My Journey Into Kundalini Yoga

To lead up to my Intro to Kundalini Workshop this weekend at Lil Omm Studio (Saturday, 1-3pm), I wrote the following post for the Lil Omm blog, and am reposting it here, with a relevant photo.

Tuesday class continues as well this week with the fourth class of the six week series. Palisades Community Church (downstairs in Memorial Hall), 5200 Cathedral Ave. NW, just off MacArthur Blvd, 7:30pm-8:45pm, $15/drop-in.

My Journey into Kundalini Yoga

Kundalini yoga found me right when I needed it, although I came to it somewhat late, in terms of my yoga life. I started doing yoga as a child with my mom, who caught the wave of yoga that came to the U.S. in the 1960s. She faithfully did her sun salutations every morning, and with the advent of VCRs, she and I wore out a 1980s Raquel Welch yoga video. 

I tried various hatha yoga styles as I moved around in the years after college, checking out studios that taught iyengar, ashtanga, vinyasa, anusara, Bikram, hot yoga, power yoga, you name it, but no one style particularly stuck with me.

Early in my pregnancy with my first child, I felt awful. Starving but nauseous, exhausted, crampy. Yoga and physical activity of any kind fell by the wayside as I wallowed in how miserable I felt. I only cracked a smile when I came across a book called “Pregnancy Sucks.”

Then one day, a different book arrived in the mail. A friend who had recently had her first child sent me “Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful” by Gurmukh, a Kundalini yoga teacher. As soon as I read the first few pages my attitude began to transform. 

I had never heard of Kundalini yoga and the book contained only a few postures and meditations, but I knew with all my heart that I need to find Gurmukh and study with her. My heart sank when I discovered she lived and taught in L.A. Perhaps I could find a teacher in D.C. who had studied with her, I reasoned. A little research led me to a prenatal Kundalini yoga class in Georgetown. 

I didn’t love the physical part of Kundalini at first. Although some postures were familiar from hatha yoga, others seemed at first awkward and strange. Some didn’t necessarily feel good as I did them. It helped when my teacher reminded me to connect to my breathing and to a silent mantra. It also helped when she shared a quip from Yogi Bhajan, who brought the Kundalini tradition to the West: “The best part of Kundalini yoga is when it’s over.” 

The “tuning-in” mantra that we did at the beginning of class seemed at first like a tongue-twister in an ancient language, but I liked that it meant “I honor the divine wisdom within me.” The idea that my body contained divine wisdom resonated with me, and I began to count on that divine wisdom to get me through childbirth.

In other yoga classes, my mind would often wander while my body ran through the poses. I would wonder about the other people in the room, or think about what I needed to buy at the store. In Kundalini class, because we kept our eyes closed and were continually reminded to reconnect to the breath and a mantra, I began to learn to stay internal and notice what my mind was doing.

Kundalini class always ended with a meditation, unlike other yoga classes I had attended. I had tried zen meditation years before, and while I liked the idea, I had trouble connecting to the practice. Kundalini meditation was different. There was more to do – a mudra (hand position), a drishti (eye focus), a breathing pattern, sometimes a mantra – which helped focus my mind. 

Some of the meditations were physically and mentally challenging, often because they involved holding my arms up for what seemed like endless minutes. I began to notice how I felt and what thoughts ran through my mind when my body was uncomfortable. My teacher reminded me that surrendering to uncomfortable physical sensations would be excellent practice for natural childbirth.

She was right. I went into childbirth feeling relaxed and prepared for the unknown, confident that my body could open up to whatever experience lay ahead. While I liked the Bradley childbirth class my husband and I took, for me the best childbirth preparation was the mental training of Kundalini yoga. I took the advice in Gurmukh’s book to heart and trusted that I was more powerful than I might realize, and that staying present for this miracle I was lucky enough to experience would guide me through any difficulty. Gratitude was my touchstone whenever I lost my way.

I credit that that first prenatal class with helping me have two natural births (the second at home.) In addition, a door opened for me into a new world of yoga. While I had always enjoyed and been attracted to the physical practice of hatha yoga, Kundalini yoga allowed me to experience my consciousness and my spirit in a way that I had never done before. 

Almost four years after that first prenatal class, I entered a Kundalini teacher training program at Yoga House Studio in DC, with Elizabeth Greathouse. The training helped me uncover levels of strength, self-discipline and peace of mind that I didn’t know were deep inside me. I use the tools I learned every day, not only in my yoga practice, but in my work and my home life. The training gave me the foundation to continue to study this rich and ancient tradition and to continue to develop myself as a yogi and a person. It also gave me the sincere desire to share Kundalini yoga with others, in the hopes that they will find it just as valuable.