Although our culture has recently been opening to the idea that Neuro divergence –  Individuals with mental health differences –  should be treated equally in society, by the workplace and in external environments – traditionally these differences have been something kept hidden. A reason to be “ashamed.” A person utilizing anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medications was seen as weak – or unable to cope.

If a person is hospitalized during a mental health crisis – they often feel unable talk about the experience, even with those closest to them. There continues to be a stigma, and shame often follows. The NIH discusses the detriment of shame to our psyches here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5739839/

I am writing this in an effort to eliminate the stigma of Bipolar 1. Additionally, I aim  to help those diagnosed with this disorder to illuminate their own unique gifts, and to recognize that this diagnosis is a blessing rather than a curse. For these purposes, I would love to share my own story.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 in 2015. I now believe that this is the most common diagnosis given to a person during the experience of their spiritual awakening.
For me – Bipolar 1 first presented as the emergence of large amounts of creative life-force energy that had no channel, combined with paranoia that I had no tools to manage. The doctors said I was “manic”.

Since then, I have learned that my doctors diagnosis of Bipolar 1 just meant that I was awakening. This is nothing to be ashamed of. Cycling between depression and mania when a person is trying to keep one foot in the dualistic 3rd dimensional reality – while the other foot is in the parallel 5th dimensional experience of oneness is not unusual at all. Especially when the person is largely unsupported in their journey. Many of my friends and clients share similar stories.

Here are many of the tips and techniques I have learned from the different traditions and philosophies I have explored in the past 5 years:

The Eastern Contemplative Tradition: 
1. Pranayama – Breathwork practice is my number one tool:
Kaphalabati – for managing lethargy, apathy & depression. This practice has been successful for me, even in times when depression spiraled into suicidality. Kaphalabhati increases my life-force energy (prana), and it has some additional positive side-effects. The pumping action of the diaphragm and abdomen tones the abdominal muscles, improving the look of the belly. It is also a lung cleansing Kriya that keeps the alveoli clear. My belief is that it has been very protective for me these past two years – as a non-pharmaceutical prophylactic practice for prevention of the Covid-19 virus.

Anuloma Viloma – for containing and balancing my life-force energy so that it doesn’t become “mania”.  Anuloma Viloma is a balancing pranayama, which assists the nervous system in achieving more ventral vagal stability. This is important during periods of anxiety, fear, anger, frustration (nearly any difficult emotion) – and also “mania”. It is my hope that with the release of this article, Anuloma Viloma becomes the number one practiced exercise in all hospitals, clinics and therapy offices across the country.

When I want to stay balanced and to have ventral vagal stability, I practice 3 rounds of Kaphalabati and 7 rounds of Anuloma Viloma each day. I will often do extra Kaphalabati if I start to dip into depression and extra Anuloma Viloma for symptoms of “mania”.

2. Mantra: 
Additionally, I chant a round of 108 OM’s per day. I do this, specifically for toning and stimulating the vagus nerve. I sometimes chant other Sanskrit mantras – since mantras seem to be like affirmations that effectively bypass the conscious mind and implant themselves into my psyche, reaping benefit beyond what I could imagine. Even the NIH is starting to talk about the benefit of contemplative practices: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6189422/

3. iRest Yoga Nidra:
Over the years, as I was titrating with breathwork to manage my energy level (prana) and my emotional triggers – I started to recognize my tolerance level for “feeling” emotions increasing. Once I learned how and felt confident in my ability to routinely shift my awareness and attention from ‘sad to happy’ at will – regardless of my life circumstance – I could “allow myself” to dive more deeply into the totality of what “sad” feels like. Welcoming each of my emotions like they are my children has been part of my awakening process. For this practice of learning to welcome my emotions – iRest Yoga Nidra was particularly helpful as a guided meditation. It helped me so much that I even became certified as a practitioner.

In order to elicit emotions that for most of my life I had buried – There are times where I have stopped my breathwork practices and purposefully leaned into difficult situations or life experiences that I am aware will trigger me. I do this, rather than fleeing or fawning at the first sign of conflict, which had been my habit. I began the practice of allowing waves of these emotions to wash across my psyche – and learning to just BE. To feel the emotion deeply; to breathe; to use mantra – while allowing myself to be fully seen, acknowledged, validated by myself (while “witnessing” a meditative state I learned to access with iRest Yoga Nidra) – and without projecting the emotion outside myself (which looks like blaming another person for my emotional state).

By the way, if you aren’t aware of the “fawn” trauma response – here is a great article: https://themighty.com/2020/01/fight-flight-freeze-fawn-trauma-responses/

Anger, fear and paranoia have been my most suppressed emotions – and therefore the most difficult for my psyche to now welcome. They also were the most frightening in my higher energy states. This is what elicited “mania” and my two hospitalizations. Learning how to BE – with the difficult emotional tone of paranoia coursing through my psyche was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. It effectively set me free.

4. Spanda: Shaking the body
Through this process, I also learned that trauma is stored in the in the subconscious mind as well as in the physical body tissues – The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is a great book illustrating this concept.
Spanda (the sacred shiver) – or shaking the body, has helped me to release stored trauma from muscle tissue. This can be any type of trauma, whether from the current lifetime, epigenetic inheritance and/or witnessed trauma that is unprocessed. I might even postulate that repressed trauma could be purged with enough shaking.

I imagine this helps me like it does animals when they shiver. I imagine the Giselle shaking vigorously out in the woods after being chased by its predator.

Since learning about this, I have often wondered if epilepsy could just be the automatic response of a human nervous system to manage excessive unprocessed trauma. I have a friend who was once diagnosed with epilepsy and hasn’t utilized meds or had a seizure in over 20 years now after following a similar breath/chanting/movement protocol to what I have been using for Bipolar 1.

Just 5-minutes per day feels amazing on a usual day. It’s so accessible for me that even on occasions that I’m really sad, lethargic and don’t even want to get out of bed – I can still lie in bed and do it.

The Western medical traditions:  
5. Lithium:
Since my diagnosis and before I had a full grasp on other tools – I was hospitalized twice. Lithium was the best choice I found of all the medications I tried that could effectively help me to stop the awakening process for a short period of time until I could gain enough ventral vagal stability to begin it again.

Therapeutic Modalities I’ve enjoyed: 
6. (AIT) Advanced Integrative Therapy
7. (IFS) Internal Family Systems
8. (EMDR) Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

#6-8 have all been helpful modalities offered by therapists I’ve seen.

AIT in particular for trauma therapy. It helped me eliminate many thoughts and beliefs my subconscious mind was holding. Thoughts that I wasn’t even consciously aware were affecting my view and experience of the world. I highly recommend it.

IFS has helped me to gain an awareness of when I am “triggered” I will define triggered as any time I am anything other than the 4 C’s of IFS. Calm, Connected, Compassionate & Curious. If I am aware that I am triggered, and I know that when triggered the frontal cortex shuts down and the human operates using the amygdala – then I can better navigate my experience by taking space for self-care in those moments.

EMDR helped as well, however in my experience the other two have been far more gentle and thus more effective.

10. The Creative Outlet: 
Another important aspect for me, was to find a creative outlet for my life-force energy. As I build prana, I needed to learn how to channel it. Since I grew up telling myself the story that “I don’t have a creative bone in my body”, you might be able to imagine how difficult and emotionally triggering this process alone has been for me.

I had learned that “Mania” = creativity that is ungrounded & has no outlet that is large enough to contain it.  Check out all of the famous artists with Bipolar 1 here: https://www.healthline.com/health/bipolar-disorder/famous-creative-people

I liked to sing, so that is where I started. I later realized, whether I wrote a blog post or a book, built something, painted, drew, sang or danced – and whether I did these things in a group or by myself – was unimportant. It also didn’t matter if I thought I was “good” at it, or if other people liked my gifts. Didn’t matter if anyone ever saw my work at all.

Since then have built my own website on Wix, which can be found at EvaAmbika.com; I started a band called Sego Sangha https://www.facebook.com/segosangha; and I wrote and self-published my first book, which is called: Creativity Reborn – Intelligence Having Fun. It’s about my own journey to relocate my creative spark, after it was snuffed out in childhood. I’ll thank you in advance for your patience if you get the awkward kindle version – The paperback is definitely better. The book can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Reborn-Intelligence-Everything-Through/dp/B089CSGD7B/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=creativity+reborn&qid=1637004943&s=books&sr=1-1

In my opinion, having the energy, enthusiasm and excitement of a child is is “normal” for this life. The experience of bliss for no reason is not only possible – it is our birthright.

You’re welcome to join our new facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bipolarawakeningtherasalila

What are you doing for your bipolar awakening?