tielhard de Chardin, on the art/writing of William Blake and attending town hall discussions on human rights and non-violent values.

Next, I pursued energy healing training and read teachings by Healers and Shamans with backgrounds as Physicists. I Zoom-consulted with spiritual coaches for guidance on the path of the Kundalini Awakening. And I became a Reiki master and began practicing part-time. I have also read many books on creativity, took part in a neighborhood “Artists Way” group, and found myself drawn to self expression, through abstract painting, on a large scale. Meditative spiritual Swedish painter, from the early 1900’s, Hilma AF Klint’s exhibit coinciding at that time, at the Guggenheim, spoke to me. Agnes Pelton and Georgia O’Keefe, desert mystic artists, are spirit mentors. New aspects of my personality emerged. 

More recently, while watching a documentary online— “Autobiography of a Yogi” — I again felt the presence of an energy emerging up my spine, while I experienced a strong internal vision of a snake. I knew that the Kundalini was teaching me and quietly rolled out my mat, allowing myself to feel and learn what needed to be known at that time. I began to sense Kundalini energy in others, while performing Reiki as a Healer. And had some mystical Kundalini experiences, around inner child emotions, that came up during meditation. Shakti offered a holding and soothing compassion of acceptance. I returned to working with Spiritual Therapists to look at egoic patterns, left over from childhood and how I reacted to my modern day environment.

During a 4-day CranioSacral training workshop, in a studio out in the woods, with a handful of other participants, a number of interesting situations unfolded:

• My Heart chakra opened and streamed out healing energy resulting in heart shapes in the client’s aura that vibrated

• In my Mind’s Eye, I was able to travel with the fluid down the spine through the body and I saw the throat and ribs

• My vibrating aura grew immensely outward in resonance and was witnessed by others who found large amounts of energy to be channeled while working with me versus other participants

• My hands on the forehead, flowed with the mathematical rhythm of the cranial pulse in my hands, rhythmically

• Through moving my head up and down, I was able to send energy down the midline and back up

• While working on one woman, a massage therapist, I saw a womb image and shared this with her after — she was missing her two year old and had been talking recently with her husband about having another child — she was surprised that I knew something so private about her

• While the massage therapist worked on me, she encountered strong sun energy — the sun played a strong role in my mystical experiences of light in the days after my KA explosive experience; intense heat in my energy body was experienced by all - a painting I made of my KA is of a rotating sun

• I was told by her that I have Indigo blue and aqua/turquoise aura color

• Nature outside tended to synch with the healing work going on inside, sunlight coming out during high points, the wind blowing through a window over the client when energy needed to be moved through and out (and I continue to find this)

Throughout this KA journey, I have found myself moving back and forth, between two worlds. Old and new. Pragmatic and mystical. Literally traveling back and forth between spiritual, artistic, intuitive Santa Fe and analytical, technological, driven Seattle. A part of myself insisted on returning to the old ideas of success and safety, inherited from an integral line of influence from my family system. Raised Protestant, my early American descendants, travelled through Indiana and ended up out West, in the Rockies. They emerged as skeptical and sometimes atheistic, independent and libertarian, pragmatic yet theoretical and disregard anything mystical, intuitive or emotional by nature. I inherited the ability to forecast, strategize and plan. To analyze, hypothesize and think in a linear fashion, of cause and effect. Life philosophy was explained simply by deterministic science.

The Germanic science side of my family questions the importance of art in society and sees it merely as a mechanical demonstration of how the brain works. Protestant values of hard work first and foremost, and careers in technology + science and the military, are celebrated. Loyalty to the family tribe is essential, and emotionalism is considered “irrational.”

My other family tree has represented upper middle class Episcopalian values, from the UK countries, with an emphasis on decorum, family lineage and history, military pride. Emotional challenges were met with non-emotional objective discussions on problem solving; parenting was very authoritarian like the mini-series “The Crown”. At the same time, I also grew up in the 70s, as a latch key kid, and had a lot of responsibility for myself early on, without adults around. — My family is cerebral, introverted, controlled, private. Education is highly valued. I know it is an important part of the healing journey to explore family values and energetic themes after reading books on Energy Healing.

By nature, I am more emotional, an ambivert and a humanist. I enjoy using my imagination to build theories of why things are as they are. I like to create and innovate new ideas. Love the visual arts, fashion, food, travel (very Gemini Sun). Am fascinated by people and the process of self transformation (very Cancer Moon). My career has capitalized on my ability to move back and forth between left brain planning— with right brain imagining.  I worked in graphic design with the use of psychology to facilitate branding. I enjoy the process of learning new hobbies and have explored a wide range of interests, in outdoors sports and the arts.

Considering a new chapter of life, moving to a new region, initially felt right but also brought panic. Kundalini energy, once active in your system, often expands consciousness and floods the mind with a wider range of subconscious emotions, formerly repressed, creating reactions to be dealt with. Self doubt absorbed me. Every taste of the new was counteracted, by a push for the old. Still enjoying a sense of freedom while first living in New Mexico, I road tripped to Denver to see old college friends, to Austin to visit an old work friend and to Sedona and Marfa. I was connecting with more traditional people and allowed myself to see myself through their eyes. I was partly wondering what had gotten into me to make such an extreme life change.

A lot of anxiety came up, as I lived out in an off-grid cabin, on the Turquoise Trail, in New Mexico (2018). I encountered all sorts of life challenges during this time and began to think that this move was a “mistake”. My solar was down for 3 months in which time I got giardiasis. A giant snow storm trapped me in my cabin for 10 days, cooking on my camp stove with a head lamp. My compost caught on fire and almost burned my house down! The list goes on and on. I questioned myself and sound boarded with family and friends back in the old paradigm who didn’t understand what I was doing. I didn’t trust myself or listen to my intuition and ride out all that came up. I was mortgage free, with low overhead, had planned to make art, had money socked away. I know now I was exactly where I should be and was spiritually guided.

But not trusting myself or the Spirit World, I listened to others. And so in 2019, I returned to the known, looking to reengage my prior community. I simply encountered a fast changing world, of tech-saturated Seattle. Not allowing a creative, more free-spirited life to unfold, I was trying to reenact the concept of security, corporate identity and minimizing self, in allowance of group acceptance, of friends and family. But the timing of COVID (Feb 2020) pushed my experience to a whole other extreme— strong waves of anxiety accompanied an expensive over-head, trying to stay connected + find grounding, from my past in Seattle. The traffic was horrible and I barely saw anyone before the lock down set in.

The act of allowing trust in life, brought up my own issues, about navigating change, having faith, moving into the unknown and accepting that part of the Universe exists, beyond the rational, analytical mind. My upbringing focused on leaning into the rational mind, for safety. The corporate world tends to mock the spiritual. I have also learned that low self esteem, can be bolstered by outward ego identifications, around success, but deep within unhappiness can still reside, amidst material accumulation. (Thus the mass use of antidepressants in our culture along with hoarding materialism, the need for large homes and over spending and social media “fame”.)

Wildfires were erupting up and down the west coast producing sci-fi like orange skies in the PNW in 2020. Thousands of birds were found dropping from the clouds, in Western states. Social isolation, job insecurity, and a great amount of uncertainty, made it difficult to plan beyond a day or two, or have any sense of what was to come during the Pandemic. Old coping skills were completely unhelpful. 

Letting go, especially at middle age, when so many around you are well settled into living, as to who they always have been, in career and home and marriage, can seem daunting. It requires enormous courage to face the Spiritual path especially in capitalist Anglo America. This ancient path is not always understood in our traditional, mechanistic, pragmatic Western ways.

In January 2020, I had next purchased a townhome (involving a bidding war of course), in beautiful Magnolia by Discovery Park in Seattle, with an independent commercial space below, at street level and walked in the first day COVID hit the media (!) My working art/jewelry studio/store was set up for an audience that never came. I put this home back up for sale, in the summer of 2020, amidst a huge wave of 2,000 other townhomes hitting the market, with a backup of listings/buildings due to the pandemic. My new job in nearby Ballard, at a tech startup, was shaky and the house of cards came crashing down. I could no longer afford the expensive $3600 a month mortgage, and for the second time, walked away at a loss—my dreams shattered.

The Kundalini Awakening, Dark Night of the Soul, drove headlong into the spiritual awakening of the Global pandemic. I simply could no longer ignore the signs of transformation, and a new path beckoning, both within and without. I then, at last, left Seattle for good, and moved into a basic living situation on 10 acres, in the rolling high desert country-side, outdoors, outside Madrid New Mexico, for $100 a month. Ultimately, the trailer we bought on Facebook fell through but the money was stolen, so the tipi I purchased to make art became our new home. Simple, uncomplicated living, under the milky way and a sky full of stars, allowed life to unfold, one hour at a time, and this became my new existence. Inhabiting a stark, but colorful landscape, with big mural sunrises and sunsets of pink, purple, orange, held and comforted me.

Cooking dinner in a Le Creuset pot, over a wood stove nightly, grounded me. Knowing myself beyond my car, my house, my clothes, my “personal brand” allowed me to imagine myself differently. The fresh air was healing. Reassuring sounds of the song birds were loving. Feeling the ongoing sway of the wind helped me feel connected to the greater world, and Nature. The energetic quality of living close to the earth, and recharging was just what I needed. It was like a Vision Quest; I existed in quiet and felt connection to a higher power, through residing in Nature. I finally practiced letting go, amidst a DNS, and embracing the unknown. I began simply living in the present, beyond a frantic pace, to achieve and to consume.

Our landlord lived on the property. Pete was 83, and a well-known character, who loves horses and dogs. He was born on Park Avenue in NYC and went on to run a coffee shop in Greenwich Village in the 50’s, travelled with Jefferson Starship and other bands as a roadie in the 60’s, built his own log cabin in Taos in the 70’s, taught horseback riding in the 90’s. Pete and I had regular coffee visits, as he reflected, and I shared thoughts on my journey. I called it my “Tuesdays with Morrie'' mornings. I began to really feel seen and heard. He encouraged me to simply relax and enjoy the quiet beauty of New Mexico. “There is no pollution here. It’s quiet. You can see the night sky!” He assured me that family and friends should practice unconditional love.  After 8 months, we were able to pool the funds to buy a small property, at the end of a road, on the edge of a large wide open high-desert Wilderness, in the Sandia Mountains. We now are slowly renovating this inexpensive home, creating a quiet studio to work from.

Recently, I had a powerful healing experience at the alternative health center in Madrid NM, involving an infusion of golden light from the Tan Tien, bringing an expansive sense of my spiritual self, beyond the limits of the thinking survival-based mindset. Again, I was guided through a kriya, moving energy to a greater width and breadth. I was told by the 20 year Chiropractor that I am now accessing the Chakras above my Crown. I think this expansion will aid in my role as an energy healer. I have been teaching yoga outdoors at an off grid community with big views out into the mountains and desert.

In January 2024, my boyfriend was bed ridden with a bad knee sprain and a resurfacing of Diverticulitis. Every other day, I practiced Reiki on him, to help his digestive inflammation relax. And to calm and relieve the pain in his knee. The stomach and related organs are affected by emotions driven by anxiety and stress—more medical articles are now coming out about how the brain connects to the digestive tract thru the Vagus nerve, confirming a mind-body connection for related illnesses.

As I deeply relaxed into the healing, I felt the sense of Kundalini energy guiding me, and kept my ego quiet, allowing events to unfold. (Imagine when someone else slowly lifts your hand for you, and moves it around, and how it feels to let them, relaxing your control.) I trusted the ensuing movement, knowing that these events are coming from a place of positive intent, an open heart. I recognized that familiar feeling of guidance, found in my own chakra rebalancing sessions with Shakti.

In this case, my hands were shown various places to focus on. One area, I learned later, is an energy meridian used in accupuncture for organs tied to digestion. Like my own healing in the past, I was shown to run my fingers through dark energy, and to move it out around the knee. I also patted the area high above, moving bad energy up and out. And I ended the session, being guided through an infinity symbol, over my partner’s aura. I have since learned the power of this symbol and its ties to the Universe representing the eternal and connection to the spiritual. It also points to a balance point between yin-yang, dark-light.

Kundalini is the ultimate journey to personal freedom. Kundalini brings to the surface all of your old conditioning, beliefs and points of view, so that you can see that they no longer fit what you truly are. You are forced to become authentic, and be true to yourself. If you do not, you will feel overwhelmed, divided and unhappy. Deconstruction of aspects of the identity that no longer hold true, and are counter to health and well being, for the Mind-Body-Soul is an inevitable correlation of Spiritual Awakening. And what emerges is a new found peace, a knowing, beyond all external confirmation.

Feeling a connection to Universal energy, and opening one’s heart come from the act of letting go of the need for control and ego-driven ambition. Loving one’s self, and living close to nature, simplistically, allows a depth of experience, seldom found in our busy, over-achieving, competitive, capitalist culture. Less is more. Inner peace and satisfaction, heart-felt community connections, slow-living, trump owning large homes and lots of toys and being consumed by nothing but technology without personal connection. Self love is freeing. We are all moving into the Age of Aquarius. As a Society, we need to take on Global Warming.

At last, living in the quiet of nature, I can “hear myself”. My personal creativity is now freely flowing and I'm painting while also designing jewelry. Lower overhead and living simply is allowing me more freedom to be myself. I’m writing and sharing stories. I have reframed my ideas around what “success” means to me. Part of moving my life forward, with navigation from my own inner voice, versus pleasing others, has involved reflecting on what my life is now to look like. The list of the values I aspire to are outlined below.

* Waking up Each day to Yoga + Meditation

* Freedom to Hike + Camp + Bike

* Celebrating Authenticity

* Living in Nature / Healthy lifestyle

* Developing my Yin side as an Artist + Healer

* Connecting deeply to Self + Others

* Being an independent thinker

* Challenging myself / Self Expression

* Flexibility / Listening to My Heart

* Walking Away from Power Struggles

* Speaking My Truth / Holding Boundaries

* Being Kind + Compassionate to Self + Others

* Simple Home with Inspiring Art, Easygoing Pace

* Financially grounded, with low overhead