The primary matrix of brain development from zero to 3 years has a huge impact on our entire lives. Allan Schore suggests that the core of our sense of self lies in the patterns of emotional response (affect regulation) experienced in infancy and that this regulatory capacity is responsible for the maintenance of the continuity of the sense of self. Once laid down in the first few years of life, this original non-verbal, prerational stream of emotion resulting from the infant-caretaker bond continues throughout our life to be the primary unconscious motivator in our relationships, having profound impact on our self-esteem and ability for intimacy, trusting and bonding.

"It is the experiences of early childhood that create the foundational organisation of neural systems that will be used for a lifetime...While many more well-controlled studies are needed, it is likely that certain brainstem catecholamine systems, for example, the locus coeruleus nora adrenergic, the limbic areas, the amygdala, and the neuroendocrine hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and cortical systems involved in regulating stress and arousal, may be altered in traumatized children". ~ Dr. Bruce Perry

The researchers at Howard Hughes medical Institute, led by Bruce Lahn have found evidence that the pressure of natural selection has lead to dramatic changes in two genes known to control brain size in humans. Brain size or intelligence is naturally selected for in evolution for obvious survival reasons, and larger brains require more oxygen. Although the brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization. The larger the brain, the greater the demand of oxygen and hence the more sophisticated the nervous system needed to provide that oxygen...the evolutionary payoff for larger brain size of course being survival. As a natural extension of mammalian evolution we can see that the human neocortex was an inevitable consequence of evolutionary pressure.

VVagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) is now being used for depression, seizures and eating disorders. Although the precise mode of action of VNS is not known, researchers suggest that VNS increases seizure threshold by causing widespread release of GABA and Glycine in the brain. Reported changes in blood flow in the cerebellum, thalamus and cortex might activate inhibitory structures in the brain reducing seizure kindling. One VNS study showed mean seizure frequency to decrease by 25%. Altered synaptic activities at sites of persisting VNS-induced cerebral blood flow changes may reflect antiseizure actions.

Progressively it is coming to light that there is a large neuro-detoxification component to the kundalini phenomena. After reading Peter Levine, Robert Scaer, Alan Schore, Arthur Janov, Joseph Chilton Pearce and Ellie Van Winkle it is apparent to me that kundalini arises either spontaneously or through provocation in an effort to bleed of tension held in the limbic brain from the fossilized repression of emotion. Kundalini is a process by which the body is attempting to "throw off" its former conditioning through detoxification, death and regeneration.

1. CAUSATION: First there is prenatal and birth experience and development, which forms the original template.



2. REGULATON: Second there is orbitofrontal connection to the limbic system built through affect-regulation (bonding) with the primary caregiver.



3. ADAPTATION: (Family) Then there is years of socio-emotional development built in direct response and adaptation to the Causation and Regulation stages.



4. INDIVIDUATION: Differential in growth promotes a psychosomatic tension between the old patterning and the new, which is felt as yearning and seeking.



5. QUEST: This tension forces the individual to go on a (Hero's) spiritual journey to find the limbic Attractors that trigger dissolution/reconstruction in order to resolve the tension.



6. PERTURBATION: Then there has to be a disinhibition or letting go of the general adaptation patterns. The psychic tension itself can trigger this penetration of repressive mechanisms. Other triggers include--romantic love, proximity to or shaktipat from a Guru, drugs, acute shock, spiritual practices etc...



7. AWAKENING: A flowering of consequences occurs in a massive cataclysmic release of the tension stored in the growth differential.



8. DISSOLUTION: Followed by dissolution of former structures and patterns--meltdown, collapse, crisis, Dark Nights, die-offs. The various kinds of dark night have their own specific chemistry that is in perfect correspondence to their associated up-cycle chemistry.



9. REFORMATION: New contemporary networks are built and substantiated with use, showing greater phylogenic and ontogenic integration between the parts. With the restructuring of the primary matrix, the energy differential disappears leading to non-seeking and equanimity.

If we have had a trauma background there will be a need to do more orbiofrontal-limbic neural networking by engaging in such activities such as bonding, playing with kids, animals, martial arts and coordination, motor skills, sensory stimulation work etc.... BEFORE you do any primal therapy and de-repression work. Normally emotional regulation and the orbiofrontal-limbic link are built within the course of healthy family life. But if there was abuse or deficiency in this you must build up your container yourself as an adult. Then you can go do peyote, rebirthing, holotropic breathing and other primal therapies. First build then regress, build, regress and then all that terror (protest-despair) contained in your original wiring will be released in a manageable fashion. If you do the primal therapies without doing the orbitofrontal work as well, (when normal consciousness is perturbed by whatever means) your limbic brain and brainstem will just take over and act out, for they are trying to purge your original traumatic memory.

Primal Therapy covers the basic needs aspect of development--if such needs go unmet pain is laid down in the brain and pathologies develop. Work on the primary matrix of our initial neural development always has to be returned to prior to any significant movement ahead in development. As such one cannot even really say that it is regressive...I like to think of it as contemporary dissolution to provide the space for new patterns of growth. The old must die for the new to be born.

"The memory of birth represents an important reservoir of difficult emotions and physical sensations that can contribute later in life to the development of various forms of emotional and psychosomatic disorders. Reliving and integrating pre- and perinatal traumas can have very beneficial effects; it can result in healing and profound psychospiritual transformation...And a difficult birth and poor postnatal circumstances can constitute a profound trauma that colors the entire life history of the individual." Stan Grof

Process Work developed by Arnold Mindell is based primarily on Taoism, Jungian therapy and shamanism. Process work fits right in with the potential for therapeutically and developmentally guided kundalini awakenings. Since kundalini, either raw or cultivated, represents a more colorful and energetically charged cycle of detoxification/dissolution/resurrection, the potential for growth during an awakening is enormous. Because the archetypes that arise during an awakening have greater sway over our rational faculties due to the overpowering of the prefrontals during peak kundalini flow. Going-with the contents that are arising allows a greater depth and roundedness of human experience and self knowledge...we can get further INTO ourselves as "process" during kundalini than at any other time, when the constraints of ego and culture have greater hold over us. That is we have greater potential to open to grace and rise above conformity.

Bioenergetics, a form of bodymind therapy developed by Wilhelm Reich and Alexander Lowen is another method of approaching the body armor and consequently releasing toxic repression. One would assume that if we are directly touching and expressing the tension held in our body armor that neurological changes reflecting this release must occur within the brain. Thus I assume that if we lovingly address our muscular armor, our brain will recover from toxic repression, and there is no better time to do this than when our nervous system is already perturbed, and our connective tissue already dissolving during active kundalini. By adopting these "unlocking" practices while kundi-active we help to facilitate rewiring and we are less likely to snap back to our former repressed cocoon self once with awakening is over. This point is vitally important for anyone going through kundalini, and is the reason why yoga is an integral part of Eastern spiritual practice.

The Neuro-endocrine Theory of Aging first proposed in the 1960's by Prof. Vladimir Dilman, along with Dr. Ward Dean, is the apical information that enwreathes all the various aspects of kundalini theory and specifically deals with how we might recover receptor sensitivity and receptor numbers after an awakening. The Neuro-endocrine Theory of Aging is outlined in Ward Dean's articles at vrp.com in 21 papers.

"The central thesis of the Neuro-endocrine Theory is that the aging process is caused by an age-related loss of central (hypothalamic) and peripheral receptor sensitivity to inhibition by hormones and other signaling substances. This loss of hypothalamic sensitivity results in a progressive shifting of homeostasis--the body's regulatory system for maintaining internal balance--and altered levels of hormones, neurotransmitters, and cell signalers. These metabolic shifts are believed to cause aging and the diseases of aging." ~ Ward Dean M.D.

"Sound can act like a psycho-active substance, altering and enhancing consciousness." ~ Jonathan Goldman, Tantra of Sound.

In Food of the Gods, Terrance McKenna says that speech helped to vibrate the brain in the skull, cleansing the brain via the movement of cerebral spinal fluid. This vibration and cleansing helped to evolve us faster say than the Neanderthals because they had thicker skulls and so did not receive such resonant vibrations in the brain from their speech. Besides increasing social cohesion and heart openness, this detoxifying capacity of sound is perhaps why most if not all religions exhibit some form of chanting, toning or singing.

"Vibrations of human skull, as produced by loud vocalization, exert a massaging effect on the brain and facilitate elution of metabolic products from the brain into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)...The Neanderthals had a brain 15% larger than we have, yet they did not survive competition with modern humans. Their brains were more polluted, because their massive skulls did not vibrate and therefore the brains were not sufficiently cleaned. In the evolution of the modern humans the thinning of the cranial bones was important." ~ Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton Mifflin 1977.

Using magnets to balance kundalini flow, symptoms and stages is a very direct intervention that may have significant results. Some of the benefits of magnetic therapy include: increasing blood and oxygen circulation and cellular nutrition. pH balance (acid-alkaline), speeds up the migration of calcium ions to facilitate the healing of nervous tissue and bones, removes the pathological buildup of calcium, balances the endocrine glands, stimulates enzyme activity and metabolism.