137. Voice + Kundalini with Ana Carnerero

Want to bring more of the divine feminine energy into your speaking? Awakening Kundalini might be just the thing to do. In this episode I chat to my amazing yoga instructor Ana about - How you can use kundalini energy to unleash your powerful voice. - How your hard palate is a portal to more than 80 thousand energy channels and how you can tap into them. Ana also demonstrates a simple breathing exercise to settle public speaking nerves – and I bet you haven’t come across this one before.

Transcript

Hello, welcome to That Voice Podcast. I'm Sal, and today's episode is a little self-indulgent. I'll admit it. So I go to hot yoga a couple of times a week, and look, I'm not very bendy. I'm often taking child's pose and the easier options, and I even bring along a little foam mat to put under my knees . It is a lifesaver, honestly, especially at the moment because I tripped over at Movie World a couple of weeks ago when I was at the Business Chicks Movers and Breakers event, did not see the curb, and then smack fell straight onto my knees from a high heel height.

I was also dressed like Olivia Newton John in Grease. It was quite funny. Not at the time. So, yes, while I'm very much on the mend, the knee pad at yoga is fantastic. And one of my amazing instructors is Ana . And one day we got chatting after class about Kundalini and how it relates to our voice. So of course, I wanted to learn more about Kundalini, too .

So here we are with Episode 137, Voice and Kundalini. In this fascinating episode, we explore how you can use Kundalini energy to unleash your powerful voice. How your hard palate , the root of your mouth, is a portal to more than 80,000 energy channels and how you can tap into them. This blew my mind. And Ana also demonstrates a really simple breathing exercise to settle public speaking nerves.

And look, I bet you have not come across this one before. Before we get started, I have an announcement. presale is now open for Speak from your Soul. This is a six-week online course with live circles every week. This course is designed to help you find your authentic voice and make it heard. It's a six-step, clear strategy with major mindset shifts, lots of practical exercises, and a beautiful sparkle of spirituality. That is, Speak from your Soul. Details are in the show notes. Okay. Let's talk about Kundalini with the fabulous Ana Carnerero.

Sally: Ana Carnerero , it is my absolute pleasure to welcome you to That Voice Podcast .

Ana: Thank you so much, Sally . I'm such a pleasure for me to be here for your invite. I was very, very stoked when you asked me to be here so we can talk about one of my favorite yoga practice.

Sally: Yes. And you are probably not used to seeing me like this. Normally, I'm no makeup, sweating, struggling to get into some kind of warrior freak.

Ana: We all do. We all do. And yoga, it's not about postures . It's not about how we look like, it's about sensations.

Sally: Mm. And on that note, tell us what is Kundalini?

Ana: Well, Kundalini is the yoga of awareness. Um, it's the ancient technology of your body designed to cultivate the expansion and consciousness to the awakening of rising of that energy called Kundalini, which is in the base of your spine and underneath your enables center.

We all have that energy and it's dormant until you activate it, uh, through practice. So we do a lot of breath of fire in Kundalini.

The reason is because we work into the lens and we wanna really pump those hormones into your blast stream, bring the energy back down towards the base of the spine to rise it all the way up and release to the crown of your head.

What we'll call going through all the seven chakras. This people is more familiar with the chakra.

Sally: Yeah.

Ana: What it does, it just open up into your channels of energy into your body, which is actually your nerve system.

Sally: Yeah. And like the technology of the body. So while so many of us might be are walking around living our lives, we have this, it's like we're switched off.

Ana: Yeah.

Sally: So I guess when we switch on or activate the Kundalini, it's like turning on our real source soul energy.

Ana: Exactly. Yeah. I always say the technology of our body is much more fascinating, the technology that we live around it, if you really pay attention to it, but nobody likes and find that interesting. But it is truly amazing.

Sally: Yeah. The technology of our own body is so much more interesting than so much of the technology around us, and this is what I particularly like about yoga. Having an online business and being attached to my phone and my screens quite a lot of the day. It's really nice to be able to look inward and not, not outward.

Ana: Yeah. So if you think about it, kini in Sanskrit is a noun that means a snake . And the objective means circular or anular. So if you ever have seen the serpent around, coiling into the spine, all the crown to the crown of the head, which is the, you know, all pharmacies used to have that because that's how you become healthy body and healthy mind creating and cultivating that energy into your body.

Sally: Mm. And as we move through the chakras, of course our throat chakra is one of them. How would you describe the link between Kundalini and our voice?

Ana: Well, I have many friends that they've been singers and they have gone to classes where they're being asked to hold their hands into the sexual organs. And the reason is because you need to really feel and have a strong base checker.

To be able to raise the energy all the way up towards the crown of the head when it's locating to the chakra or it's out of imbalance because something is out of imbalance in your life or your body. Then we close that loop. That loop gets cut, and then you not be able sometimes to raise your energy, raise your voice, and the base checker is related to your safety, your basic needs, and also to your mom .

So your mom is the presentation of the base chakra. So you really have to look after just the three base chakras . The triangle chakra, which is your base safety, your basic needs. Your second chakra is your dad is the only one to say, go and explore. You know, be free. Your third chakra is the influence of your peers, and guess what?

It give you, uh, the power of living and your self-esteem . Yeah, so you need to have really strong base cha energy pump all the energy back towards the base of the spine to call all the wipe all the way up towards the crown of the head. So if you have a really strong base chakra, raise energy, usually it comes up heating all the way towards the throat.

So, What is important is the base is how we pump the energy up.

Sally: Yeah, I love that. In one of my courses called Speak From Your Soul, we have a whole week on each of the chakras and we spend time on each of them because as you say, you need to have that strong foundation. This is what's blowing my mind, and I love this kind of stuff for this reason, is we think of our voice as being up here at our voice box.

Yet so much of that energy is way further away in the body.

Ana: Yeah. So to be able to raise your voice, you have to feel it from the base.

Sally: Mm. The solid foundation, the creativity, the self-esteem, you know, the solar plexus is a big one, which is why, uh, you know, and breath is such an important part of voice as well.

Ana: Yeah, exactly. And sometimes we get too caught up into things, into the up on the head. It means that we are not grounded. We need to be very grounded . It's like building a house from the roof because you don't have a foundation that roof is gonna crash at some point.

Sally: Mm. Yeah. And so if you're somebody who, when a speaking gig comes up, you are in your head overthinking it.

What am I gonna do? What am I gonna say? What are they gonna think?

Ana: Exactly.

Sally: Then this will prevent us from being able to connect with our voice. Yeah. Oh, Ana . Love that. So what are some of the exercise we can do?

Ana: Well anything, any practice of because we work into the raise. The energy from the base of this pine is great, but there are some exercises, uh, that they are.

Very interesting to just work into that throat chakra. And they're Kriya. So Kriya is all that I say before. So is is the poster, is the mudras, is the bandas. So all of that creates a Kriya, which is have a ultimate purpose and they're Kriyas for releasing anger. They are Kriyas for raising your boys. Um, you know, I'm name it, it's always one.

Sally: Yeah. And is that a particular sound that you make to release that?

Ana: It's a full set of exercises. We take you into one goal. Yeah. What I say, The goal might be releasing anger. Any blockages means that the energy is not fluid, is not going fluid into the body. Now, we use mantras in yoga in Kriya a lot because every time that you hit your tongue into one part of your palate, we got 84,000 nadis of energy, which means that we are hitting in to open up one of those channels of energy, which is basically are your, from your nervous system, your nerves, it's huge. So you can even Google it, what you particularly wanna work on. But there are some Kriyas, they are for pitch therapy and clear your voice.

Sally: Right. Hang on a sec. So we can put our tongue on different parts of our hard palate and that will tap into different energy channels. Is that right?

Ana: We've got 84,000 channels of energy into the roof of the palate. That's why we use mantra and we roll the R, so we. If you think about it, the mantras are actually means to fit into particular part so you can open up that channel.

Sally: Amazing. Can we have a, a demo of a couple of these sounds?

Ana: Yeah. So we can do one of my favorite: lion's breaths and we use, again, we use . So you wanna look into your eye, which is between your eyebrow, and you wanna connect with your, which is very important for your health. We get over the between the eyebrows, we open the mouth wide and we stick the tongue out. Now we inhale, we take the the head back, and then we roll like a lion.

That works into our vocal cords, is great for people that is trying to also quit the smoking because it stop for craving into that smoke. And this helps with ADHD, people with impairments into the voice or even autism.

Sally: Mm. What about public speaking nerves?

Ana: Public speaking nerve. So again, we're working into the book of course, but again, you wanna raise the energy from the base of this spine and I will love to Kriya. Yes. So you basically, uh, bring the hands together with the head until they saw the finger, except the index finger. And as you see it, cross-legged, you are gonna use breath of fire, which is one of the. Powerful, uh, breath that you can use because again, pumps your belly is gonna release glands, are gonna release hormones into your blood stream that are gonna nourish all your body and raise that energy up.

So breath inhale through the nose equal exhale, But what we do as ale, we pump the belly, the lower belly in, and we exhale forcefully through the nose.

Sally: Oh, so good. So the lion's breath is the tongue out and the big exhale through the mouth in through the nose.

Ana: Yeah. And you're gonna gaze over your forehead into your, the out to connect you to gland. And then we do that for about 10 rounds.

Sally: Amazing. And then the fire breath is the sharp exhales through the nose.

Ana: Mm-hmm. And you're gonna pump the belly, your lower belly. And as we do that, your glance of all your body and your lower belly are able to secrete some fluids and hormones, some pump toxins to your bloodstream.

Sally: Ana, so interesting. Do you do these exercises daily or weekly or do you feel when you need with what exercise?

Ana: Uh, Kundalini should be practiced daily to be able to work. We use Kriyas for 40 days to break a habit. We Kriyas just for 90 days straight to create a new habit. And we use 120 days to consolidate the habit that we wanna work on.

Sally: So it doesn't happen overnight?

Anna: No. No. And it's a lifetime thing. Um, but it is, it just brings so much joy, happiness, sense of connectedness to the entire oneself and towards others, create compassion, and it just has a holistic sense of being that we are.

Sally: Yeah. And Ana, what got you into it? What made you fall in love with Kundalini?

Ana: I found myself really ill, uh, five years ago. You know, I wanted to change my life for good, um, and break all the habits on everything that was toxic in my life.

Break off with my partner, left my joke. Quit a smoking everything. There's cold turkey. What happened was we used external assistance, sense, whatever it is. So, bad habits, we actually not allowing our voice to tap into our emotions. And so when I gave up everything, I was like, yes, this is my time to live. And my body said, uh, Uhuh, you are gonna now have to deal with all your traumas, everything that has happened in your life that you're wanted to tap before, and that's what the body does when we give the body a break and with everything come up. It's like when you're able to, when people go on holidays because they're able to slow down, they get sick. Yeah. Because as the body saying, Hey, you haven't paid attention to this. So I start, I have very low um, core, let's say strength, and when your core is not strength means that some of your organs are not working properly.

I have really huge IBS and problems. And I started doing some kundalini strengthening to that, and I have adrenal fatigue, like my life was over. I have to stop working and go back home to Spain because I couldn't sustain myself. So I started doing those exercises and I started becoming more stronger and feeling great, pumping that energy.

Bringing tears to my eyes, but really tapping into everything that I was running away from for a very long time. And then I started doing my yoga therapy course, and Kundalini was part of it, and I just fell in love with because Kundalini yoga is called in the face yoga, so it's 16 time faster than a normal hot yoga class.

But also you need to be, prepare your body to absorb that energy 15, 16 time faster so it strengthen your nervous system and becomes more resilient and definitely happier.

Sally: Oh Ana, what a fantastic story. And today you are practicing it every day. Are you feeling so much happier and healthier?

Ana: Absolutely. Like people, and people say it to me, it's like you have an energy around you that is incredible. People is smile at me when I walk without know knowing me.

Sally: This is why I ask you on the podcast. You do. You have this absolute glow like an angel!

Ana: And that’s definitely, you see me five years ago, my hair’s flat, my face, I couldn't cry. I couldn't, I was just in a shut down response, what we call it, freeze and kandalini is just the most amazing thing that you can do for yourself.

Sally: Oh, and if someone listening is wanting to go down this path, where can they find you to learn more about it?

Ana: Well, I'm actually teaching a class, uh, on Saturday mornings at 6:00 AM in, um, Movement Vitality in . Now you can jump into internet and put Kundalini and what I say, just find Kriya for whatever you wanna do. You know, I need a Kriya because, uh, prosperity. I need a Kriya for my core. I need a Kriya to vitality. Um, is there for you.

Sally: And, and how would you spell “Kriya'“ if you were searching in Google?

Ana: Yeah. it’s K-R-I-Y-A

Sally: Oh, Anna. Amazing. Yes. Incredible. Class is an opportunity for those of us who are in Brisbane. For those online, are they able to follow you on Instagram as well? Yeah,

Ana: Absolutely. Just you can search to my name and it is ana underscore, I’ll spell my surname for you. It's quite complex, Carnerero (ana_carnerero).

Sally: Amazing. And I will link to that in the show notes. Thank you so much, Anna. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was a wonderful, fascinating chat that has opened up my mind and encouraged me to explore Kundalini for myself. So thank you very much.

Ana: So I hope be helpful for everyone to, um, a deep connection to themselves.