Kundalini yoga for overwhelm

Image by Moshe Harosh from Pixabay

Do you feel overwhelmed?

If so, stop for a moment. Close your eyes and take a moment to check in.

Where in your body do you feel the overwhelm? Do your nerves feel agitated? Does your head feel heavy and full, like a bobblehead, top-heavy, about ready to teeter head-first to the earth?

How is your energy when overwhelm hits? Do you feel dull, exhausted, discouraged?

What else? 

Give yourself a minute or so to check in with your body from head to toe. Notice what you feel where. Awareness is the first step towards resolution. 

What do you WANT to feel instead?

Imagine how your body feels in this scenario. Visualize and feel your posture. Breathe into this renewed sense of Self.

Now what? 

Consider these 4 essential tools and kundalini yoga-based remedies to conquer overwhelm and feel lighter, clearer and back on track.
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1. The breath. The quality of your breath determines both the ability of your nervous system to function well and for your mind to take in what it’s taking in. Beyond that, it can heal illness, calm the mind, and rev up your metabolism. Just taking long, deep breaths can change everything. The One Simple Breath is a great place to start. From that foundation, you can learn different breath patterns to notice how they benefit you and take note if there’s one go-to breath that you can count on when you are feeling overwhelmed. You can also further your breath practice with intentional movement, or kundalini yoga.

 

1. The yoga. When overwhelm strikes, it feels like my world is closing in on me, the room is filling with “all the things” and the piles are about to topple on me. My energy is smothered and there’s no room to flow. It could feel like panic. And the fear sets in. Does this happen to you? This is when you need a practice that releases the fear, expands your protective+projective field and allows flow to happen. Movement moves stuck energy. This is where kundalini yoga delivers in a huge way. It’s not just about becoming more flexible so you can do a backbend. Its power comes from how effectively it balances your nervous and glandular systems so that you can better cope. It doesn’t take long to feel the positive impacts of the kundalini yoga sets (kriyas).
2. The mantra. Mantra gets you out of your negative headspace and gets your body’s frequency back in tune with your higher self. Mantra is the simplest tool because all you need to do is let the sound current wash over your mind and body. For this reason, this is my favorite of the four tools. I simply turn on my music app and play my kundalini mantra playlist. Sometimes I just listen, and when I want to use it as a powerful meditation, I chant and sing along.
3. The next step: presence. Overwhelm and presence doesn’t happen at the same time. When you’re overwhelmed, you’re worried, afraid, nervous, confused about the past or future and wondering what you should be doing instead right now. Pause and ask yourself: How am I overwhelming myself? Notice your answer with curiosity and without judgment. Listen, stay present with yourself, breathe long and deep. Allow yourself to focus on one thing at a time and stay present with that one thing. I know this is easier said than done, but as with anything worthwhile, it gets easier with practice. If this proves especially difficult, it could mean that you need sleep to reset yourself.

​Each of these practices offer a vital shift in energy, clarity and alignment, even when you’re not experiencing overwhelm. The best way to make these work for you is to practice when you don’t need it, so they’re available for you when you do. 

While breath, yoga, mantra, and presence isn’t exclusive to Kundalini Yoga, or to solving the seeming epidemic of overwhelm, they work on multiple levels at once to transform you at the physiological level, so you aren’t white knuckling your way through a state of overwhelm. It helps you stay in a more powerful state of mind to mitigate overwhelm in the future. It’s like setting the radio station to one you prefer to experience– one that promotes equanimity amidst all that is thrown at you. The purpose of Kundalini Yoga and Meditation is to help you tune into that radio frequency, allowing you to live in a material world as a more aligned and spiritual being.

With grit and grace,
Anna SachKiret

P.S. - if you would like some meditations and kriyas to deal with overwhelm, email me for suggestions.