Kundalini Yoga teacher training - the start of a new chapter

THE START OF A NEW CHAPTER

Last weekend I took the first steps in a 9-month Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training program at Northern Light Yoga in Oslo. Divided into 9 long weekends from September 2022 to May 2023.

And for those of you who find numerology a purposeful mirror tool: the day I drove to Oslo, September 22, 2022, was a day. September is 9 months.

And I'm in my personal 9th year. Marking the transition to a whole new life spiral even more clearly.

The timing of the first chapter of this journey could not have been more intentional and

Symbolic. Right between the fall solstice and the new moon.

AUTUMN SOLSTICE

From the night of September 22 to 23, the autumnal equinox portal was open. An annual return that knocks the ground from under my feet. The impact of this energetic event has always been far greater than any other equinox, date or recurring event in a year.

The autumnal equinox is a time of transition between light and dark, inner and outer. It's a time when both sides are in balance, where the contrast momentarily seizes to exist. And as life is the experience and reaction to contrast, a portal is created between our earthly life and our higher life.

Many cultures talk about thinning the veil. With the right intention, it gives you the perfect energetic invitation to put your earth experience into perspective as you make a connection with the higher part of yourself. It is a portal to personal truth. If you are willing to work with honesty towards yourself.

But the portal works both ways. You will feel energetically connected to the outer world. It feels like mental floating, connecting and disconnecting at the same time. The feeling of being grounded to the earth falls away and can cause you to feel lost. At the same time, it moves the grounding to your own center. Or better, it shows you how grounded you are, or are not, to your own center.

These forces make you work with confidence, and even more, with self-responsibility.

The autumnal equinox is the door to darkness, to the interior. It's time to work internally on external changes. After having done the opposite for the past six months. The Norwegian word dør means both dying and dying. isn't that right? When we give our absolute attention to willingly and intentionally letting parts of ourselves die. But can we accept death as it is? Both the colorful beauty of it, and the fact that it is rotten and ugly.

EGO

All these parts of ourselves, all the facets of our ego, are shaken when the autumn wind blows through. Ego is not necessarily a bad thing, despite its connotation in the spiritual community.

Isn't ego just an association with something? An identification? A point on a spectrum line where we set up a boundary? Isn't it an absolutely necessary part of us humans?

It's a lesson in exploring those boundaries, leaning into them. To express and live them. That is why we are here! But imagine a leaf that rots in the fall and doesn't fall from the tree. There won't be room for another leave next spring. There's nothing wrong with the leaf or the tree or the season, but the tree will get less sunlight for photosynthesis than it would have with a new leaf. Can you see how the circle of life is a little out of rhythm here?

Learning to let go is so important. Feeling confident to let go is even more important. Being able to ground into yourself, having your anchor in your own center point, instead of in your blades. Self-confidence. Trust that you, and everything that is, carries yourself. And at the same time experience the contrast in life, good and bad.

Spirituality can just be another thing we escape to. That we use to escape from our lives and experiences. Something else we can anchor our "I" in. But spirituality is just the stuff of life, it's a way of describing all that is. Someone can never have heard of anything spiritual ever, and still live a life more in tune with their soul than someone interested in yoga or tarot.

Life will never be without contrasts, never without ever pushing boundaries. Can we let ourselves be taken by the wind, and gracefully experience? Can we be a part of humanity?

Admitting that we are human means admitting all of our human potential, including all the horrible ugly things some people do. It's admitting that it's also part of our potential. Isn't it easy to protect our own "I" by withdrawing from parts of us? To have nothing to do with those who destroy the planet for money, from those who harm others, from those who abuse animals? Isn't it easy to get carried away by the distinction between good and bad? Is this something that will create unity?

I think it's wise to keep this in mind. Spirituality with the connotation we're used to can be applied to every single aspect of your life. From the way you care for yourself, to navigating relationships and laundry.

EXECUTION

When we explored the very basics and definitions of kundalini yoga in the first teacher training weekend, there was a lot of talk about embodiment. About having as much respect and honor for our body and the mundane life here, as for the higher aspects of ourselves and the universe itself. It's a reflection of each other, a compression of one into the other.

What message are we giving ourselves if we long for an escape from the physical? Our body is not just a vessel, our life is not just a test. How do we care for each other? How do we see the divine in the mundane? That's yoga. Unite.

You don't heal your fear of heights by always staying on the ground. Just like you don't heal the way you handle relationships (or the way you are responsible for your reaction to other people, hint hint), by moving to the middle of nowhere and limiting human contact. Which has been my personal lesson. Can you be reliable and trustworthy to yourself and even more, to others?

How do you embody change and transformation? It starts with a key, to put you on this line of contrast, this spectrum of interest. Like dialing a number on your phone. The number you dial can be an intention, a question or a wish. You're using your body and mind, your very life, as the phone. But it's the physical step you take after that, here on earth, in your daily life, that will change your environment. Which in turn will evoke the invisible energies in your life. You open the phone line and it's your job to keep it open.

WHAT IS A TEACHER?

First, to all the people who are on this shared journey, the beautiful souls who are with me on the Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training this year and to the teachers, thank you for existing! It can be so powerful to experience that we are not alone.

I noticed that many of you are, or have been, in difficult places, both in life and internally.

Many of us, sensitives struggling with unhappy pasts and confusing inner worlds, try to find healing everywhere. We are on a perpetual quest. Many of us find our path leads to the spiritual aspects of life.

We are here to be brave and use honesty as one of the tools to clear away our own mud on the path of connection. The road between the seen and the unseen. Between the earth and out there.

It is by healing ourselves, by opening up our own channel, that we will attract others who need the same. By opening your own channel, we will bring forth this channel in others as well. We intend to learn how to trust ourselves and how to anchor ourselves in ourselves, instead of holding on for dear life to leaves blowing in the wind.

When life gets tough, when we're standing in an autumn storm, it's hard to keep perspective. We can become so focused on everything blowing in our faces. We can lose our balance and connection with ourselves. All our parts start to reflect back to each other, creating a mirror maze of confusion and desperation.

A teacher is a channel. It's someone who can hold space and a mirror for the student to find direction and open up their own channel.

INTEGRATION

The last hour ended on the new moon, the archetype of intentions.

And as I integrate this past weekend, I can't help but think back to my first encounter with Kundalini yoga. It was in early April 2020, right after Covid-19 shut down society. I had taken out a subscription to an online yoga platform as a replacement. One of the yoga styles they offered was Kundalini yoga. Now, if I hadn't known the term, I would have scrolled right past it. But instead, it made me remember an article I once read and had since forgotten. It was about a woman who has been into yoga for a long time but really found it after joining a kundalini class. I remember thinking it was a strange but exciting story.

Thus, I tried out a random class on this online platform. I don't even remember exactly what we did, but it was a combination of weird exercises, with weird poses, sounds and movements. I've never done anything seemingly so random and strange. But the things I felt after this class... such a release of emotions, energy and a huge sense of liberation. It was the strangest and most exciting magic I've ever encountered.

However, establishing an understanding is a sign of love. The way we express love is often a reflection of how we experience love. But not everyone feels loved in the same way.

Therefore, the phrase stop trying to love, start understanding, has true wisdom. By investing energy in really understanding and seeing something as it is, without imposing it on our own personality, we can really see the needs and therefore how to love.

In one way or another, understanding the science of Kundalini yoga is about learning to understand yourself. So that you can love yourself better. And by loving yourself and feeling loved by yourself, we embody our true essence, you guessed it: love.

Written by Ellen Wild (Kundalini Yoga teacher in training 2022/2023)