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Times are changing and opinions over the true causes of mental health are becoming more divided in part due to wider recognition of spiritual phenomena such as Kundalini which is helping new information to surface and shed more light and knowledge and in doing so this is revealing a lot about the true underlying nature and causes of mental health problems.
For a long time, the view of bipolar disorder is that it is caused due to a person developing a chemical imbalance in the brain and it’s been widely purported and accepted that this is an “incurable mental health condition” that could be derived from faulty, mutated or inherited genetics. However, this is not true in my experience and I’ve personally experienced the damaging effects of what is diagnosed as bipolar disorder and I’ve explored almost every single symptom of bipolar disorder to some degree through a spiritual lens and the most difficult aspects of bipolar seem to belong to a category that certain professionals would describe as being “spiritual crisis” or within the spiritual awakening community often refer to it as Kundalini Awakening.
I was seeking to shift attention towards a new psycho-spiritual model of bipolar that could provide better reasons, answers and explanations for why so many people develop this mental health problem. I’d been focusing on authoring a book about bipolar disorder based on what I’d learned and experienced first-hand over the last several years of my life in particular. I perceived this to be far more beneficial and suited to becoming recognised as the psycho-spiritual perspective that would deliberately take into account both mind and spirit in addition to the body.
My work here will attempt to bridge certain aspects of spirituality such as subtle energy and chakras with the way in which we use our mind along with new understanding derived from both religious and spiritual experiences such as Kundalini. I believe that information about spirituality explored through the lens of psychology is going to begin to help explain why much of present-day psychiatry has so far failed to cure anybody or meet the needs of people who are suffering from mental health problems such as bipolar, psychosis and schizophrenia and I believe there’s enough evidence to suggest that some of these things serve a greater or higher purpose in the course of a human’s spiritual evolution.
In addition to food, water, shelter, clothing and light a human being also requires love and energy, and by energy, I’m speaking about a form of subtle energy that we need to function properly. This energy is sometimes called spiritual energy in a general sense, sometimes it may be called psychic energy but the more serious spiritual traditions derived from Asia refer to this as Chi and Prana respectively in its rawest or purest form and it seems to have a core function in creating and effecting changes to our mood, energy and emotion including the ability to stabilise, ground and sustain an optimal mood, but the truth is we don’t yet know precisely the extent to which we need this energy or what applications it may serve, but it is probable that it covers many areas.
When we’re low on energy, deprived of or cut off from this invisible source of energy then we almost always immediately fall into a low mood. There appear to be many natural ways of acquiring more of this energy responsible for regulating and altering mood as well as ways in which can inadvertently and unknowingly block our body’s natural subtle energy system and at times even create negative or impure energies that impede or cause dysfunctions to this subtle system. You might think of this in similar terms to how fat deposits can block arteries and these energies may make us feel quite unpleasant and even unwell at times.
As I visited my local GP for an annual health review at the end of 2017 we were discussing my then low mood post-Kundalini, but even she seemed to intuitively comment before I left “We need to get you some more energy.” and she really wasn’t referring to food, glucose levels or carbohydrates which all checked out just fine in blood tests as it happens. It’s possible she was referring to activity and interaction that would help my emotional state of being and these emotions I reason are derived from the use of subtle energy through various positive interactions to be had at different levels of our being, including the mind most importantly.
Western medical science primarily deals with the physical or quantifiable aspects of the body, which includes the various tissues, organs, electro-chemistry, physiology and biology which would also incorporate the brain and nervous system. It does however not yet validate the existence of things such as chakras, which are subtle energy centres positioned in the body that are intricately connected to the mind and body which are in part responsible for storing and transforming subtle forms of energy into different types of energy such as love, fear, confidence and emotion, some of which are responsible for some of the thoughts we each think on a day to day basis depending on what energy and information they presently store or hold onto about us, much of which pertains to understanding illness, disease and developmental issues.
My reasoning for the connection between a chakra and the mind is that they enable thought to be categorised to a corresponding chakra and once it is addressed, it begins to resolve and becomes released from the mind and body reducing the level of mental noise and clutter, this particularly pertains to those irritating thoughts that constantly cycle and reoccur. Anything beyond the paradigm of mind in more recent years extends into “consciousness” which has become a popular topic that is frequently and immediately met with much doubt, scepticism or misunderstanding as anything immaterial that cannot be physically seen by the naked eye or through an electron-microscope or other form of scanners such as x-ray, ultra-sound, tomography or magnetic image resonance etc is actually deemed to not exist and so risks becoming labelled as “pseudo-science” without any further rational or practical investigation or research to confirm otherwise.
My own research to date has concluded that the causes of bipolar are not primarily to do with any sort of dysfunction in the physical brain organ, (however there may be times when it certainly influences us, such as more research may need to be done to understand the role of the pineal gland as it relates to psychic or spiritual phenomena) but rather it is more to do with the way a person thinks. This has scope to include what the person thinks about in certain situations, whom they may be thinking about in mind, when they may be thinking certain things and whom they are interacting with psychically through the way of the mind, which all in my estimation and experience play a major role in causing many bipolar symptoms such as mania and depression.
If subtle energy and chakras are to be validated, it is perhaps better to think of them in terms of the idea that we think with our whole body and our body is constantly trying to communicate to us and tell us things through the mind or by sensing the body itself in order to retrieve intuitive information. For example, I can place my hand over my solar plexus and often with just a light touch or surface massage I might receive a thought that corresponds with an issue of personal power, work, confidence or self-esteem. If I do similar over my sacrum I may receive thoughts about a creative project or idea, relationship and family issues. If I do similar at the level of the pubic bone, hips and thighs they produce thoughts relating to sexuality, sexual issues, fear, worry and certain stress issues.
The information stored in the chakras appears to be instrumental to the wider process of spiritual awakening and when they are successfully resolved many physical ailments and dysfunctions can be healed owing to them existing for a reason and purpose that is not a random process. This information is frequently accessed by an awareness of an area of the body, often we sense tight, sore or contracted muscles first as they suggest something is wrong and when they are explored from the perspective of our conscious awareness and mind can be physically released we receive intuitive information about it’s originating cause, often something we have done or something has have not done or responded to. Both yoga and meditation have been instrumental to me in healing chakra issues using spiritual practice to understand and heal disease.
I was so relieved when I understood that my bipolar symptoms were not incurable, that they don’t really correspond to a genetic cause and that there’s most often absolutely nothing wrong with the physical brain. (unless there is some other issue, disease or complication) However one does have to put work and effort into healing and understanding the ego as well as understanding what one’s own egoic inner issues are in order to heal from the inside out, alleviating stress, discomfort, emotions, impure energies, tightened and contracted muscles and correcting improper choices, behaviours, attitudes and ways of being along the way; through doing yoga, meditation and certain other beneficial therapies from massage, acupuncture and psychotherapy.
Based on this understanding there is no such thing as a drug or chemical that can be taken by someone that will completely cure and correct that which must certainly be a mythical chemical imbalance in the brain responsible for depression. Many of these drugs such as anti-depressants or bipolar drugs are associated with toxicity due to lithium are in my estimation probably doing more harm than good to people as they don’t address any of the root issues. You might as well go and eat a bar of chocolate, go running or go to the gym instead of in order to elevate your mood without poisoning the body and organs.
It’s my conclusion is that part of the bipolar puzzle is that it is really the result of harmful thinking and other behavioural causes, rather than the condition itself being the initiator of harmful behaviour. This understanding may help to understand better how bipolar can spread within a population by way of mirrored and copy-cat behaviours, that then remain constant due to incorrectly validating unhealthy ways of being as being normal.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.“
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
More details of this and research will be published in the future in the book I’m writing about bipolar disorder and its connections to psycho-spiritual health, more articles on bipolar and other topics will come in time, but please feel free to like our Facebook page or subscribe to the newsletter to stay informed.
Disclaimer
I’m not a medical doctor, please consult your psychiatrist, doctor or physician before deciding to come off any medication and any information you choose to act upon from this website you do so at your own risk at your own discretion, you understand and agree to hold yourself accountable and fully responsible for your own actions, behaviours and decisions.
