I did not set out to awaken anything.
In 1997, my attention was firmly on survival. After living in Cambodia for a year and enduring repeated illness, my body felt compromised in ways doctors struggled to explain. Terms like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia were offered, but no real map for healing followed. My nervous system was frayed, my mental state unsettled, and my sense of well-being virtually non-existent. Spirituality wasn’t part of my worldview, and I had never even heard the word kundalini.
What I didn’t know then is that kundalini energy—often described as a latent life force resting at the base of the spine—exists in everyone. It doesn’t require belief, discipline, or spiritual ambition. It seems to respond instead to timing, readiness, or sometimes crisis, activating when the system is primed for deep reorganization.
When it awakened in me, it did so suddenly and without explanation.
One afternoon, during an intimate moment, I experienced a brief loss of consciousness accompanied by a powerful physical sensation—an unmistakable surge moving rapidly up my spine, paired with vivid inner imagery like lightning. When I came back into awareness, I felt disoriented, but also strangely clear, as if something fundamental had shifted.
The next morning, my inner world was no longer the same.
I began experiencing heightened perception and intuitive knowing that did not feel like imagination or conscious thought. Insights arrived fully formed. Awareness felt expanded, less confined to my usual sense of self. Abilities I had never pursued—clairvoyance, intuitive perception, and a natural capacity for healing—began to emerge quickly on their own. It felt as though an internal intelligence had come online, something vast, benevolent, and deeply familiar.
At the time, I had no framework to understand what was happening. I wasn’t seeking spiritual gifts or altered states. In fact, the experience was initially destabilizing. I would state something one moment that came from somewhere different than how I had accessed thoughts up to this point, then within 24-48 hours these statements would be validated. But as the weeks turned into months, and the months into years, a pattern began to reveal itself.
The energy that had awakened did not disappear. Instead, it moved through me in waves—sometimes gently, sometimes with overwhelming intensity. These surges were often accompanied by emotional releases, physical sensations, and deep psychological shifts. Old grief surfaced. Long-buried memories emerged. Patterns I didn’t know I carried dissolved, sometimes gradually, sometimes with startling speed.
What surprised me most was how embodied the process was. This wasn’t an escape from the body; it was an immersion into it. The experience seemed to work directly through my nervous system, dissolving tension and trauma stored far beneath conscious awareness. At times, it felt like my entire system was being recalibrated from the inside out.
There were moments of fear. Without guidance or normalization, it was easy to question my sanity. Some experiences were vivid and symbolic, carrying an archetypal quality that felt meaningful rather than literal. Over time, I came to understand these moments as the psyche’s way of integrating profound internal change—language beyond language, emerging when transformation outpaced rational explanation.
Popular portrayals often swing to extremes—either romanticizing kundalini as instant enlightenment or warning of it as something dangerous. The reality is far more nuanced. For some, the process unfolds gently over time. For others, it arrives abruptly and then recedes. There is no universal template.
My own experience has unfolded over more than twenty-five years. As my system adapted, the intensity softened. What once felt disruptive became refining. The energy mellowed, and in doing so, brought forward a clearer, more integrated version of myself. I became more grounded, more present, and more at ease in my own body.
What made the difference was integration.
Practices that supported nervous system regulation—rest, embodiment, honest self-reflection, and knowing when not to push—proved far more valuable than chasing peak experiences. States of high genius ensued. Inspiration soared. So did patience. Learning to listen to the body, rather than override it, was essential. Patterns and archetypes would emerge as maps to reality.
From a wellness perspective, kundalini can be understood as the meeting point between the physical and the non-physical—where physiology, psychology, and consciousness converge. Whether one views it as spiritual, biological, or both, its effects are undeniably holistic. It clears not just symptoms, but outdated internal structures, making space for a more coherent relationship between body, mind, and awareness.
In a world marked by chronic stress, burnout, and disconnection from the body, experiences like this point to something important: healing is not always linear, and it is rarely purely mental. Sometimes the body leads, and the mind learns to follow.
I no longer see kundalini as something exotic or reserved for mystics. I see it as a capacity inherent within us—a dormant intelligence waiting for the right conditions to emerge. It doesn’t promise transcendence without responsibility. It asks for humility, care, and deep listening.
I had asked God for help and it came in this form. Humility let it in.
The access it opened—to healing, clarity, and a direct relationship with what I can only describe as Source intelligence—was, quite simply, priceless.
If my experience has taught me anything, it’s this: profound healing is not about becoming someone else. It is about removing what no longer belongs, until what remains feels unmistakably true. Like the sculpture looking at a huge chuck of marble and seeing the statue as the removal of what it is not.
