Kundalini Awakening and Kundalini Rising Are Not the Same Thing

Most people use these two terms interchangeably.

They shouldn't.

Kundalini awakening and kundalini rising are two very different experiences. Confusing them leads to misdiagnosis, bad advice, and people either dismissing what they went through or catastrophising something that was actually quite gentle.

Let me explain the difference clearly — because I've experienced both.

Kundalini Rising — What Most People Actually Experience

Kundalini rising is when the energy begins to move upward through the chakras slowly, gradually, and gently.

It doesn't announce itself dramatically. You might feel a subtle warmth or tingling moving up through your body. You might find yourself swaying or moving instinctively, almost like a serpent. You might feel a brief sense of expansion, heightened awareness, or a shift in how you perceive things.

It can feel significant in the moment. And it is real — the energy is genuinely moving.

But it doesn't last. It rises, you feel it, and then it settles. Life continues.

This is what the majority of people experience. And there is nothing wrong with it. Kundalini rising is natural, gradual, and how the energy is supposed to move when the system is ready.

The problem is that many people mistake this for a full kundalini awakening. They feel the energy move, maybe move like a serpent, feel something shift — and they assume they've had an awakening.

What they experienced was a rising. A genuine movement of energy through the system.

A kundalini awakening is something else entirely.

Kundalini Awakening — What It Actually Feels Like

I won't sugarcoat this.

A full kundalini awakening is one of the most physically, emotionally, and psychologically brutal experiences a human being can go through.

I know because I went through one.

Mine lasted eighteen days.

The best way I can describe it is this — imagine your entire body being electrocuted. Not painfully in the way you stub your toe. But a sustained, relentless high voltage current running through every part of you, from the inside out.

My chakras became intense balls of energy. The solar plexus was agony — I was doubled over, unable to straighten up. The sacral chakra affected my bladder. I'll put it plainly — urinating felt like passing electricity. The pain was unlike anything I had experienced before or since.

This went on for eighteen days.

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

What made it even more disorienting was that alongside the physical pain, I was moving through different planes of consciousness — to the point where I felt fragmented and completely separated from reality.

And psychologically, it was brutal too.

If I hadn't had faith — if I hadn't trusted that what was happening to me was happening for a reason, that my body was somehow prepared for it, that there was intelligence behind the process — I genuinely think I would have believed I was dying.

My mind felt fractured.

I became so disconnected from ordinary reality that at times I could barely recognise what was happening to me or where I was inside myself.

It is very difficult to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it.

There were moments where it felt like my entire perception of reality was breaking apart faster than I could process it.

And when that happens, faith becomes everything.

Because without that inner trust, an experience like this could easily feel terrifying rather than transformational.

Without that trust, I can completely understand why many people panic during experiences like this.

If I hadn't trusted that there was intelligence behind what was happening to me, I probably would have believed I was having some kind of breakdown or dying.

And I imagine many people do end up seeking emergency medical help simply because the intensity becomes too overwhelming to comprehend.

When your body, mind, emotions, energy, and perception of reality are all changing simultaneously, it can feel terrifying if you have no framework for what is happening.

That is why grounding, support, and discernment matter so much during experiences like these.

Through my own guidance and experience, I came to understand that the body has to be prepared to hold higher energetic intensities.

When powerful kundalini processes are activated too suddenly, without grounding or nervous system preparation, the experience can become deeply destabilising physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

This is one reason discernment, grounding, and integration matter so much.

That is also why I believe kundalini work should be approached with enormous respect.

Not fear. Respect.

Too many people treat kundalini like a trend, a shortcut to enlightenment, or something to force through intense practices before their system is genuinely prepared to hold it.

But kundalini is not a toy.

It is not something to chase recklessly for spiritual excitement or identity.

These are powerful energetic processes that can affect the body, mind, emotions, nervous system, and perception of reality very deeply when they fully activate.

In my experience, the body and nervous system need preparation, grounding, emotional maturity, and stability to hold those higher energetic intensities safely.

That is why discernment matters so much.

At one point I remember thinking:

What have you done now, Michael. You always take it too far.

Because in a sense, I had called it in. I had been asking for an upgrade. I just had absolutely no idea what that meant or what was coming. And I certainly didn't expect it to last eighteen days or to take as long as it did to recover from.

This is why most people who go through a full kundalini awakening retreat from the world completely. They hibernate. They can't explain what's happening to them, they can barely function, and the people around them often don't understand it at all.

It is an isolating experience — as much as it is a transformational one.

And then, after it was over, my ego kicked in.

Nothing felt different. There was no sudden clarity, no sense of arrival, no reward waiting on the other side. Just exhaustion and the memory of eighteen days of pain.

My ego was brutal about it.

We went through all of that for what? All that pain, for nothing?

And for a while, I believed it.

It wasn't until a couple of months later that the integration began. Slowly, quietly, things started to shift.

I began channelling. I started speaking light language — extraterrestrial languages flowing through me that I didn't even understand myself. Languages I had never heard, never learned, simply coming through.

My perception of the world around me had changed in ways I hadn't even noticed while they were happening.

The awakening hadn't failed.

It had just needed time to settle.

This is something nobody warns you about. The transformation doesn't arrive the moment the intensity stops. It unfolds in the weeks and months that follow — often so gradually that your ego will try to convince you nothing happened at all.

Don't listen to it.

What Changed Afterwards

The awakening changed me completely.

Not overnight in the sense of suddenly becoming enlightened or perfect. But fundamentally.

My awareness increased massively. I became far more conscious of my own internal mechanisms — the unconscious patterns, emotional responses, defence systems, and programmes that had been running beneath the surface of my life for years.

And because I could suddenly see them clearly, I could begin changing them consciously.

That was one of the biggest transformations of all.

Before the awakening, many of those patterns simply felt like me. Afterwards, I could see them almost objectively. I could recognise where I was reacting from wounds, conditioning, fear, ego, or old survival mechanisms rather than from genuine awareness.

Emotionally, things were still intense for a while afterwards. Up and down like a yo-yo at times. But looking back, I understand that differently now.

It wasn't punishment. It wasn't failure.

Parts of me were being rewritten.

Old versions of myself — old identities, old emotional programmes, old levels of consciousness — had to fall away so something new could emerge.

And that process can be uncomfortable.

But on the other side of it, I became far more emotionally regulated than I had ever been before.

My nervous system is stronger now. I don't react to life in the same way I used to. Things that once would have triggered me emotionally no longer have the same hold over me because I became aware of the internal structures those reactions were coming from.

That awareness changed everything.

Learning to live with heightened sensitivity was actually surprisingly easy for me. I adapted naturally. And I was fortunate enough to have good people around me throughout the process, which made a huge difference.

Not everybody has that.

Some people go through these experiences completely alone, without language for what is happening to them or support from people who understand it.

That is why proper grounding, guidance, and integration matter so much.

So Which One Are You Experiencing?

Here's a simple way to tell them apart.

You are likely experiencing kundalini rising if:

• The energy feels gentle, warm, or gradual

• You feel subtle shifts in awareness or perception

• You move instinctively or feel tingling through the body

• The experience comes and goes without lasting intensity

• Life continues relatively normally around it

You are likely experiencing a kundalini awakening if:

• The energy is intense, overwhelming, or painful

• Your physical body is being significantly affected

• You cannot function normally in daily life

• The experience is sustained over days, weeks, or longer

• It feels like something is being forcefully dismantled from the inside

A gentle kundalini rising is not lesser than a full awakening. Different nervous systems and bodies move through these experiences differently.

More intensity does not automatically mean more evolution.

Why This Distinction Matters

If you think you're having an awakening when you're actually experiencing a rising, you might dismiss it as nothing significant — and miss an opportunity to work with it consciously.

If you think you're having a rising when you're actually in the middle of a full awakening, you might not get the support you actually need — and try to push through something that requires proper grounding and guidance.

Understanding which one you're experiencing is the starting point for knowing how to move forward.

If you're unsure, or if what you're going through feels intense and you don't know how to navigate it — that's exactly what I work with.

You don't have to figure this out alone.

Michael Perks is a spiritual guide, energy healer, and author of The Remembering: A Soul-Led Transmission of Awakening and Sovereignty. Through his one-to-one healing work, Michael helps people navigate spiritual awakening, kundalini experiences, emotional healing, energetic clearing, and deep transformational change.