5. Tantric Exercises

Transcript

Episode 5, Practice, Awakening Kundalini So for this practice you will need a private space, a yoga mat and a yoga bolster or a cushion to sit on. I will first guide you through a physical exercise to drop down from your mind into your body, then we will use our breath to connect with our inner energy and from there use both the body and the breath to activate the inner Shakti, Kundalini energy. So allow these upcoming sort of 30 to 40 minutes to be with yourself, maybe bring down the light, turn off any device asking for your attention and light a candle.

I will first talk through a few details before we start the practice, so if you would like to take a seat for just a short while, please do so. The practice we are about to engage in right here and now is to awaken Kundalini energy. It is therefore strongly advised that before you engage in this exercise, you have listened to the previous episodes in this series, as it is important you have healed any wounds or trauma that might be associated with your sex center.

You want to allow some space to be freed up and be available as you awaken your inner Shakti. During the past 5 episodes, I've guided you through practices and tips in how to heal and transform from within. So please do allow healing to take place first if you have a history with trauma, fear or hurt stored in your sex center.

Take it step by step and if you feel any pain or discomfort, know that this is your body communicating there are energy blocks that need to be released. Pain is always your body asking for your attention. So be gentle with yourself and know that this work is for you to become more aware of and in tune with your inner power.

So once we have allowed healing to take place, we are ready to activate some energy. This first practice is really simple yet so powerful and comes from Chinese Dao practices called Shi Gong. Shi means life force, the energy that powers our body and spirit.

And Gong is the term meaning to work or to gather. Shi Gong together means a form of movement or different types of physical exercises in which we use an intention to activate, gather and guide Shi in the body. For this exercise, we will move the energy from the mind into the body.

It is a great practice that you can do anytime you want to release tension from your mind. If you've been using your brain a lot, been up to a lot of thinking or worked in front of the computer for example. It supports you in grounding you into your physical body.

It is also a great exercise for someone who have a hard time feeling sexual energy, someone with a low libido or for example someone like myself, a mother who just gave birth to a little baby boy and have quite a lot of healing work to do as in my postpartum body, I don't have as much sexual vitality as I used to. Just a few minutes of this exercise will bring so much energy back into the legs, into the pelvic area, into the hips, activating the energy in your lower abdomen. It's just so powerful yet so easy.

Before we begin, I will explain the exercise step by step. You can come up on your feet and roll out your yoga mat or just find a space on solid ground. Okay, so from here, stand with your feet a little bit wider than hip width apart so that you can find a really strong and grounded position with your feet and legs.

Knees are slightly bent. The exercise consists of lifting the heels up so that you come up onto your toes. So come up onto your toes.

Now allow your weight and heels to drop back into the ground with a soft bounce. Make sure your knees are slightly bent and juicy so that the bounce into the floor moves into your heels through the legs and knees up into your pelvis. So you can try again, just keep on trying up on your toes, release the heels away from the floor.

Come up onto your toes and then drop the heels back into the floor so that you can feel quite a strong sensation in your pelvic area. Okay, good. Now come back up and allow the hands to follow the movement of the heels.

So at the same time that we bring the heels up, we bring the hands up at the level of the shoulders, extending the arms forward. Now as we exhale and bounce the heels into the ground, we will also bounce the heels of the hands down with a swing towards the ground next to the hips. You can try this a few times on your own as I continue to explain a few more details.

Okay so we will from here add a sound as we bounce into the floor, a sigh out sounding like this. This sound is really coming from the root of your being, from the pelvic region and helps in releasing tension from the pelvis. So make sure to really bring energy to the out-breath, allowing the sound to be loud and strong.

It's more like a hu than a ha. Also when you bounce the heels back into the floor, make sure that you do not lean forward with your upper body. And stay upright as leaning forward will expel the energy forward and out rather than down into your body.

We want the energy to ground down, connecting the sacrum, legs and heels down into the earth so that the sexual energy can start to move and get activated in the sacrum. You can try here to move the upper torso forward to feel how that feels, and then try the bounce when you have a more straight up position. So you might want to know why we are working on activating the sacrum.

Well as we've been exploring in our previous episodes, the sacrum holds a lot of sexual energy. The sexual second chakra is located just below the navel in the pelvic area. This is where the serpent power, the internal Shakti energy, Kundalini resides.

It is our aim with this exercise to activate her movement in a safe and held space. In tantric texts, it is referred to as waking up the coiled and dormant serpent at the base of the spine. So that was the introduction to the exercise, so let's begin.

Get into position with your feet grounded a bit wider than hip width apart. We begin this practice with three grounding inhales and exhales. Let's take a deep breath in, and exhale with a sigh, inhale, and exhale.

One more deep long inhale all the way down into your belly, and exhale, let it all out. As we inhale next, bring the heels off the floor, come up onto your toes, bring the hands up along to the height of the shoulders, extend the arms forward, and as you exhale now, release the heels and the arms down with a nice bounce as you sigh. Inhale come up onto your toes, and exhale, release, inhale, come up, inhale, come up.

Repeat this motion for a few rounds, inhale, bring the heels up, bring the arms up, and exhale, release down with a slight bounce, and inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, and keep on going, inhaling and exhaling, bounce down, inhale, keep on going for a few more rounds, allow yourself to really bounce down, really feeling the bounce coming into your pelvis, and attention, not feeling that you're coming forward with your upper torso, staying upright. A few more rounds, and then coming up on your toes, exhale, release down into the ground, inhale for three, exhale for two, and exhale one. And from here, let go of the exercise, come stand onto your mat with your feet a bit wider than hip width apart, find your ground.

From here, allow your eyelids to float close, let the arms hang loose and dangle next to the body, and notice any sensation in your pelvis, in your abdomen, hips, and thighs. Now bring your hands to meet in front of your heart, and rub your hands together, gather some energy, rub, rub, rub. Now slowly and with intention, bring your hands down towards your belly and place them onto the lower abdomen, onto your sex center, shaping the hands into a downward facing triangle, allowing the tips of the thumbs and index fingers to connect, palms of the hands facing inwards, slightly touching your body, your fingers elongating down towards the earth.

And next time you inhale, allow all the energy in your body, mind, and spirit to be directed towards the sacred place in your body, your sex center. Now gather life force energy from the earth up through your feet, sucking the energy up into your legs and into your sex center. Then hold the breath for just a short while as you store the energy into the area of your triangle.

And release the breath as you exhale, savor the energy in your pelvis, your hips, and your genitals. Let's repeat the process as you inhale, gather energy from the earth up through your feet, into your legs, into your pelvis, into your triangle, into your sex center. Hold your breath for a short moment, notice any sensation here.

Maybe there is a pulsation or a vibration, feeling into the sensation of your very own sexual energy. And then invite a smile onto your lips. And as you exhale, let go, relax, release.

Inhale once again, hold the breath as you gather energy. And exhale to release the breath from your mouth as you sigh. Now yourself a few more rounds like this, gathering energy from the earth, inhale, inhale, and then hold the breath for just a short moment.

And as you exhale, you release it out. This is just as important as the moving part. Now that we are sensing into the energy, we are working with the Yin energy of the Shi.

And as we go back into movement in a short while, we will be in the Yang energy of the exercise. We combine the two to create wholeness. It helps to integrate the practice as we merge the feminine Yin with the masculine Yang.

Okay, let's do the physical Yang and the Yin exercise one more time. But before we begin, let me explain the Yin part as this time around, it will be slightly different. Instead of placing the hands onto your lower abdomen, you will place them onto your sacrum.

That's your lower back, with the palms of the hands holding the sacrum on either side of the spine, fingers of the hands facing down, thumbs out to the sides of the body, as if you were placing your hands into the back pockets of your jeans. Okay, with that said, let's prepare to do the Yang exercise. Come into position with your feet a bit wider than hip-width apart.

As you inhale, release the heels away from the ground, lift your hands and extend the arms forward, and exhale. Bounce the heels into the ground, swing the arms down and sigh. Inhale, bring the heels and the arms up, exhale, release down into the earth.

Let's do a few more rounds. Inhale, come up. You can keep on going, inhaling as you come up, exhale, come down with a ha, inhale, exhale for three, exhale for two, and exhale for one.

You can come down, let go of the exercise, come to stand in a position with your feet a bit wider than hip-width apart, and let the knees be soft, and allow your arms to just hang loose, dangle alongside the body. Invite your eyelids to float close, and notice if you can feel any sensation, maybe some energy in your lower legs moving upwards, or pulsating energy in your sacrum. It's coming into the sensation.

Bring the palms of your hands together in front of your heart, and again, let's start to rub, rubbing the hands together, building up some electric shakti energy in your hands. Next time you exhale, with intention and with ease, place your hands onto the sacrum, onto the lower back, fingers facing down, thumbs out to the sides. So breathe into your sacrum, as if the sacrum bone opens up towards the sides for each inhale, as if it expands and opens up, releasing tension and freeing up stored energy.