My first experience with tremors and uncontrollable shakes
- Anna Florentino
- Aug 20
- 2 min read
My own initiation into this was unexpected. Right after the pandemic, one night around 3 a.m., I woke up with what felt like a surge of electricity jolting up my spine. In an instant, there was an explosion of energy in my third eye. My body began to tremor and shake on its own, without me doing anything to start it. I fell right back to sleep and only realized what had happened a couple of days after.
From that day on, my body and mind were not the same. It was as if something had been unlocked, and a deep current of energy began to move through me. At first, I didn’t know what to make of it. Later, I came to understand that this was more than just a nervous system release, it was also a kundalini awakening.
In many traditions, kundalini is described as a dormant energy coiled at the base of the spine. When awakened, it rises upward through the body’s energy centers, often accompanied by tremors, shaking, heat, or bursts of light and insight.
The surge I experienced matched these descriptions. It was both physical and spiritual, a reminder that the body’s healing wisdom and the soul’s awakening often happen together.
Looking back, I can see that my spontaneous tremors were not random. They were my nervous system discharging the stress and fear of the pandemic and unresolved traumas, while also opening a doorway into a deeper spiritual awakening.
What are tremors and shakes?
We usually associate shaking with fear, exhaustion, or illness. But there’s another side to it. Tremors can also be the body’s built-in way of resetting the nervous system. Animals in the wild do this all the time, after escaping danger, you’ll often see them shake violently before returning to a calm state. It’s how the body “completes the stress cycle.” In a similar way, deer shake off their antlers when they’ve outgrown them, a natural sign that shaking is a way of letting go of what is no longer needed.
Dr. David Bercelli, the founder of Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE), built a whole method around this natural wisdom. TRE uses simple movements to activate gentle tremors that help discharge stress and trauma that the body has been holding on to. According to Bercelli, these tremors restore balance by calming the nervous system and making us feel more grounded.
The healing invitation
When tremors come, the invitation is simple: let the body move. Instead of trying to stop the shaking, breathe and notice what shifts. Over time, you may feel lighter, calmer, and more at home in your own body.
As Dr. Bercelli writes about TRE, “The tremors are a gift from the body to itself.” They remind us that healing isn’t something we force with our minds. It’s something our body already knows how to do, if we allow it.
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