Karma and Wounding

Our karma-- cultural, personal and ancestral-- is held within our nervous system and other bodily tissues and imprinted into our bodies’ energetic channels (called nadis in Sanskrit).  When unexamined and unhealed, the nadis bind up and create karmic knots (known as granthis in Sanskrit). The nadis and granthis are like a computer program etched into our organs and nervous system, dictating the way we interact with ourselves and the world.  

In life, we play out the karma that’s held in these knots through our interactions with others.  Our knots are constantly sending out cords of information that connect to other people’s cords in the dance of our interwoven karma.  The cords are like magnets, and they attract the people and situations that reveal the story or pattern held within. Many people see how they are still playing out the stories and patterns from childhood in their adult relationships.  Our attraction to people arises from the interconnection of our karmic cords.

As long as we externalize the process and fail to understand our own part in creating these relationship (karmic) bonds, we will be in an antagonistic relationship with others and ultimately ourselves. It’s easy to see how our problems and our suffering arise from others. And to a certain extent its true, but only at the outermost level. Hidden within every negative interaction we experience at the hands of someone else is our own wounded self, drawing our attention inside. But most of us are not taught how to process these things internally. Our culture teaches us to externalize our suffering and wall off our emotions and trauma. Because we do not process our wounding, we learn how to dissociate or disconnect from it.  In the short term, the dissociation allows us to temporarily move through life without having to experience the suffering hidden inside. But in the long term, this walling off process starts forming the karmic knots that bind us down and create our antagonistic interactions in the world.

Our wounds are actually living beings. They are fragmented parts of our psyche that ask us to heal and integrate. When we dissociate or disconnect from these parts, we send out cords to “negative” people in order to reflect back the part of us that wants to heal. This process can feel like an act of divine punishment, as we recreate the same wounded patterns with different people. Instead of punishment, these cords can instead be interpreted as messages from our subconscious asking us to integrate. Getting “triggered” is just our unhealed trauma manifesting an external force to awaken us to its presence. When this happens, we usually either try to suppress our uncomfortable feelings through dissociation or numbing out, or we try to fight whatever external force appears to be responsible for our pain. There are many types of therapies that help people address these issues, but the karmic cords are physical, emotional and energetic in nature and it’s important to have a physical practice that can transform them. The cords are made up of unpleasant emotions, trauma and karma. When unprocessed, we end up stuffing them down into our tissues and walling them off.

The cords contain our trauma and the walls we use to dissociate. The cords also block the flow of spirit through our body.

There are many different systems developed over the ages to help people process these karmic cords. Yoga asanas (postures) were developed long ago by sages who were accessing the kundalini energy and developed a physical system to process and transform their karmic knots. Along with physical movements, the practices of breathwork (pranayama) and bandhas are used. When bandhas are combined with pranayama, we are able to access the kundalini, which is the force responsible for opening up our channels to transform and process our wounds.

Physical Practices

The core physical practice of kundalini mediumship is breath (pranayama) with bandhas. Long ago, sages who were using breath and bandhas to access the kundalini developed the precursor to what we now call yoga.

Yoga

When the kundalini awakens, our internal cords begin to shift on their own and spontaneous physical movements occur (these movements are called kriyas). Most yoga today is a formulaic structure that unconsciously mimics the spontaneous yoga that occurs when the kundalini starts to awaken. Spirit House Yoga is designed to give you a structured form while also allowing for the spontaneity that comes when you connect to the kundalini. The structure comes from understanding some key concepts.

Blocking us from experiencing the kundalini are layers of thick, dense knots (called granthi in sanskrit).  These knots are made up of all of our past karmas, unexpressed emotions and traumas (what we collectively call the wound) along with the walls we build up around them. These wound/wall knots feel like dark pits deep in the belly.  You may also feel the knotted, twisted cords extending out from the granthi to the rest of your body.  These cords travel along our nadis (energy channels) and bind them up. The purpose of Spirit House yoga is to connect to the kundalini energy and to allow that energy to unwind these knots.

Bandhas are muscle contractions that break up our knots and (when combined with breath) connect us to the kundalini. There are 3 bandhas.

• Mula bandha – contraction of the muscle group between the genitals and anus (the perineum). This is a "pulling up" movement.

• Uddiyana bandha – contraction in the abdominal cavity. This is a "pulling in" movement.  When a kundalini mediumship practioner is pressing in on your abdomen during a treatment, she is mimicking uddiyana bandha contractions.

• Jalandhara bandha – a “pulling in” of the spot just above the sternum. 

These are complicated techniques, and this is not an overnight process. But we at Spirit House are committed to helping you develop your own connection to spirit and understanding this process for yourself.

Tracking

Tracking is one of the most important tools we use at spirit house. When tracking, we use our emotional triggers and entanglements with the outside world to learn about ourselves. This is about getting to really know our desires and motivations and why we behave the way we do in the world.A foundational view of Kundalini Mediumship is that our triggers are more than just our wounds being activated.  Underneath and within our wounds is our spirit calling out to us.  To understand the message that spirit is trying to convey, we have to change our relationship to our wounds and triggers rather than try to change or fix the wounds themselves.

This philosophy describes energetic cords that exist in our body and also connect us to other people. These cords have 3 layers which we call the wound, the wall and spirit.  

When we get “triggered” a series of processes happen very quickly.  These processes dictate our reactions to the trigger.  However, they happen so quickly that they sometimes feel automatic.  What makes this especially difficult is that we also attach our sense of identity into these processes.  

When we track, we break down exactly what is happening in each moment of this series of processes.  We describe what is happening at each level of the cord (wound, wall and spirit).  We also explore our feelings, identities and contracts. 

We can’t change our responses and behavior when they feel automatic.  So the initial stage is all about bringing things up to our conscious awareness so that we understand why we do what we do.  The next step is owning our decisions rather than externalizing them. 

When we get “triggered”, our wound gets activated so let’s start by exploring that…

The Wound (Part 1)

The wound encompasses the deep well of our unprocessed trauma, unexpressed emotions and our “rejected identity” (the part of us we'd prefer not to look at). When an external event or situation triggers us, this wound becomes activated and we are able to feel, if even momentarily, into this darkness.  Unfortunately, most of us are unable to feel very deeply into it because we have constructed our wall to jump into action as soon as our wound gets pushed on.  

The Wall

The wall is the outermost level of our cords, and the most difficult structure to navigate.  It is connected to a sense of disempowered safety and survival. The function of the wall is to protect us from experiencing the depths of our wound.  The first step of tracking is exploring the ways in which we have constructed our wall around our wound through the force of our wall contracts.  Wall contracts come in the form “If I do (x) I won’t have to feel my wound.”  For many people this process is entirely unconscious because the secondary function of the wall is to hide its existence and function.   Wall contracts are also connected to our “accepted identity”-- the face we want to show the world or the person that we hope we are.  

The wall is held together through the cycle of suppression, unleashing and shame.  Here’s how it works.  Suppression is the state the wall tries to keep us functioning in.  In this state our wall contracts are working reasonably well and it feels as if we can manage life. The mask of our “accepted identity” is holding up.  Unleashing occurs when our wound gets triggered and we are able to feel our wound (at least momentarily).  Usually people are able to access either anger or hurt.  This stage is a powerful initiation into the wound, which is itself an initiation into spirit.  Again, the wound is not something that needs to be fixed or solved.  In Kundalini Mediumship we talk about “wound embodiment”, or using this triggering as a way to go deeper into the wound.

Embodying our wound means doing the opposite of what the wall was created to do.  It will feel like a death. If we do not go through this initiation, it is because the wall has successfully re-formed around the wound (usually through shame).  Shame arises because our wound activates our “rejected identity”.  This identity is the part of us we are taught to hate.  We are taught that this part of us is “wrong” or “bad”.  When we re-form our wall we are able to suppress those “bad” parts of us, but this process comes at a cost.  

The gift of the wall is a disempowered feeling of safety that comes from numbness and externalization.  I say “feeling of safety” because it's not real safety.  It is the feeling of safety that comes when we are able to momentarily disconnect from our wound.  I say “disempowered” because this feeling comes at the cost of our own power and self-knowledge.  We have no self-knowledge because when we are operating from our wall, our actions and decisions feel like they come from outside of ourselves.  Our behaviors are based on maintaining the face of our accepted identity in the outside world. As long as we are able to maintain that face, we feel safe.  Yet because a function of the wall is to hide its existence from our conscious awareness, we end up feeling as if our actions come from other people.  The wall creates situations where we are continually managing other people’s feelings and beliefs abouy us, all  so that we never have to explore the pain of our rejected identities.  It is a never ending game of hiding our rejected identities and making sure other people only see our accepted identities, and it feels like its their fault.  And its exhausting.  

This process (mostly unconscious for many people) becomes a primary motivating force in life.  It is perpetuated through the force of our contracts with our wall.  The problem with wall contracts is that we can never truly escape those bad places because they are inside of us.  We can only temporarily get away.  But that temporary reprieve is what makes wall contracts so enticing and so difficult to let go of.  

A major part of tracking is recognizing that underneath all of this is our wound calling out to us, asking us to integrate and embody so that we can become a vessel for spirit.

The Wound

The first part of tracking is bringing the wall's structure and function to our conscious awareness.  This means acknowledging to ourselves the games we play with ourselves to dissociate from our wound and externalize it when it is triggered by the outside world.

The next part of tracking is recognizing that there is a call to action.  This call generally means doing the exact opposite of what the wall is doing in our life.  If you want to see what this looks like, watch this clip from Seinfeld-- what I call "the shamanic initiation of George Costanza"

Remember-- the wall’s purpose is to help us to escape our feelings so at this stage the goal is to feel and embody our wound.  Counterintuitively, this part of the process is sometimes called a “surrender”.  This can be incredibly painful and challenging depending on how deeply embedded our wall processes are, or how many strategies we’ve developed around control and externalization.  Surrender here means connecting to our wound and allowing the feelings to move through our body while at the same time recognizing how the wall is trying to stop this process by any means possible.  It is easy to get stuck in this place of getting pulled in two contradictory directions.  This is what happens when people get “stuck” or “lost” in a psychedelic journey.  It’s when the desire for surrender meets places of resistance we didn’t even know we had.  Many people in this place describe being overwhelmed by sensation.

The primary gift of the wall is a “disempowered feeling of safety”.  When we are in the wall it can feel like a cold empty room where we feel safe.  We get the gift of self-pity, of feeling like a good person in a bad world.  When we work through this place and embody our wound, we encounter the gift of the wound— an “empowered feeling of danger” along with our rejected identity(ies).  There is a power in this place but it is wrapped up in the parts of ourselves that feel  bad.  In this place, the wound asks us-- will you look at me?  Will you embody me and not push me away?

As many people enter this place, they reach what is sometimes called “the dark night of the soul”.  It can feel like a never-ending pit of darkness.  For many people, there is a fear that it will never end.  Our sense of self can shatter as the “accepted identity” we’ve been desperately holding onto gets overwhelmed by the dynamic force of the dark, rejected identity that has been suppressed.  This is where the “empowered” feeling of danger comes into play.  There is a power and energy here (which is actually the beginning of the emerging of spirit) but when it's in its wounded state it can be incredibly destructive.  And this destruction is necessary.  As the spirit emerges and gets colored by the wound, the spirit wants to destroy the structures in our life that we built from our disempowered wall.  As we explore this place of empowered destruction, we eventually reach spirit.

Spirit

When we track at Spirit House, many people love to reveal how other people’s hidden wounds are playing out.  While helpful, this misses the ultimate point of tracking which is to answer the question “what does spirit want from me in this situation?”

Just as there is a crack that allows us to experience our wound underneath our wall, there is another crack that allows us to experience our spirit underneath our wound.  Getting into this crack is not intellectual and it can’t be forced.  Some traditions say it happens because of the “grace of god”.  Regardless of tradition and culture, there are some common descriptions of what spirit feels like.  A sense of compassion, unity, a feeling of a power emerging through your body that feels both a part of you and at the same time something more than just you.  Spontaneous insights and knowledge. 

In this work, we also describe the place of spirit as an integration of our accepted and rejected identities.  It’s a place where complicated, nuanced and contradictory truths can coexist.  And the tension between those identities and truths creates the ground where our spirit can take root.

If the purpose of our wall contracts is to keep us in a disempowered feeling of safety, the purpose of our spirit contracts is to express our own unique expression of empowered connection.  It begins to answer the question “what does spirit want from you?”.  But this cannot be answered as long as the accepted and rejected parts of us are battling it out over who is right.  As long as we pick one identity over the other we will continue to suppress a part of ourselves and that suppressed identity will continue to act out, sabotaging our life until it is integrated.