34: How I changed my relationship with depression
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Jo: Wouldn't it be amazing to have a completely different relationship with depression? Mmm, that is what we're talking about today on the rise empire podcast. So welcome back. If you listen [00:01:00] to the last two episodes, you know that I was going through a pretty weird time in my life after losing our dog and working through the grieving process. And that was a very interesting thing for me to do. Because at each level that you get to, as you are increasing your awareness. It's. It becomes really strange working through these things, because even kind of take yourself out of it for a moment and be like, okay, this is what's going on and this is where I am right now. And I know that I need to feel it and allow it to work through. And still be uncomfortable, but be comfortable being uncomfortable and. Something that's really changed for me is my relationship with depression. And that sounds really weird, right? That sounds a little crazy. So just. Stay with me for a little bit. So this was probably the fastest that [00:02:00] I've ever been able to move through a depression and I credit this in a large part to my kundalini yoga practice. Because sitting in it. Sitting in that depression. Like I knew that this depression that I was feeling was a lack of movement in my emotions like stagnant energy just feels dense and at the same time, like empty, right. You don't want to do anything. You don't want to talk to anybody. You just want to be alone and crawl into a hole or uh, cave. I always call it going to my cave. I just want to go to a cave and be alone. So I committed to another 40 day Kundalini yoga practice. With a kriya that I learned from Brianna rose when I went to a selfish Philly. We did a really fiery kriya. And. It was like the breaking point almost. I [00:03:00] don't really want to call it a breaking point. It was a breaking point in the low. That's what it was it was a breaking point in the low part of the depression. What it did the first time I did this, kriya was kind of crack everything open. And I cried. Boy, did I cry? It was really cathartic and I committed to this practice, knowing that I needed to show up for myself. Because if I allowed myself to sit in the stagnant energy, it was just going to consume me. So I made a commitment to this 40 day practice to this very fiery 40 day practice. And let me just tell you it's been breaking incredible. So. What had happened was right after this, like breaking open. The next couple of days. I say the next couple of days. No. The remainder of that day. It was like, everything fell away and I did feel. [00:04:00] Like nothingness almost it was very empty. It was hard for me to actually feel anything, but the next day, I felt the same way I did the kriya and I felt very blissful after. The next day I felt a little less of that nothingness. I felt better during the day. And then towards the end of the day, I really felt that nothingness starting to creep back in and I was like, I'm just going to go to sleep and do my Korea in the morning and everything will be okay. Right. So I felt like that nothingness start to creep back in. On, I guess that was the third day. And then the fourth day moving onwards it had become increasingly easier for me to continue that blissed out feeling. I haven't done my kriya yet today, but. Today we'll be, what day is it? What is today? The 30th. Today will be day 13 of my 40 day practice. We're not even two weeks in. Right. And holy [00:05:00] bananas. Like yesterday, I caught myself like skipping into the office and dancing around the office, randomly. I tell you this, not because. I'm like, oh my gosh. I've conquered depression. No, I tell you this because Kundalini can literally change your life. Kundalini can change your life. But you have to be ready for it. If Kundalini is not calling to you, you might not be ready for it, but if Kundalini keeps coming up for you and you're like, oh my gosh, I keep hearing things about Kundalini and not just for me, because I know I talked about Kundalini quite a bit. But. If you keep hearing things about Kundalini from other people or seeing it online somewhere, it might be that you're ready to start a Kundalini yoga practice. My best advice for you. If you are looking to start a Kundalini yoga practice is to try out [00:06:00] different classes, try out different teachers and find the one that resonates with you the most, because not all Kundalini is created or taught equally. When Kundalini first came over to the U S it was commonly taught in a very dogmatic. The guru is outside of you do what the guru says. Don't ask questions and very, structured and controlled I don't care if you're hurting you, keep your arms up at this weird angle and don't drop them. Just push through, even if you're hurt. And what this caused in a lot of people is like a forced Kundalini awakening, which can be very traumatic and very scary for a lot of people if you're not ready for it. What we're seeing now in the Kundalini universe is this more feminine approach to Kundalini yoga, which is very beautiful, where we teach that the guru is within you to listen to your body. If you need to put your arms down out of a pose for a little bit, to make [00:07:00] sure that. Oh, it was just that my arms are getting tired and my muscles cramping and instead of an injury. Do that. Right. We're really big on listening to yourself. On being gentle with yourself on continuing to push yourself. To go further to do more. To push those boundaries, but not at the expense of injuring yourself or forcing a Kundalini awakening. It's much more of a gentle approach where we're gently awakening the Kundalini energy. So our Kundalini awakenings are like this big crazy experience. So that your Kundalini awakening is not traumatic. Right. Your Kundalini energy is a dormant energy that lives at the base of your spine. It exists within everybody. When we're children, we have this Kundalini energy coursing through our bodies. All the time. And as we go through life, [00:08:00] we begin to suppress it and repress it because we're taught. To not be our full selves. Because being our full selves is not safe. This is what we're taught. This is what we're conditioned to believe. We're told to sit down and be quiet to be seen and not heard. And we bring on all of this messaging and conditioning from the outside world. Where we begin to believe that being our truest self, being our authentic self, allowing our creativity to just course through us is not safe. It's not how we fit into society. It's not how we continue to live in the tribe. Back in the day being part of the tribal was essential to survival. To be an outcast meant that you would die. To be outcast mint death. And now we know that we have connection. All across the planet. So being an [00:09:00] outcast has a different meaning now than it did back in the day. Being an outcast means that we can still find our tribe on the internet somewhere. And we can still connect with people throughout our cities. And meet up with people and still have that human connection. But back in the day. That was no good. So we suppress this energy. We suppress this energy and we become disconnected from our bodies. We become disconnected from all of the wisdom and intuition that lives within our bodies. We live from the neck up. Thinking very logically and rationally. We make all of our decisions based on logic and we over rationalize. When we tune into our bodies when we awaken this Kundalini energy, when we connect and align our head brains with our heart brains and our gut brains. We begin to access this intuition that is in the superconscious. When we are aligned mind, body, soul [00:10:00] we're able to tap into this network of information that is outside of ourselves and we call it intuition. Where we are getting messages from our intuition and our intuition is never going to steer us wrong. Our intuition is there to guide us and yet we've suppressed it. And that's a story for another day for of. The multiple times that I have. Repressed my intuition. But the thing is kundalini is this amazing tool that we have. It's a technology that we have that gets us back into touch with our body gets our body back into alignment so that we can listen to the messages so that we can access our intuition so that we can live a life that is truly connected. And like I said, the traditional Kundalini yoga classes and teachers we're very dogmatic and very masculine. [00:11:00] Very structured. You didn't ask questions. You didn't really know why things worked. You just did it. But there's this movement now in the world of Kundalini, that's a very beautiful. It's bringing more femininity to the scene. It is asking questions. It's tuning into your intuition. It is listening to your body and we're finding that things that were not thought to be connected are actually connected. We're finding that Chinese medicine and Kundalini can go hand in hand. We're finding that we have meridians in our body energy meridians that are connected to the five elements. Thank you, Brianna rose, because holy smokes, Batman. That's a huge deal. We're finding that the Koreas also affect the organ systems and the organ systems are tied to our emotions and it's just the world of Kundalini is so big. It's so [00:12:00] amazing. It's so interconnected everything in this world is so interconnected. And finding all of those connections is something that I love to do. It's so beautiful to me to begin to see all of the connections between everything. Maybe that makes me a little weird, but I think it's pretty awesome. So, yes. What was I saying back on track, finding a Kundalini class, finding a Kundalini teacher. If you are wanting to experience Kundalini and incorporated into your everyday life. Because I promise you it will have a profound effect on your life. And it shows me that every single time that I commit to a different 40 day practice, it shows me all of the different aspects and areas of my life that are upleveling because of the practice. It's amazing. I cannot say enough good things about Kundalini yoga. Like my [00:13:00] very first 40 day practice was during my yoga teacher training. The Kriya specifically was the Korea of Vastu. Or Vastu Korea by Guru Singh. It was essentially about finding your place in space and becoming comfortable in trusting that space. The feelings that I got doing that kriya we're incredible. I never felt like I belonged in this world more than when I was doing that kriya. And the kriya that I'm doing now like I said, very fiery all about manifestation and bringing things into our reality. And when I tell you that this fire energy is like, Ooh, so good. It is so good. I have not felt this pumped up about things in a long time. And it's not even been two weeks. Two weeks ago I was depressed and just didn't [00:14:00] want to get out of bed. And I wasn't sure about a lot of things. So in the span of two weeks this kriya has turned my life around. It's turned my internal state around and I just absolutely love it. If you're wanting to try it out, research classes in your area, if you want to do an in-person experience or research classes online. Right. I currently don't offer just Kundalini yoga. I do Kundalini yoga with my clients in REIGN and with my private clients, but I don't just do Kundalini yoga classes. But that's probably going to change because I've been feeling really called lately to start doing in-person experiences. Here at the office or. Having somebody else host it in me, come and do Kundalini with people. And having it like an experience, not just come in and do Kundalini yoga, but come [00:15:00] in and set intentions. And do our kriya and meditate and create community on top of that. So. Yeah, I know I was kind of all over the place, but. I've completely transformed my relationship with depression which is very kind of strange to say and seems kind of silly. But that's what I did. Like when I say it, that's what I did. That's what it is. If you're wanting to experience Kundalini yoga, and you're not one of my clients, go ahead and shoot me an email at [email protected]. And we can kind of look and see what's in your area or if you are here in Tyler with me, then maybe you can come to one of my in-person experiences that. I'm just going to have to do it right. I'm just going to have to start doing them. I'm gonna figure it out. So, if you're interested in the in person experience and you're here in Tyler, let me know. We can get together and I can keep you posted [00:16:00] on the updates for the in person experiences. So. Yeah. That. This episode kind of went a different way than I was expecting, but that's okay. I like it. All right. That is it for this episode. As always, I love you and I will see you in the next one.
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Jo:
