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After several years of daily meditation and breathing practices, I have reached what feels like a very uncomfortable mid-point, where I can feel partially opened channels in my body, but am suffering all kinds of discomfort because they feel seriously twisted and contain some major blockages. Before anything opened up, my body consisted of many different abnormalities such as warped and twisted bones which no Western doctor has been able to explain. I can now see that all of these physical anomalies are situated in the places along the channels where I can feel blockages, so it seems that my irregular physique was like a living fossil of energetic problems. Firstly, I was wondering how common this kind of thing is. After baffling a sufficient number of doctors, I’ve now been asked to allow them to map my genome as they consider me such a curiosity. Clearly this isn’t something they encounter very often, but surely I’m not that unique as there’s an endless number of people complaining about blockages, twists and deviations on forums such as this. Am I just an extreme case? The second question I’m hoping those with more experience and wisdom than me can answer is whether the daily practices I do (mainly meditation, alternate nostril breathing, nine bottle breath, MCO visualisation) are helping or hindering me. I’m particularly worried it may be the latter because, as I say, I’ve reached a point where I’ve partially opened the channels and dissolved blockages, but it means I feel the existing twists and obstructions more keenly than ever before. Every time I succeed in “getting out of my own way” during meditation, so that energy starts moving on its own, I run up against these extreme physical barriers. It seems I have only two options: to push ahead with what I am doing, or stop altogether. Obviously stopping is the most sensible option, but I can feel the half-dissolved obstructions and half-straightened channels constantly in my daily life whether I’m trying to or not, so it’s very hard not to try to do something to deal with it. I’m suffering a great deal of discomfort all over my body, as well as frequent headaches and fatigue, so is this a sign of things opening up or of things going horribly wrong? Thanks for your help.

I'm not kundalini-active... although I have had a few momentary experiences of what seemed like kundalini activity in the past. One example was in the hypnogogic state, just after I'd been dreaming about facing death, and I felt an immensely powerful and intelligent energy, way beyond anything like qi, pushing against blockages after it came to life in my sacrum area. I could feel it boring/burning through small sections, and it felt ferociously destructive as it became more animated. However, I realised that this was only the case from the perspective of the obstructions that opposed it; so despite being somewhat frightening, it was an experience I very much welcomed as it shone a probing light on the more obscure and inhibiting parts of the mass of mortal imperfections I habitually treat as my true self. Likewise, when I've felt gentler energy moving around and encountering blockages, I've learnt to see any ensuing aches and pains or uncomfortable emotions as important messages from my body about the disharmony between the inner and outer worlds. Where I would have retreated into a purely intellectual sphere when faced with such difficulties in the past, I now try to acknowledge them and at least introduce the possibility of overcoming them, but that final step of simply letting go in order to move on is what proves most difficult. This is great advice, and beautifully put. I've been heartened by reading some of your posts on other topics before I officially joined this forum, so thanks for your encouragement here. It's very much appreciated

Not yet, no. I am going to focus as much as I can on physical exercise for a bit, but I've not reached a decision on which qigong system to pursue after that. You've given me a lot of useful suggestions, so thanks very much for that I did try some Bruce Frantzis standing exercises before and I found it so painful due to my physical irregularities that I gave up, assuming it wasn't for me. I reasoned that if I can't stand with both feet flat on the floor without that causing immediate asymmetry and pain elsewhere in my body, then I should just avoid that kind of thing altogether - but the gentle flowing movement you suggest could be a solution to this.

Thanks for the advice. I can feel the difference when I try to be as gentle as possible, and I can see in hindsight that I was trying to force things at times. It still feels like there's energy that wants to push through the blockages regardless of whether I help it, but I guess that will go away in time.

This sounds like excellent advice. How do I ensure those things, though?

I thought that might be the case. I will have to focus on other things for as long as possible then. Thanks for your kindness and encouragement

I wasn't sick particularly often, no. Doctors haven't been able to diagnose whatever I do have, but the obvious stuff has been ruled out, so it's a no to rickets and hip dysplasia, and I've never suffered multiple skull fractures or trauma to the chest. One thing I've never had a problem with (and even seemed to excel in from a very young age) is artistic expression. However, this is counterbalanced by a great deal of introversion in everyday situations, where I have often felt very hesitant, if not downright anxious, about expressing myself freely. I guess a block in the throat area is therefore not at all surprising. Dare I ask for further details on this practice? Is it similar to the White Skeleton Visualisation? I have tried to do this, but I failed miserably due to the twists and blockages making it seem like I was trying to find Mr Messy's meridians.

Thanks so much for the helpful suggestions and advice, Gerard and freeform. I'll look into Xingyi, Bagua and the additional practices. The physical conditioning is clearly the priority for me now, and I hope to be able to find a reliable teacher offering a full system some time after that. Adjacent to this, I may be beginning a year-long period as a probationer in an esoteric order in the not-too-distant future, where I'm encouraged to engage in as many of the approved exercises as possible, which includes asanas and breathing practices. If it happens sooner than the 3-to-6-month minimum correction period, do you think it's still too risky to do anything along those lines, even though I'll be under the supervision of an initiated neophyte? There are many alternative things to focus on in that time, and no obligation to do anything you don't want to, so it shouldn't be a problem to steer clear of them.

Sorry to hear you've suffered similar problems. It's perfectly understandable that you don't want to encroach on another's personal journey too much by explaining everything, but I would certainly be keen to hear more about your experiences if you wish to share them, and I expect others would be too. I can put up with a fair amount of physical discomfort as I've done so all my life - but the difference is that in the past I did it because I thought it was normal to feel it, while now I have much more awareness of the issues. Just as I've had psychological realisations which compelled me to address a particular problem, like realising I was deluding myself and suffering because of it, I feel an equal obligation to fix the physical equivalent. When you realise, for instance, that every time you thought you were standing with both your feet flat on the ground, you were actually standing on the side of one of them due to your leg being crooked, your first thought is, "how on earth did I not notice that for 20-odd years?", but then you can't not be aware of it and you're forced to confront the problem one way or another. A whole multitude of expensive and complicated tests performed over many years by Western doctors have provided no help whatsoever in this regard, but through journeying inwards and, in a sense, intensifying the problems, I now have enough awareness for it to no longer be an option to avoid spending a significant amount of time trying to resolve the issues. I'm in my late-30s, so I still have quite a bit of time left (hopefully). Thanks to the excellent advice received from everyone here I will certainly be looking into which intense physical activities I could take up as a way of strengthening/correcting the body. Somewhat ironically, the fact that I've suffered years of leg pain means that I see myself being far more able to push myself to the limit (for healing purposes) with running than with other activities.

I was wondering if something like this could be the case because I’ve had physical abnormalities for almost my entire life. I’m not sure if they were present from birth (not visibly present, at least), but by the time I had reached early adulthood and was fully grown, all the mysterious symptoms such as crooked bones and inexplicable hearing loss were firmly in place. This was many years before I performed any energy work. By open meridians, I mean a feeling of a soft hollow tube within the body, through which energy and breath can pass (and by energy I mean the coarser kind such as that felt during sexual arousal, as well as the finer kind like the qi that arises when I cultivate a sense of emptiness; and by breath I mean the inner “embryonic” breath that arises when I make my breathing finer by creating gentle friction in the nose or throat and slowing down the rate of inhalation/exhalation). None of the open sections of these tubes feel straight, as they curve or twist round and then disappear into a big lump of non-feeling, which is what I am referring to when I speak of a blockage. My body feels like it contains a huge jumble of these open curves and blockages and I struggle to follow any single channel along its course (in fact, if I move my consciousness through my body, I find it impossible to follow a straight line at all, even an imaginary one, so my consciousness itself seems to get pulled all over the place by the gravitational force of the inner knots). The garden hose analogy seems apt because when things begin to flow naturally in an open or partially opened area, it’s like a hose that fills up with water and then tries to form a new streamlined shape best suited to the flow. This often causes a part of my body to yanked into a different direction to compensate, but I then encounter a blockage (like a stone inside the hose or pressing on it further down) which prevents the additional movements needed for a full correction. My throat area feels particularly tangled, there’s pain on the right side of my upper back, also just inside the right hip area above my crooked leg, and there’s been some recent opening in the head, which has led to intense aching there. I guess the areas where I feel very little inner sensation at all (which are mainly the solar plexus, chest and crown areas at the moment) are where the biggest blockages are. I have an inverted sternum/concave chest as well as a few unusual lines and bumps on my skull, so it wouldn't be surprising if there are some latent problems there. There's one other thing that I've wondered about, which is perhaps worth mentioning here in case it makes sense to anyone and is related to this topic - it's an experience I’ve had a few times while meditating, where my body begins spinning and then seems to split into two halves which point diagonally outwards in opposite directions, like the hands of a clock pointing at ten minutes to two. Could this be connected with energy not going to the right places? Can you give examples of "alchemy-based" practices? Thanks!

It's mainly breath-based, yes - where I watch the breath, count the breaths or focus on the sensation of the nostrils. Sometimes, however, I simply focus on an imaginary point of nothingness, and this occasionally leads to very intense experiences. I've been thinking of taking up a physical practice like tai chi. Do you think that's suitable, or too gentle?

Hi there! I've been reading this forum for a couple of years and have learnt many useful things as a result. There are so many experienced people with different insights to share, I hope I can learn more by interacting with others here, especially since I've reached a point in my breathing and meditation practices where I feel like I'm facing specific obstacles and potential pitfalls without having yet found a teacher to guide me through them.