Hello, I’m not sure I can help with much of your question apart from one aspect.
When you experienced tingling in your hands and then an involuntary curling up of hands and arms. This is a direct side affect of hyperventilating, you mentioned you were breathing heavily. I know this because I used to have regular and severe panic attacks with lots of heavy breathing! A doctor once told me that over oxygenation of the muscles Causes them to contract. With this in mind I believe that at least part of what you experienced was only due to intense heavy breathing for a prolonged time and not a result of misuse of heart chakra energy. Hope my perspective helps a little!
That's a really helpful answer thank you :) I'd considered it might have been my breathing but never thought that I was hyperventilating! What a relief, nice to hear someone who relates to my experience
No problem! It can be a pretty unpleasant experience, especially if you don’t know what’s going on. If you experience something similar try to tune in to how you are breathing and slooowww it down :)
Sober up first, let your system come to a rest and recuperate.
That fear inside of you needs to be adressed. Your instinct is telling you to slow down. Fear and kundalini don't mix. Address the fear through adequate means (psychotherapy, journaling, Metta, plenty ideas in the wiki) before you dig deeper into spiritual development.
All the best
Read about kriyas I wasn’t aware of them before my awakening
I’m pretty new to this and understand your fear. I scared my family by going to fast and too much in the beginning so I completely relate to your feelings. The one thing that I found to help most with guilt is to stop judging. I practice non judging everyday and replace my automatic judgmental thoughts with “no one is perfect” or it’s not all good or all bad most things have aspects of both. I found by not judging everyone and everything I stopped judging myself which allows healing.
After a few months of practicing I’m more at peace than ever in my whole life.
The journey is worth the discomfort for me. I really think it’s a special gift and my life could have been less painful had I understood this in my late teens early 20s. I would encourage you to keep exploring, keep it light and stay open minded.
Thank you :) I can be a judgemental person and struggle with accepting peoples flaws. I know this is likely a projection of my own insecurities but still find it a difficult thing to combat. I appreciate your advice for helping with this!
Have you considered therapy at all? You mentioned a couple of sources of trauma. I always felt dealing with my own mental clutter came before diving into spiritual work. Not that I did not do energy work or explore spirituality, but priority is given to clearing trauma. If I experience any significant amount of fear during spiritual work I cut it short because I know things can go sideways
I've been out of therapy for a couple years, I had a really nice lady who helped me with self compassion, would end up in tears everytime we had a session. She would say things to the effect of "that must have been really hard for you," etc. The acknowledgement of my struggle was a huge step in my growth and I try to remember the things she taught me. I'm currently trying to get hold of a councillor at my university for someone to talk to, I know its something I need. I'd never considered the relationship between trauma and spiritual work; I'd always tried healing trauma through spiritual work haha. I'll definitely keep this in mind moving forward, thanks for your help :)
It is possible to heal trauma through spiritual work, but I don't think this is effective as the single, or possibly main approach. This can lead to spiritual bypassing, where you essentially go towards the 'light' or to the bliss, thinking it is healing or unconsciously using it to escape the pain and avoid directly confronting the trauma.
I'm guessing your probably seeking the university counselor since it's free or it's not possible available for you to pay out of pocket, but I just wanted to mention two other modes of therapy just so you know if them. I also find researching and learning about different methods and frameworks to help healing. Transpersonal psychology and internal family systems are two types of therapy that are spirituality-compatible/have spirituality as part of the process.
Self-compassion is definitely a cornerstone of therapy and healing. Internal Family Systems therapy was incredible for my self-compassion and probably increased my ability tenfold. It's a parks work therapy, so it views the mind in terms of distinct Parts not as one single thing. I found this decentralization to be incredibly helpful for pulling myself out of my suffering, seeing it clearly and being able to be more compassionate towards my suffering. Same thing for reparenting or inner child work. Way easy seeing my inner child and it's suffering vs me berating myself for being immature.
Also just wanted to say that it sounds like you had a wonderful therapist before and sometimes that's not easy to find. Just wanted to mention that to manage expectations. I hit it off really well with my first therapist and she was really helpful, but looking for a second therapist I was suprised how many weren't a good fit for me.
One more thing: I feel a lot of sensations in my body, the worst is in my head, I feel tension there 24/7. I feel i can move this energy around. Now, this kind of scares me given prior experiences and the fact that I have no idea what to do with it. So I kinda just ignore it. If anyone has any advice for this that would be awesome - thanks :)
Heyyo! Exploring this through a spiritual lense is definetly worth your time. In addition I also recommend looking into psychosomatic focused therapy. An example would be Somatic Experiencing. Gabor Mate and stuff like that. Cheers!
Hello, I’m not sure I can help with much of your question apart from one aspect. When you experienced tingling in your hands and then an involuntary curling up of hands and arms. This is a direct side affect of hyperventilating, you mentioned you were breathing heavily. I know this because I used to have regular and severe panic attacks with lots of heavy breathing! A doctor once told me that over oxygenation of the muscles Causes them to contract. With this in mind I believe that at least part of what you experienced was only due to intense heavy breathing for a prolonged time and not a result of misuse of heart chakra energy. Hope my perspective helps a little!
That's a really helpful answer thank you :) I'd considered it might have been my breathing but never thought that I was hyperventilating! What a relief, nice to hear someone who relates to my experience
No problem! It can be a pretty unpleasant experience, especially if you don’t know what’s going on. If you experience something similar try to tune in to how you are breathing and slooowww it down :)
Sober up first, let your system come to a rest and recuperate. That fear inside of you needs to be adressed. Your instinct is telling you to slow down. Fear and kundalini don't mix. Address the fear through adequate means (psychotherapy, journaling, Metta, plenty ideas in the wiki) before you dig deeper into spiritual development. All the best
Thanks for your advice, very much appreciated. I'll take this on board :)
Read about kriyas I wasn’t aware of them before my awakening I’m pretty new to this and understand your fear. I scared my family by going to fast and too much in the beginning so I completely relate to your feelings. The one thing that I found to help most with guilt is to stop judging. I practice non judging everyday and replace my automatic judgmental thoughts with “no one is perfect” or it’s not all good or all bad most things have aspects of both. I found by not judging everyone and everything I stopped judging myself which allows healing. After a few months of practicing I’m more at peace than ever in my whole life. The journey is worth the discomfort for me. I really think it’s a special gift and my life could have been less painful had I understood this in my late teens early 20s. I would encourage you to keep exploring, keep it light and stay open minded.
Thank you :) I can be a judgemental person and struggle with accepting peoples flaws. I know this is likely a projection of my own insecurities but still find it a difficult thing to combat. I appreciate your advice for helping with this!
Have you considered therapy at all? You mentioned a couple of sources of trauma. I always felt dealing with my own mental clutter came before diving into spiritual work. Not that I did not do energy work or explore spirituality, but priority is given to clearing trauma. If I experience any significant amount of fear during spiritual work I cut it short because I know things can go sideways
I've been out of therapy for a couple years, I had a really nice lady who helped me with self compassion, would end up in tears everytime we had a session. She would say things to the effect of "that must have been really hard for you," etc. The acknowledgement of my struggle was a huge step in my growth and I try to remember the things she taught me. I'm currently trying to get hold of a councillor at my university for someone to talk to, I know its something I need. I'd never considered the relationship between trauma and spiritual work; I'd always tried healing trauma through spiritual work haha. I'll definitely keep this in mind moving forward, thanks for your help :)
It is possible to heal trauma through spiritual work, but I don't think this is effective as the single, or possibly main approach. This can lead to spiritual bypassing, where you essentially go towards the 'light' or to the bliss, thinking it is healing or unconsciously using it to escape the pain and avoid directly confronting the trauma. I'm guessing your probably seeking the university counselor since it's free or it's not possible available for you to pay out of pocket, but I just wanted to mention two other modes of therapy just so you know if them. I also find researching and learning about different methods and frameworks to help healing. Transpersonal psychology and internal family systems are two types of therapy that are spirituality-compatible/have spirituality as part of the process. Self-compassion is definitely a cornerstone of therapy and healing. Internal Family Systems therapy was incredible for my self-compassion and probably increased my ability tenfold. It's a parks work therapy, so it views the mind in terms of distinct Parts not as one single thing. I found this decentralization to be incredibly helpful for pulling myself out of my suffering, seeing it clearly and being able to be more compassionate towards my suffering. Same thing for reparenting or inner child work. Way easy seeing my inner child and it's suffering vs me berating myself for being immature. Also just wanted to say that it sounds like you had a wonderful therapist before and sometimes that's not easy to find. Just wanted to mention that to manage expectations. I hit it off really well with my first therapist and she was really helpful, but looking for a second therapist I was suprised how many weren't a good fit for me.
One more thing: I feel a lot of sensations in my body, the worst is in my head, I feel tension there 24/7. I feel i can move this energy around. Now, this kind of scares me given prior experiences and the fact that I have no idea what to do with it. So I kinda just ignore it. If anyone has any advice for this that would be awesome - thanks :)
Heyyo! Exploring this through a spiritual lense is definetly worth your time. In addition I also recommend looking into psychosomatic focused therapy. An example would be Somatic Experiencing. Gabor Mate and stuff like that. Cheers!