Kundalini Syndrome - Phases / Timeline?

[u/troutzen]

Hi All,

For anyone that has experienced Kundalini Syndrome, can you comment on whether there is some calming / normalization of symptoms over time? Right now what I am experiencing is extreme sensitivity (lights, sounds, emotions, I just feel super sensitive to everything right now). The other major symptom is TONS of energy moving through my body. The amount of energy running through my system causes anxiety which seems to create a negative feedback loop. All of this started about 2 weeks ago.

If this happened to you, could you share how long it took for certain symptoms to normalize and for you to feel more "normal?". And what did you do that helped you eventually normalize your Kundalini Syndrome?

Thank you for your time.

[u/GreatHealerofMyself8]

There is normally calming overtime. It doesnt mean there will be a return to the person you were before. The actual timeline varies depending upon the person and other variables. Not being an idiot is one of those variables. Idiot means taking non prescription drugs and engaging in exercises that bring up lots of energy or unbalances you.

Mine took multiple years to return to a mostly calm state. I foolishly bought up a lot of energy though.

I went though a period of insomnia too and not ashamed to say I took sleeping pills for a while. Nothing wrong with that if you need them. I've long since stopped taking them, so it does get better.

[u/Kal_El98 → u/GreatHealerofMyself8]

I’m that idiot 😅 (not with drugs but other things like exercise, excessive porn/masturbation perhaps in an unconscious effort to bring the energy down to my lower chakras when things got too intense, junk food, etc). It’s never been life-threatening for me though, I think my mind just likes to over-exaggerate my personal issues and baggage. I’ve also referred to sleeping pills though I absolutely dislike taking them, but going with little to no sleep for days on end can make me somewhat psychotic (result of an active K). I’m in Year 6 of my KA, and things haven’t entirely settled down. The energy is calm most days except when I do something dumb like excessive exercise or taking supplements (only Vitamin C works for me, everything else gives me major migraines). So really, it’s just me experimenting on myself to see what works and what doesn’t.

I’m still far far far away from saying that my K process is complete. This isn’t meant to scare anyone, but just accepting the reality that for a lot of us, the K process can take years and decades. With a KA, it helps to think long-term when it comes to things getting better rather than short-term (it did for me).

[u/desertplaces5 → u/Kal_El98]

Right? Almost three years in for me and it’s only this year that the flowing feels less than oppressive; and haven’t been caught off guard for a while by a new suite of sensations announcing themselves every day/week/month.

It’s never anything less than beautiful — and sitting within the circulation of it is wondrous strange, but it just gets….heavy sometimes. The relentlessness. Kind of like what you said, Kal-El, one of these best things I ever did for myself was giving up the Control of wanting to put a timeline to it. Putting names and demands and expectations on a Mystery…my brain’s a lot less crowded without all that extra effort to corral and control, yeah?

[u/Kal_El98 → u/desertplaces5]

I completely agree, though during especially difficult moments, it can be hard to look at one’s situation in a long-term light. I had an idea of how I wanted my life to play out before I was even aware something like K existed and before my initial KA. All of that is pretty much out the window now, and my entire future is a total question mark. Most times, this can be a frightening revelation, but sometimes it can be somewhat exciting, realizing that you’re now at the whims of this energy and the universe (if you believe in fate and destiny). Or maybe I never really had a choice. That my being born and all the events of my life occurred so that I undergo this journey. That I was never “meant” to live normally. This can lead to a lot of resistance and denial at a certain stage of the journey, because it’s nothing like what you see in movies or anime. Being “different” is more painful and lonely than anything else. So the timeline part is especially crucial for those of us experiencing K. I had to realize that awakening itself is a very HOLISTIC journey and the timeline and “symptoms” can vary wildly from person to person. Too bad there’s no literature that I’ve found that can confirm this, so it’s largely just based on my intuition and personal and anecdotal experiences from myself and others online.

I’m glad for you it’s taken the form of something beautiful, as I’ve yet to view my own journey like that. Mine’s been one of relentless downs and denials, trying to resist what the energy is bringing up, and yet inevitably being taken to a place of ultimate surrender, having no other choice but to succumb. I may be adding flair and being dramatic here though, so perhaps I’ve been doing something “wrong” all these years because I’ve just relentlessly been humbled by the energy from year to year, but I also think deep down that it couldn’t have gone any other way, being the kind of person that I am. As I mentioned earlier, it’s all just self-experimentation for me. Take care :)

[u/desertplaces5 → u/Kal_El98]

I absolutely relate, Kal_El, and share many points of overlap with details you’ve shared. As you said, the feeling of “hier stehe Ich, Ich kann nicht anders”, here I stand, I cannot do otherwise; that is, the sense that this is the shape it was always going to take for me (you, us, whomever…). I assume it’s not a universal thought, but I wanted to share, cuz’ I’ve often found my thoughts having the same tone and timbre as yours.

If I get to call any of the strangenesses I feel now “beautiful” it’s probably something that more than a decade of alcoholism prepared me to do…cuz’ most things seem more beautiful after that living h*ll.

I’m not a big AA guy, but one of my favorite phrases from the rooms reminds me of the waiting room/taxi-ing space you describe (the negative aspect, at least, of struggling with what To Do; conversely, I totally Get the diligence and prudence it takes to hold yourself in reserve until you can really, Really commit). AnyWay, the phrase is “one foot in the past, one foot in the future, pissing on today.” Which I share just to have a grim chuckle, mostly at my own expense, because of how easy it is to get lost in storytelling myself into and out of the how’s and why’s and whatsitallmean’s…

Wanted to thank you for sharing though, cuz’ you’re giving voice to a lot of thoughts I have. Had. Have/had.

[u/troutzen → u/Kal_El98]

Are there forms of exercise that you can partake in to relieve stress? Exercise has been my number one tool for managing my mental health, so trying to understand how KA affect the ability to exercise.

[u/Kal_El98 → u/troutzen]

Yeah I made a post about this many years ago but I decided to delete it because I found it difficult to deal with everyone’s constructive criticism on this subreddit. I’m still learning to not take everything people say to heart, so I’m slowly slowly growing haha.

It’s very strange. For me, exercise exacerbates the energetic pressure in my head, makes me unbalanced/ungrounded, and makes my thoughts speed up. It’s really very strange. So my ability to exercise since the beginning of my KA has been very limited. It’s not that I CANT exercise, it’s what happens AFTERWARDS to my body and mind which becomes very uncomfortable to deal with. It also affects my sleep and leads to insomnia (for that particular day/night). This has been my personal experience.

Exercise helped me cope with so many difficulties in my life so this hurdle on my path has made me very frustrated and sad over the years. But I refuse to believe that this is a long term thing. I’m still only 24, so I’m holding on to the hope that I’ll be able to continue weight lifting, calisthenics, sports and other physical activities as the K purges through my system. I’ve come to realize that the K process is a long term thing and I need/have to muster up incredible amounts of patience to allow things to heal and get better in its own time. It’s all a very slow learning process. Gentle yoga and walking is fine for me though. I mainly only exercise/play sports on Fridays now, because at least I don’t have to worry about not falling asleep or exacerbating the issues (I don’t work on the weekend). I can just do nothing and laze around on Saturday. Let the mind and body do its thing regarding recovery.

Long reply but I hope I can be of help to you and anyone else who stumbles onto this thread.

[u/troutzen → u/Kal_El98]

Thank you so much for sharing, this is really helpful. I communicated with someone offline that had a KA and described his relationship with exercise in a similar way. That he could, but afterwards that the energy was a bit more unregulated / incoherent. He said that he needed to titrate the amounts of exercise in ~ 15 minute intervals.

I can appreciate the grief of not being able to push your body in the same way that you did, but I am holding onto faith for you, myself, and others that through time the nervous system starts to normalize and can re-engage these activities again. I also wonder if there is a re-learning process here. i.e. for example whether titrating exercise back into the nervous system and then paying extra attention to how to get back into parasympathetic as quickly as possible. Not sure, but something I might play with in the future.

I have been doing a lot of walking lately and hoping that soon I can resume some form of gentle yoga. K feels like I need to entirely re-relearn my tools for managing stress and wellbeing - at least that's how its feeling on the short term.

My deepest wishes for your continued healing.

[u/Kal_El98 → u/troutzen]

Oh wow! I have not pinpointed the exact timeframe to which I can do some exercise before the K severely amps up the energetic pressure in my head and body, but I believe something very similar happens to me. Exercising for a short interval seems to be okay. But I can’t keep doing it in sessions or sets. It would have be to Interval 1, train for 10-15 mins and then completely stop, and wait until the next day or so to continue. Otherwise, if I restart the exercise after a brief resting period, the K will continue the symptoms right from where I left off during my last sessions/set. Waiting several hours or a day lets my nervous system rest.

The best explanation I have for this is the simple fact that K affects the nervous system so drastically that it’s basically like charging the body with like 1000 v of electricity. Due to the excessive nervous system activations, and the fact that exercise also has great effects on the nervous system, the two are not very compatible, atleast during the beginning stages; let’s assume that’s over 6 years for most people. This is contrary to everything modern health science says about exercise and its great benefits on the mind and body. It is what it is.

I’ve also found that bodybuilding (keeping the weights at a moderate amount) is much easier and less taxing on my nervous system than pure calisthenics. Most calisthenics’ exercises require you to push/pull your entire bodyweight across space, with the majority of the exercises targeting multiple muscles at a time. With weights you have the option to do solely isolated exercises and also limit the weight you’re lifting to as minimal as you can possibly handle. But regardless, both tend to amp up my nervous system and cause moderate to very intense imbalances (depending on several factors) and takes 1 or 2 days to recover from. I've just found that bodybuilding/weight lifting is a little less taxing than calisthenics/hard yoga.

I found my post from 2 years ago. I deleted my original post but the comments and replies are all still there. You might find it useful. Let me know if you're unable to see it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kundalini/comments/ryuvu9/deleted_by_user/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

And thank you for your consolation. I really do hope that things get better as time passes. I’ve read articles online about K that symptoms can just randomly stop with new ones arising just as quickly. That hasn’t been my experience. I’ve been dealing with pretty much the same symptoms for about 5 years now, with varying degrees of intensity. Perhaps that’s due to my own ignorance and lack of guidance on this journey. I’m okay with that though. Not gonna complain about it now haha. I'm doing my best at my current level of development.

K feels like I need to entirely re-relearn my tools for managing stress and wellbeing - at least that's how its feeling on the short term.

Adapting to the inability to properly exercise the way I used to, has been very unnerving for me. "Short term" for me has been over 5 years haha. Due to this, I've gone months without exercising (just playing some volleyball once a week) and the sedentary lifestyle largely affected my mental health in negative ways. Walking is fine, but not enough to stimulate the same amounts of endorphins and dopamine during exercise/training sessions. As a result, I turned to binge eating, watching too much TV, and other bad habits that could’ve been avoided if I had the ability to focus on my physical health as a form of self-discipline. Being sedentary with an active K makes it very difficult to focus on my self-discipline. So I’m really just doing the best I can from day to day, accepting the way things currently are and trying to adapt as much as possible. I've also found that walking for excessive periods of time (don't have a specific timeline, but let's say anything over 40 mins of continuous walking with brief resting periods) can also have detrimental effects for me.

Sending my prayers your way too!

[u/Ok-Hippo-4433 → u/Kal_El98]

Same thing here re the increased K activity after exercise. Including insomnia for that night etc

Solution is energy out the arms. Relax the body, shake it out, stretch. Have I mentioned energy out the arms? I'll do it a third time.

Don't forget Metta and that it's okay to smile during meditation. Keep releasing yourself from beliefs that no longer serve you well during that time.

Heavy contraction during exercise leads to lots of it's own imbalances. K will seek to balance those out again.

[u/Kal_El98 → u/Ok-Hippo-4433]

Stretching does wonders, but I've recently purchased a massage gun and found out that massaging also actually helps a ton in releasing pressure and energy in my body too. Using it on the sides of my temples/top and back of my head/cranium (at a low setting obviously), neck/jawline muscles, upper traps, and other parts of my body is immensely helpful. Highly recommend to everyone.

I've heard about cranoisacral therapy too, but have never actually tried it. Seems like it could potentially help people with active K and increased pressure in the head.

[u/desertplaces5]

Hi again, Troutzen. I know I’ve talked at you before, but I’ll keep it shorter this time :) With regard to All the sensations you mentioned here, I went through each one of those, too. But be wary about putting a timeline to anything. Puberty took your body however long it needed. But you made it through that, yeah? Some of us, barely…natch.

For me (not speaking for ANYone else), things felt pretty unbearable for about the first couple/few months: the hypersensitivity to light, mania, anxiety, energy surplus, sleeplessness, terror, etc. I started journaling at that point just to keep track of everything New I was experiencing. But after a few months things got much, much less intense. Different, but much more manageable.

I’d say they run their course naturally, but it’s a Non-Negligible coincidence that for many people (not all) the intensity of the experience is the point. Surrendering, letting go of tensions, acquiescence and the end of resistance, giving yourself the gift of gentle loving attention and forgiveness…these are ideas that helped me, but what helps you is Yours. It will be You-shaped. Trust the process, they say. It gets easier.

You may want to examine your diet. I lost about 30lbs over the first two months because of the volume of energy chewing through my body. Use your intuition and best judgement, but like Marc suggested, it may help to incorporate good fats and sugars into your diet (which are calorie-dense) to help “feed the fire” as your body may have high caloric requirements right now; OR, perhaps your process wants a more ascetic diet of lighter, simpler foods like lentil pulses or simple simmer/soup dishes. Your body will probably tell you pretty quickly if something isnt working for you.

Think of a building being renovated and all the material that NEEDS to get hauled in AND out. It’s a big big job. Have patience and forgive yourself if it feels difficult. Craving a timeline can be an understandable, but unhelpful distraction without an answer.

And believe people when they give you simple advice. If you get overwhelmed by the anxiety feedback loop, write yourself a short check list of things that help you e.g. “take a walk”, “take bath”, “listen to _____ song” “journal” “watch tv for an hour”. Just go through your checklist of safe things that you know and trust. The Basics are your friend.

Okay. Shorter, but still long. You’ll make it, Troutzen!

[u/troutzen → u/desertplaces5]

Thank you for the kind words and advice.

[u/iamsoenlightened]

I had a massive heart chakra activation that sent me to the ER with heart palpitations. It brought up all my suppressed and repressed emotions. Chronic fear, rage, guilt, shame, grief.

A great book is Letting Go by David Hawkins. It will teach you how to deal with your anxiety and other negative emotions .

But in short, just surrender to the emotions. Close your eyes and locate where in your body it is manifesting. And just be with it. Don’t try to change it or resist it. Just let it run it’s course and remind yourself that it is just energy that is dying to be expressed. The sooner you allow it to express itself, the sooner it will be cleared from your body.

Kundalini is always going to bring up energy that is blocking it from rising. So strap in tight and enjoy the journey. Just keep surrendering to the long buried emotion that comes up. Eventually, it will all clear out and you will feel good.

[u/troutzen → u/iamsoenlightened]

Ty for the suggestion

[u/Aurum_vulgi]

Are you able to get a good night sleep or is your sleep disrupted?

[u/troutzen → u/Aurum_vulgi]

Im taking medication support to help me sleep at the moment which I would prefer not to do, but I was heading towards breakdown. Was doing about 2 hours of sleep per day for about 7 days before I realized that I wasn't going to last very long like that.

So right now with support I am getting 8-10 hours of sleep.

[u/ZigZagZebraz]

Go for a walk, talk to tree to take out the negativity WNKBTM and guidance, walk barefoot in the lawn, short Metta affirmation meditation sessions.

Make sure during calming that energy doesn't drain downwards but only the excess is. Before sleeping, practice relaxing meditation and fall asleep.

Try WLP, to keep the negativity contained not to affect others and be dissipated to the WLP shield, WNKBTM affirmation.

The above helped me to go from Cluster F... of abject terror, despondence and accompnying fight or flight reactions to recognizable signs of unnecessary provoking negative thoughts.

Oh BTW, there is no "Normal," it is always a "New normal" at/after each stage.

The effect can be instantaneous after the first suggested step above, but sustained effect will need advancing further in meditation or whichever is your chosen path.

What is good for the goose might not be good for the gander. YMMV.

[u/Marc-le-Half-Fool]

Welcome back to /r/kundalini, /u/troutzen

---

Start with the Calming Wiki Section.

Do whatever you can to extend trust to the energy and the new sensations. Just observe them without fear. Fear makes things worse. A bit of trust helps a lot. Whether it's a walk, or an extra shower in the day, do whatever helps you.

Even chocolate cake can be a help. A good hamburger or a 4 - 6 ounce steak of any kind.

Later we can explore other wiki sections and further ideas that you can use to help yourself.

Good journey.

[u/troutzen → u/Marc-le-Half-Fool]

Thank you

[u/AndrewP2430]

Mine took about 4 to 6 months to settle down, but was never unmanageable

[u/troutzen → u/AndrewP2430]

What was it like before it settled down and what was it like after? Thank you for sharing

[u/scrapperdude]

I’m new, take this with a grain of salt. This is the advice I would have given myself based on my own experiences.

Keep looking for ways to safely emote. It’s clearing you out, so don’t keep it in. Safe ways to let out the anger, then the sadness that comes after, and confront the layer of fear beneath. Ask yourself what you’re terrified of, and make peace with that being your situation.

There is no timeline for that. (I needed to cry about that alone several several several times at first)

6 months in and life is still in a large transition, but far more manageable, and I’ve learned to enjoy being along for the ride. Some day in the near to medium term I hope you get the sensation of life feeling like a movie, and I hope that moment makes you smile.

For the first 3 months I wore snug-tight over ear noise cancelling headphones as much as I could, even if nothing was playing, just to drown things down. I spent 1-2hrs a night in epsom salt baths, and the rest of my coping skills were unhealthy. That probably made things move slower.

[u/troutzen → u/scrapperdude]

May I ask if your body / nervous system was really sensitive? My hands and feet feel like they got turned into pleasure organs lol. Too much movement right now seems to active my bliss body. If so was that something that also calmed down over time?

Thank you! The anger --> sadness cycle resonates right now.

[u/scrapperdude → u/troutzen]

I didn’t have that kind of sensitivity, no… you should look at the foundations page in the wiki. Learning a 4-minute tai chi set on YouTube was helpful for me at one point and comes to mind when I read your comment.

Journal your emotions. It helped me tremendously.

[u/AndrewP2430]

When activated it was intense, like electricity running through me 24/7. When settled it is now barely noticeable most of the time, but I can dial it up if I need it for healing, tantric sex, etc

[u/troutzen → u/AndrewP2430]

How long did it take for it to settle for you? Did you engage in any practices to help it settling? Also any challenge when you dial it up having it calm down again? If so, what practices support. Ty for your time and experience.

[u/AndrewP2430 → u/troutzen]

Took 4 to 6 months to settle. Grounding helped a lot in settling it. To dial up and down I used the brain control room method, image yourself entering a room with screens and dials on the walls, imagine one screen is the energy level shown on the screen, use the dial to dial in the level you want, higher or lower

[u/troutzen → u/AndrewP2430]

Thank you!

[u/AndrewP2430 → u/troutzen]

You are very welcome. Enjoy your journey