Bridger of Worlds
The Bridger of Worlds podcast is an in-depth walkthrough between the world of matter and world of spirit. I struggled with porn addiction for close to fifteen years, and all of this led me to discovering some very crucial and beautiful things about not only the physicality of my existence, but the spirituality of it as well. Since then, I‘ve been building bridges that have served me in feeling more whole and well-integrated. I’ve now made it my mission to share with you whatever it is I’ve learned.
Themes, topics and healing modalities such as spiritual embodiment, psychosomatic practices, Shadow Work, Masculine/Feminine energetics, conscious sexuality and archetypal meanings are brought to the forefront in order to raise awareness around what is out of sight because it is only from there that new life can ever emerge.
The greatest paradox of the human condition is to live amongst duality as we seek unity. This is a podcast honoring both and in doing so, creating the loving connections and honest-to-raw conversations we so desire in our lifetimes.
Bridger of Worlds
Sexual Impulse to Spiritual Awakening: Bridging Worlds with Inner Fire
In this candid and insightful episode of the Bridger of Worlds Podcast, host Ioannis Kokkinos dives deep into the complex and often triggering subject of sex, exploring its various forms and spiritual implications. Kokkinos addresses pornography, porn addiction, and the broader concept of conscious sexuality, offering a holistic perspective on how these issues affect the body, mind, and spirit.
Kokkinos explains the symbolic act of sex as the union of Masculine and Feminine energies, and the profound impact of separation—which he refers to as 'the Shadow'—on human beings. He connects sexuality with spirituality, discussing the practice of Kundalini Yoga and the significance of activating the Kundalini serpent at the base of the spine. As this energy rises through the 7 main chakras, it facilitates spiritual enlightenment and a deeper understanding of the self.
The episode also touches on the transformative power of Fire as an archetype in spiritual practices, emphasizing how addiction can be a misuse of this powerful energy. Kokkinos explores the role of compassion, breathwork, and meditation in overcoming addiction, trauma, and emotional blockages. He shares his personal struggles with porn addiction and discusses how self-love, compassion, and conscious healing can lead to recovery and spiritual growth.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Bridger of Worlds podcast. I am your host Ioannis Kokkinos. Thank you so much for joining me. If you're watching on YouTube, thank you for tuning in. And if you are on one of the podcasting platforms, thank you for tuning in as well.
Diving into the Topic of Sex
So today I want to talk about So probably my all time favorite topic, and that is sex. Um, this episode may be, a little bit triggering. I will be talking about pornography. I will be talking about porn addiction. I'll be talking about, So, sex in general, um, there's a lot to say when it comes to sex, especially like if we're starting to talk about conscious sexuality and conscious lovemaking and conscious sex, this won't all fit into one episode, but I'll do my best to stick to the basics for now for the sake of this episode and then obviously down the road,
We'll unpack a lot more because there's so much more to this subject. So, sex is never an easy topic to talk about. I mean, it can be very triggering. It doesn't mean you have experience with porn addiction, sex addiction. , there are a lot of traumas that surround sexuality as well. It is a wound, I believe, that is, to some extent, alive , in each human being. Now, when I say that, I don't mean like, the act of sex, or something that has to have happened in regards to a sexual experience.
Understanding Conscious Sexuality
Sex as a literal act is about bringing two human beings together for union. Uh, if it's man and woman, if it's woman and woman, man and man, I mean, the physical act of sex is about bringing two bodies together, two minds, two souls, two spirits.
That's obviously when we start to bring conscious sexuality into the conversation.
But there's also the symbolic act of sex. The symbolic act of bringing two entities together, two polarities together, in this case, the masculine and the feminine. Now, this does not mean males and females. Again, I will always remind you. Because it did take a while for me as well, that when I say masculine, I mean as a symbol, and when I say feminine, I mean as a symbol.
So, the symbolic act of sex is about union, is about bridging, and the masculine and feminine coming together. So So, as I already mentioned in the earlier episodes, separation, which is the shadow, is what we're all suffering from. So when I say that every single human being has a sexual wound, again, I don't mean that all human beings have been traumatized in a sexual manner I do mean that the masculine and the feminine As polarities in some way, shape or form are separated from each other because that is how we know the shadow exists.
, the shadow's root pain is separation.
So the act of sex has to start with that impulse, right? Like that charge, , that energetic activation that tells you it's time. So today I want to talk about that impulse. I want to talk about that activation.
Kundalini Yoga and Sexual Energy
And most of this will be from Kundalini Yoga.
philosophy. Kundalini yoga is a branch of yoga that focuses more on the kundalini energy that is alive inside every single human being. It is symbolized as a serpent. So we all have a dormant serpent that sleeps at the base of our spine and it is up to us through spiritual practices.
through consciousness, through awareness, through meditation, through breathing. To activate that serpent so that we can ultimately raise it up through the body, which is where the chakras come into play and reach enlightenment up here. So this is kundalini yoga philosophy. There are a lot of cultures that actually talk about this,
but as far as like the mainstream is concerned, it really is. Kundalini Yoga philosophy that gives us all of these tools and knowledge and information.
There are also a lot of esoteric traditions that talk about the raising of the serpent. There are a lot of ancient cultures, philosophies, tribes that talk about the raising. of this serpent. And again, it's not a literal serpent. It's energy that is coiled at the base of our spine and it rises up our spine.
It rises up our chakras as we do the breathing, the breath work, the exercises, the practices and so on and so forth.
So it's very interesting to bring this sexual energy into the mix when we're talking about spirituality, right? We're so conditioned to think that these two are opposites. , no matter what the religious background, most likely, we've been taught that these two are opponents. Sex is something else, spirituality is something else, but they in fact go hand in hand when we learn how to practice bringing consciousness, awareness, space holding, and let's even call it meditation, into the mix.
Sex can be meditative. Masturbating can be meditative. We can bring consciousness into A sexual practice, we can bring awareness, we can bring space holding because sex may be the most unconscious act, right? We basically become animals. And the unconscious is the animal. As a symbol, if we were to like, you know, paint the unconscious, make it tangible in some way, shape, or form, it's the animal.
It's the animal nature that resides within us. And of course, this animal nature has been incredibly distorted and tainted and painted as something to almost fear and avoid within ourselves. I don't equate it with the shadow. I don't believe the animal is synonymous with the shadow, but the animal
can have a shadow. We're going to leave that for other episodes. That animal nature within us, let's call it creative impulse. Let's call it the wild call, and it doesn't only have to do with sex, the unconscious within us, AKA animal nature within us is the source from which we get to feel. A sense of aliveness in this physical reality. It's basically our foundational nature. We need to begin the spiritual journey. And if we talk about Kundalini, if we bring in Kundalini into the conversation.
Kundalini serpent sleeps at the root chakra.
The Role of Chakras in Spirituality
This is at the very bottom of the spine, the first chakra, Mooladhara, root chakra is responsible for our earthly experience. We need this foundational chakra to function, to vibrate, to be balanced, to be open, so that we can begin the spiritual journey. It is symbolic when we're talking about the raising of the Kundalini energy through the chakras, it is an ascension journey.
It's symbolism, once again, that we can use to further understand how this serves
our spiritual awakening and even just our mundane day to day living. So by negating, let's say sexual energy, let's say we've been raised and taught that , this is just an act that is reserved for baby making, it's not an outlet for any form of exploration or expansion or even spirituality, this will, in turn, lead to.
To a faulty foundation and we cannot have a structure, we cannot have a body, even we cannot even have the rest of the chakras, the rest, the, and when I say chakras, I mean, the main chakras, I'll always be talking about the seven main chakras of the human body.
So if we have a faulty root chakra, if we have a faulty foundation. The rest of the chakras cannot function or vibrate properly. If we cannot even begin the spiritual ascension, what spiritual enlightenment can there be then?
And this Kundalini serpent is also symbolized by fire. Mystic fire, sacred fire, holy fire. Fire is a symbol as an archetypal element. I mean, it's not really an element, scientifically speaking, it's plasma. Archetypally speaking, it's one of the four elements. Earth is an element, water is an element, air is an element, but fire is a little bit more special.
It stands out a little bit more because fire is able to transmute. One form into another alchemy, the alchemical process of transmuting one thing into something completely different water has its transformational properties, but it doesn't work like fire. Right? Like water absorbs water. You have to soak something in water.
Um, it will change form, right? Like if you have a dry item and you dip it in water, it's no longer dry. It does change, but it won't completely transform into another form. That's fire. Earth can't do that. Wind can't do that. So that's why like a lot of spiritual teachings, a lot of religions. There's a lot of, um, esoteric schools of thought just keep talking about fire, sacred fire, holy fire, cosmic fire, and our sexual energy, Kundalini energy is symbolized by this fire because the philosophy is that we are actually supposed to raise this fire within us, raise it up the chakras and transform through it.
So what can happen if we're not doing this kind of work? We can actually use this fire as a source of detriment in our lives, as a source of almost destroying ourselves. We see this through addiction.
Addiction and Spiritual Work
Addiction is the act of totally losing control of ourselves. Whether it's to a substance, a, you know, chemical concoction, a drug, alcohol, pornography, sex, gambling, social media. Online shopping. Anything that gives us a hit. a surge of pleasure, a surge of gratification, that thing has the potential to become an addiction.
And that is very much connected to the non erasing. Of this Kundalini fire within us, because we can say there's a bad fire, which destroys everything. And we can say there's a good fire, a benevolent fire that enlightens us, illuminates us, transmutes us, transforms us.
Takes us beyond ourself, but that's actually two sides of the same coin. That's two sides of the same fire So we can't just work with the good fire We can't just work with the bad fire. There's only one fire within us What do we do without fire? Makes or breaks our not just spiritual journeys, but our whole existence here on earth So my whole life phase of being a porn addict of being addicted to porn was basically not knowing what to do with that fire inside of me, the sexual fire, the Kundalini fire, I did not know what to do with that energy.
I did not know what to do with that life. Force that impulse because it's there it's there It's not going anywhere for every single human being that impulse is not gonna go anywhere No matter how much we want to spiritual bypass it according to some Religious teachings. We are here to create. It is the ultimate creative act.
And that ultimate creative act of the human species starts with an impulse, starts with that instinct, that instinctual charge to create life. We can actually start to work with that impulse, with that charge, with that instinct
to spiritually. Elevate and open ourselves. This requires meditating. This requires breath work. I think I'm going to do a whole other episode of the connection between breath and fire, uh, because breath is truly everything. Breath work was, has been life changing for me. Um, but also just what breath symbolizes and what a lot of teachings say about breath is just very enlightening and phenomenal stuff.
So I'll leave that for another episode but breathwork is pivotal, meditation as I said, focus, awareness, and if we bring the chakras into the mix, right, like, if we are staying at the bottom three chakras, so, I mentioned the root is where the kundalini serpent, begins its ascension journey from.
Then we have the sacral chakra, which is around the navel area. And then we have the solar plexus chakra, which is basically where our ribs meet. If we are in these domains, energetically speaking, or consciously speaking, if we are in just in these three domains, we are not living life to its full potential. We are not fully self realized and we are very much attached and stuck on the physical experience. The heart chakra, the fourth, is the middle between the bottom three and the upper three. Yes, we want the energy to come up to the crown. We want, like, this is where we experience oneness.
This is where we experience nirvana, the crown chakra at the top of the head. But the heart is the portal. The heart is the bridge between the bottom three and the upper three.
And really like the ultimate message, the ultimate purpose of practicing spirituality.
Love here, when we're at the level of the heart chakra, because it's still the fourth, right, it's not the ultimate destination. The crown is the ultimate destination, but it's the heart that makes it happen. So when we're talking about the chakras and the energies, And we've not even come up to the heart yet.
That means we're still very much in our egoic experience. Because according to Anodeya Judith, Jungian psychoanalyst and somatic therapist, the ego develops at the solar plexus chakra.
So energetically, if that means we're still just here, We have a very hard time giving and receiving, , we have a very hard time relating to other people. We have a very hard time to show who we actually are. And we have a very hard time to connect with other human beings.
Because we've not come up here yet. And in order to start this rising, this raising. Apart from the breathwork, apart from the consciousness, apart from meditation, is to love. You basically want to love, to start offering compassion, to start offering self love, to the lower parts of you, to your lower energy centers, which is where a lot of the trauma is.
All of us in some way, shape or form will develop our bottom three chakras, even the fourth, but to go above the heart, this is where the spiritual stuff starts to come into play to go higher than the heart is to start to move on beyond just the physical material experience because the heart level is still very much connected to the physical experience, but the heart also Now starts to understand and realize there's something else.
There's something more than just the physical experience. And this is where we start to come up into the higher chakras. So the fifth chakra is our throat. Our sixth is the third eye right here. And then the seventh, as I mentioned, is at the top of the head. So you see how sexual energy can actually be seen as a foundational component to begin the spiritual journey It doesn't necessarily mean you had to have any form of trauma here.
You may not have had any issues with sexuality whatsoever but that energy can be used to serve spiritual enlightenment. , so back to the porn phase of my life, I was very much at the bottom three chakras, right?
Porn addiction. Obviously there's no intimacy there for me. No connection, no connecting with real life human beings. , it was basically an implosion of shame, of guilt, of fear,
feeling isolated, feeling unworthy, right? So where's the heart chakra? Where's like the upper three chakras? Right? But this is where we have to actually go beyond the ego. We have to actually experience spiritual awakening. We have to realize that we're not just. Our ego. We're not just our name. We're not just our face.
We're not just the thoughts and the feelings that we have, right? This is where we will come to realize and understand. That we are not what we identify with within our heart, within our thoughts, within our passing thoughts, within whatever we're feeling, with whatever stories we're carrying.
We can start to practice to not identify with these thoughts and with these feelings. And we can also start to offer compassion, to start to hold space. So all of this ties in back to what I spoke about in previous episodes.
Witnessing without judgment, holding space, offer compassion, these younger, more traumatized parts of you that didn't know better. Your current state, you know better. We're able to detach because whatever trigger arises in the present moment from the past has nothing to do with the present moment.
Okay, yes, something happens in the present, but that, that activation is from the past. So it may all be all good in the present moment, right? But that trigger, that activation in the body is telling you. You're in the past, but we're not in the past. We're able to witness the past. We're able to witness the trigger.
We're able to witness the reaction. And this is how we can start to practice non identification with passing thoughts, passing feelings, and even very, um, difficult reactions and reactive states within us.
So there's a lot to unpack still when it comes to the chakras And I don't want to put everything in today's episode I guess today is a bit of an introduction of what is to follow in upcoming episodes
So just to touch upon a little bit more on addiction. , So , anybody who's suffering from any form of addiction is actually an indication of spiritual work that's needed. Addiction has very much to do with the physical experience.
It's about feeling a surge of pleasure with any physical thing. Any type of physical experience or physical thing. Why do we need that pleasure? Why are we seeking pleasure at such compulsive levels? It's because we want to make up for a feeling of emptiness within us, right?
A lot of us that experience addiction is because we feel a sense of emptiness. There's a sense of longing, a yearning within us. Those of us that have experienced addiction. That emptiness is not to be filled with something of the physical experience. That emptiness is to be filled with love and it is to be filled with consciousness.
It is to be filled with witnessing because as I talked about in the previous episodes, and we can relate this to the void, right? The void of creation, the emptiness of creation that gave birth, that gave life Everything. For billions of years of existence, right? Everything came from nothing.
So, empty is not really empty when we learn how to hold space. When we learn to be with our emptiness and we're not trying to get rid of it, numb it, suppress it with any form of substance thing activity. We are all in some way, shape, or form longing for our spiritual home. And a lot of us don't know that.
A lot of us don't know why we feel empty. A lot of us have a great family. A lot of us have a good childhood. A lot of us are privileged.
And have had good upbringings. But a lot of us very unconsciously also remember our one true home. On some deep unconscious level, we know, we know, that this is not all there is. That home is nowhere and everywhere. That our true origin story is from nothing and everything.
So obviously, if you haven't, been able to tell by now, I'm sensitive. So, the sensitive ones, right, when we're young. We pick up a lot of shit. We pick up things, we pick up energies, we pick up vi vibrations, and we don't know what the fuck we're picking up and from who.
We're just, you know, sponges.
So that can lead to a lot of complications when it comes to trying to decide what's yours and what isn't. And being sensitive is also being attuned to energy that is not just material. Energy that is non material, energy that is non physical because everything is energy, even matter is energy.
So, when we're sensitive, we're able to pick up energies. That are not necessarily on this plane, but we have no idea. We're young. We Most likely don't have those teachings going on within our households. Most likely our education systems are not saying anything about this. , there are some of us that pick up from a very young age on this emptiness, which is actually the void of creation, which is where all of life came from.
But because we're young, not had a spiritual awakening yet, we've not been properly taught or guided. We're left yearning, we're left longing. And this was 100 percent my experience as a boy growing up. So I think that was why I was so prone to addiction. I had a very addictive personality, as a boy it was food.
It was junk food, sugar, refined sugar. I loved, loved, loved junk food. I loved desserts, junk food. The more junk food, the better, right? Surge of pleasure, surge of gratification because there was an emptiness within me that I could not work with. I could not name, I could not hold space for, cause I was just a child.
That doesn't mean I didn't have my family's love because I did but because I was so sensitive on some level I I knew and I'm saying that now because I know but back then I didn't But it was because I was yearning for love Spirit, spirituality, um, creation, home. And then that bled into my adolescence as porn addiction.
I kept eating junk, a lot of junk food. Still, I was very overweight and then all kinds of shit piled on top of other shit. Um, but yeah,
so obviously because of porn addiction, I wanted to find out everything there was to know about sexuality, sexual energy. Sexual energy is synonymous with creative energy. When we're creating something, we're actually using our sexual energy. When we're cooking a meal,
when we're creating art, when we're writing, when we are training at the gym, when we're playing a sport, it's all creative energy. So, we can use that creative energy. To manifest spiritual energy because there's only one energy, it's one energy. Everything came, everything, everything, everything came from one energy and that one energy split into two energies, masculine, feminine energies, masculine energy, feminine energy came together. And created all of life.
This is why we have sex. This is why we have an impulse. To unite with another human being in this way because it started out as energy first It started out as an energetic impulse first even before humans were here even before we were here Sex was happening on a cosmic energetic Spiritual level sex was happening.
Then we came and we have sex to continue in creating life.
So this whole fucking story around needing to feel shame, guilt around our sexuality, our sexual nature, our animal nature is a conversation that 1, 000 percent needs to change. And I know it's very triggering, I know it's a very triggering subject. It's, it's been the most triggering thing for me throughout my healing journey.
I still have a hard time watching regular sex scenes in regular movies or series, right? It's, it's not porn, I've not watched porn in years, but just to watch a sex scene in a series, I mean most series now have fucking sex scenes anyway, it's still triggering for me. It's a very triggering topic, and if trauma's involved, right, , then we're talking sexual assault, we're talking rape, we're talking abuse, I mean, I know it's not easy stuff, but I've I've specifically created this podcast to have the tough conversations.
And even if it's tough for me, I want to have these conversations because we can only heal. We can only move on. We can only diffuse shame and fear and guilt around all topics, not just sex, but all topics by talking about them, by giving them breathing room. We cannot keep shoving them into a corner.
We cannot keep shoving them into the dark. They need light. We need to give them light and symbolically. That is by talking about them, making them conscious, bringing consciousness into the unconscious. The unconscious is the dark, consciousness is light. We need both.
Embracing Our Animal Nature
So if we have a traumatized, scared, abused, neglected, rejected animal nature within us.
Have any of you seen those YouTube videos when they do pet rescues or animal rescues, right? We see how hostile and temperamental and angry and afraid these animals are. All they need is love. You give them love for a few days, for a few weeks, patience, nurturing, care. attention and they become the biggest cuddle buddies.
That is exactly what we have to do with our traumatized animal nature, whatever the magnitude, whatever the story, whatever the extent of it. Our animal nature holds our sexual creative potential, our sexual creative energy. So, if we do want to work with our sexual nature, if we do want to work with our sexual energy and, you know, it's ascension through our body, through our chakras to eventually realize spiritual enlightenment, we need to give love.
To that animal and back to the heart chakra, right? Like this is where we could, we could basically call our bottom three chakras as the animal chakras. The heart is where we need. We must go energetically to give love, to give love to that neglected, rejected, and maybe even abused.
We need our animal nature. We need our sexual nature. We need our sexual energy
because it is the foundation. It is the foundation that holds the rest of the structure. So that's where I'm at when it comes to sex, sexual nature, sexual energy, and there's more to come
I love this stuff. I love talking about this stuff. We don't talk about it enough. Obviously, I've done some retreats. I've done some workshops. Um, you know, we get in circle. We have these spaces. It's great. It's enlightening. It's healing. But then we go back home, and it's like, well, why did we stop talking about it?
So, more conversations about sex, about kundalini yoga, just google it, I mean, there's so many incredible resources online, books, . And there's so much more to learn and to find out when it comes
to the sacred fire, to the rainbow serpent. That exists inside every single human being. And I say rainbow because each chakra has a color, seven colors of the rainbow, rainbow serpent, as the serpent rises to the chakras, it's the seven colors. Right? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. So tend to that fire.
Tend to that inner flame. Tend to begin holding space for the animal nature within you. Begin offering love and compassion to the parts of you that didn't know. If you are struggling with some form of addiction, now I'm no doctor, I'm no psychiatrist, so, you know, disclaimer, take what resonates, leave the rest.
If you are suffering from a mental slash health condition, please seek professional help. But through my personal experience. What's helped me deal with addiction and the addictive tendencies of my life and personality was basically just offering love and space. To the younger parts of me that didn't know any better and why they thought they needed to seek external gratification to make up for that feeling of emptiness.
Emptiness is the key. Emptiness because it's from emptiness that new life emerges. So we have to go in, see where that emptiness is. And work with it, be with it, not try to numb it, not try to stimulate it or gratify it or escape from it, none of that.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
So I'll leave it here. I think that's enough for today, it's enough food for thought. Um, if you're on YouTube watching, please hit that like, subscribe button, I so greatly appreciate that. Please share the content if you so feel called. If you are on one of the podcasting platforms, thank you for tuning in as well.
I will be back next week and as always, please remember that you are the medicine and I am just the messenger. Thank you very much.