In much of contemporary trauma work, practitioners talk about the window of tolerance — a concept developed by Dr. Dan Siegel, psychiatrist and founder of the Mindsight Institute. It describes the range of arousal within which a person can function smoothly: think clearly, feel emotion, and stay connected to themselves and others. When the nervous …
How I was the source of my own suffering when I had an intense Kundalini Awakening (is this you too?)
Something that’s common amongst people experiencing an intense Kundalini Awakening is a desire for things to be different, a desire to fix or change things. It’s such a paradox but the doorway for a Kundalini Awakening, the portal, is our willingness to meet and embrace whatever’s unfolding exactly as it is. The paradox is that …
Cannabis as a Sacred Plant Medicine: Journeying, Accessing Trance States & Psychosis
by Kara-Leah Grant, (I wrote this in 2019, and only just published it, 2025) This article has been a long time coming. Given that Canada has just legalised cannabis, and New Zealand is finally having a referendum on legalising it in 2020, it feels like now is the time. The danger in writing about the …
Mentoring Client Transformation • Mastering the Annual Review
But what do you DO with clients? Help them master life – including the corporate annual review. Here’s a story. She’s a mentoring client, who’s had a kundalini awakening, is working a corporate job, and is focused on integrating her awakening and medium-term transitioning into running her own business. Her annual review was coming up, …
Can you feel the love tonight? How about now?
It’s November. That means mid to late spring here in Aotearoa – the lambs have already been and gone, and so have the daffodils. But the trees are still greening up, and the mostly-steady heat of summer has yet to arrive. Can you feel the love? It’s also 2021. That means Covid-19, Lockdowns, vaccines and …
An example of Śāmbhava Upāya in action
According to Abhinavagupta, a master of the Tantrik lineages, there are three skilful means to liberation, or Upāya, of which one is śāmbhava upāya. He first outlined this framework in Tantrāloka around 10 centuries ago. The first is the Embodied Means (ānava upāya), which focuses on practices that use the body, breath and imagination, focusing …