Kundalini Yoga in Relationships
Relationships are tricky business. You are dealing with two different people's minds, hearts and memories. There are subconscious and unconscious patterns at work as well as all the impressions of multiple life-times and inherited influencing actions and words. Rather than trying to approach misunderstandings with words and actions, which can be full of misreadings and harmful backlash, kundalini yoga is a way that couples can approach breaches in relationships with energetic wellness and healing.
What is Kundalini Yoga?
The word “kundalini” refers to the cosmic energy which, after about age 7, drops and coils at the base of the spine. This energy is that which allowed for our “magical” and open-minded beginning and is the way in which we can re-contact our highest version of self later in life. Kundalini yoga is the awareness and lifestyle – including practices -- which acknowledges and works with this cosmic energy.
Kundalini yoga, depending on the tradition and teacher, can include mantras, postures, breathing, visualizations and body mudras which work with the energies in the spine and the opening and activating of the chakra system. This yoga teaches the practitioner to raise the life force energy up the spine and focus it at the third eye center, where both masculine and feminine energies in the body converge and unite.
How Can Couples Use this Yoga?
Though this yoga can be a solitary practice, it can also greatly benefit couples by helping them to become aware of the energy moving within the self and between the two individuals. Instead of arguing a point or trying to convince the other party why something should be a certain way, the practice of breathing together while focusing attention on the spine and between common chakra points – like the heart, throat and third eye – can bring differing opinions and viewpoints together into harmonious center. Sometimes the greatest healer and communicator is silence. During the practicing of kundalini yoga between two people, subtle energies are brought to our attention and unaddressed misconceptions are salved for healing.
How Do You Practice?
1- Sit across from one another and stare into one another's eyes without talking.
2- Begin breathing, as if up and down the spine with each breath, keeping awareness on your partner.
3- Begin to imagine breathing up your partner's spine, and then down your own – repeating with each breath at least 10 complete breaths.
4- Reverse the breath and imagine now breathing up your own spine and down your partners – both people visualizing together – so the result is a figure 8 breath between the two bodies – repeat 10 breaths.
5- Now change the breathing so you imagine breathing into your own heart and exhaling into your partner's heart. Then inhale again back through their heart-center and into yours, and then exhale from your own heart back to theirs; repeat for 10 full breaths.
6- Repeat step 5 – but now at the throat for 10 breaths, and then at the third eye for 10 breaths.
7- Next, lie down on floor and place foreheads together, with feet extending away from each other. Continue to breathe forehead to forehead; repeat at least 10 rounds.
8- Sit and bask in the energy moving between you both and imagine sending thoughts to one another – which you can check the clarity on later.
9- Move energy back to the heart while foreheads remain together; feel love moving back and forth between the two of you; repeat at least 10 rounds.
10- Sit up and now place spines together by sitting back to back. Imagine and even hear your breaths sync up as you breathe up and down your spinal cords together and in harmony; feel the space between you dissolve as you experience yourselves as One; repeat at least 10 rounds of breath.
11- End this session by chanting OM together 3 times while sitting back to back.
12- Turn to face one another again and complete by chanting LOVE 3 times together.
13 – Open your eyes and spend 5-10 minutes staring into one another's eyes – sending thoughts of healing, love and release.
This completes this session of couple's Kundalini yoga. By practicing these simple techniques together instead of arguments, you may find communication increases, inner harmony expands and love fills the empty spaces. Kundalini is a beautiful tool to use in your personal practice and in your relationships. Start today and find your relations more expansive and harmonious and ready to grow.
Try it now! Watch this instructional video to get the most out of the practice: