5 Modalities that Help with Spiritual Awakening
I find way too much excitement in being a guinea pig. I use my insane energetic symptoms and emotional healing process as an opportunity to find what is available out in the world that has the potential to help. The truth is, it is so much harder to do it alone. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve had to drag myself, with stained sweat pants and messy hair, back into the world to seek out help in the form of integrative modalities.
I have tried over the course of this year to figure out the following: What can help when your energy has gone crazy and you have forgotten what a skin barrier feels like? What ways can you tap into your inner children and the pain they hold? How can you feel your body better and tap into your femininity? What helps to get you unstuck?
I have at least some of the answers. I recognize that EVERY awakening is so divinely unique and what may work some, may have the exact opposite effect on others. My wish for you is to use this list with your gut feeling turned on high. Read through each one and notice where you feel a tug or a calling.
Emotional Release Therapy
Okay, I know this one is a shameless plug. But SERIOUSLY. I’ve yet to find a modality that so quickly and deeply taps me into the long lost pain of my heart, and provides a safe space to come to a resolution with my newly uncovered treasures.
I found ERT two and a half years ago when I was suffering from intense Kundalini purges. Every time I would press on my body in a location that the energy would guide me in, I would begin crying in a way that I hadn’t done in years. The minute I would take my hand off of the pressure point, I would stop, and feel nothing. I began to get curious as to why my Kundalini energy was guiding me to release these pockets of pain, and how it seemed to know exactly where in the body to do this. At the time they even felt like nodules. I was performing my crazy ‘touch this part of my body and cry’ ritual at least once a day for months.
After continuously searching for answers, I finally stumbled on a Youtube video that gave me answers. This is where I first saw Pat Jackman. Not only was her energy exactly what I’ve always been craving for (complete lack of bullshit), she was explaining how people’s pain can get trapped in their bodies. She demonstrated on a client and began opening up ‘doorways’ that initiated the client into connecting to her own heart. I was not only moved by this sincere expression and freedom of emotion. I was also stunned. The doorways she was pressing on were the exact ones I had been guided towards. How could I have known the exact locations without any prior knowledge? I truly couldn’t believe I had been downloading a modality that no one had ever taught me. I HAD to try it for myself and I was blown away by what came up on the table, and how good it felt to receive.
That was the start of my journey in learning this modality. The modality that my body had been teaching me already, on it’s own. Since then I entered the school and became a practitioner myself. Not only do I think this helps with the emotional and energetic healing (which IS Spiritual awakening in a nutshell), it also works on people who have trauma. Which, ehem, is everyone.
Acupuncture
The first time I got acupuncture, I had just gotten back on Lexapro. For those of you who don’t know, this is an SSRI antidepressant. I had tried them previously for a full year and decided that since my dark night of the soul was lasting way too long, maybe I WAS truly crazy and I should take pills for it. I felt extremely disappointed that I had chosen the medicated route. It had helped me before, truly and I was hoping to god that maybe it would work again. The sad part is that at that point my soul wanted nothing to do with them, and when I re-started, it only made me feel about 1.5% more settled than I had been before.
I came into contact with acupuncture through a groupon deal. I had an idea that I would be walking into a glamorous spa, but instead I walked into a box like room with fluorescent lighting in the heart of korea town in Los Angeles. I was too embarassed to tell an english speaker that I was going through Kundalini, much less a person who I could barely communicate with. I think they just saw how completely and utterly run down I looked and knew they had plenty to work with here. Any meridian would do.
After barely tolerating the needles, I noticed that the energy within my stomach began to churn. All of the energetic systems of my body began to move and shift and I was feeling every ounce of it. The second the needle went in, my body had a reaction. I knew I could trust this. After 50 minutes of being too scared to move in case a needle pinched me, I walked out of their office, went straight home and threw my pills in the trash. I had turned a leaf. Something about acupuncture moves the energy in the body. It rings you out like a washcloth to discharge the dams building up within your energy system. I not only felt more ‘myself’, I knew this was just the purge that I needed to be able to start over.
That night I cried for hours in a bath tub, it was clearly having a huge effect on me. Especially for the periods of an awakening where there is too much stagnancy. When all else fails, flush out the system. Since then, I’ve found local and community acupuncturists here in Asheville that rock. I do not need to go unless I get the feeling. It happens every few months (sometimes only twice a year). But when all else fails, this is my go to modality to kick up some dirt.
Internal Family Systems
Parts work is everything. It has given me an incredible ground work to understand the psyche. I began understanding that all of this pain that was arising through the awakening, were little pieces of my soul I needed to retrieve. They had gotten lost in the shadow, I had labeled them BAD, and stored them away. One by one they were returning, seeking my attention. They did this through sensation, illness, triggers, you name it. They so badly wanted to be integrated. and
Once I learned how IFS works, I saw which part was running the show in everyone I interacted with. Such an air of compassion arises when you realize we have burdened parts of our being that get triggered and rise to the forefront of our consciousness. These parts become the main contributors to our decisions. When you see someone screaming, you know their angry protective part is coming to the surface. You see the vulnerable, hurt part that it is protecting. You see people speaking from their insecure parts, their fearful parts, their ashamed parts, their positive & joyful parts. I began to see how multi layered and full of parts we were. For every trait or characteristic, there was a part that was in charge of it.
The key about IFS isn’t to eradicate these parts, or have them move away. It’s to get to know them to such an an extent that your awareness grows exponentially. You begin to understand who is operating you, and at which times, and why. You begin integrating the pain these parts carry and the negative behaviors and compulsions start to drop away.
I’m lucky to have a therapist that is familiar with parts work, and It is one of my deepest joys to incorporate this into my coaching & bodywork. I believe it is a key for deep understanding of your inner world. I also like to explore this heavily on my own.
Yin & restorative yoga
It’s amazing to see how years ago, yoga was a deeply strict practice that focused more on the control of the human body, then the unwinding of it. Just in the past few years, i’ve noticed that yoga teachers have swapped superficial spirituality for a deep understanding of the body, our emotions & integration itself. At a recent yoga class I was hit by the depth of the teacher. She told the class that all emotions were welcome, why we needed to face these and that opening the heart was the most important piece. Not only was she making all parts okay, the teachings that used to sound so routine and lacking in substance, were now filled with truth and heart centered consciousness. People speak of times were it wasn’t okay to cry on your mat. Now I use yoga for just that.
Approaching this practice with a fine tuned sense of slowed down movement, unlocks the body in magical ways. It can teach you to tune into your sensations. Teach you to notice were you are holding tension. Teach breathe and body awareness. Yoga is 90% more than the physical component. And if you get a good group, a good space and a good teacher, this can be a divine miracle for those awakening. As Glennon Doyle stated “I just sat on the mat, with my broken heart and didn’t get off”.
Sit on that mat, with all of your pain, with all of your heartache, with your numbness & stuck-ness and breathe into it. Chances are, doing it in a class full of people will feel safer than accessing it all alone. This is a wonderful opportunity to have someone guide you into your tissues, and cells and patterns. I learn something about myself with every class.
Dance & Movement
Whether this is dancing in community, or dancing in your bedroom, moving your body with intentionality can be a powerful tool for transformation. Have stuck rage? Dance it out and shake your body. Do you not know what’s bothering you? Turn on heart penetrating music and dance until you get to the truth. Are you a woman whose feeling too productive and lost within masculine energy? Turn on sensual music and dance in the mirror.
Energy shifting, emotionally upheaving, confidence boosting. Depending on how you use it, dance can be a vehicle for connection with your soul. I’ve tried dancing in groups or ecstatic dance and you get the added boost of connecting with a tribe. I, personally get much more out of dancing with myself, but the good news is that ecstatic dance let’s you go there to do just that. You can be in your bubble, working through your inner turbulence and keeping your space contained, while others dance around you.
When I first started experiencing the kundalini energy, I noticed that it responded deeply to music. Especially music with bass.. At the time I would just play entire albums of Sia’s music and feel my entire body vibrating and moving in ways I had never felt. This was a magical tool at the time to get to the Kundalini to dissipate and get stuff out, in a way that I could control. It also started to move my body in these ancient tribal ways. As if to remind me of the primal component of this newly awakened evolutionary energy. I knew dancing is what this energy needed & wanted.
And there you have it. I am constantly searching and seeking heart based practices that I know help with integration. May the venture continue.
Other healing modalities that are note worthy:
Breathwork
EMDR
Deep tissue massage
What modalities or integrative practices have helped you? What healing practices have you felt guided towards lately?