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Is your life a wild exploration, or does it feel mundane and lack excitement? Is the life you are living based on logical reason and society’s expectations, or are you doing exactly what makes your heart beat a little faster with passion and enthusiasm? If you listened more intently to what your heart wants, what would you be doing? What are your dreams, and why aren’t you living them at the moment?

These are the questions that author Kori Hahn poses in the introduction to Rituals of the Soul: Using the 8 Ancient Principles of Yoga to Create a Modern & Meaningful Life. She dedicates the rest of the book to showing readers how the eight ancient steps of yoga can help them answer them. We hope you’ll enjoy this Q & A with Kori about the book.

Tell us about your book Rituals of the Soul and what inspired you to write it.

I spent many years doing a regular asana and meditation practice, which of course made me feel a little better each day, but I eventually realized I had no idea how to use yoga as a whole, comprehensive, spiritual system, even after twenty years of practicing and teaching.

When I started creating and practicing specific rituals to more fully integrate my yoga practice, the results and benefits started coming with more ease. Instead of being militaristic about my practice, I started tuning into my soul. The intention of my yoga process was to listen for what my soul wanted and to use its techniques to walk towards those goals a little bit each day. When I started manifesting big bold dreams, I realized I was really onto something special.

In Rituals of the Soul, I explain each of the 8 yogic principles and explore how the big picture of yoga and small, personalized rituals can help us to integrate those principles in our daily lives. While yoga is ultimately about showing us how to manifest freedom from mental anguish and soul-liberation (the yogis call this Samadhi), I have also discovered that I can use the system to manifest earthly dreams as well — like world class surf trips, building and growing my own business, and living a an unorthodox life being spiritual and surfy in Sri Lanka!

You say in the book that intuition is our way of perceiving the world through the lens of our soul. Tell us more about that please.

I believe intuitive messages are subtle whispers sent from the deepest part of our subconscious. These ethereal messages emanate from your soul and are directly guiding you to realize and live your soul’s purpose for you.

When we rely less on the logical, societal norm voice of the thinking mind that tells us what we “should do” and learn how to listen to the calm voice of our soul, we empower ourselves to make the choices we need to heal, find our worth, and to eventually connect to our own God/dess (our soul) living within. Unfortunately, many of us get lost in our pains, discomforts and insecurities and are unable to discern our soul’s chosen path as a result. It is our intuition that brings us closer to ourselves and what we want need for our unique human experience.

You say in the introduction that your book will teach readers how to use yoga to connect with and start acting on their intuition. How so?

Rituals of the Soul teaches readers how to live more intuitively. I teach the reader how to first use yoga to listen to their intuition and then to start acting on it. Yoga is intended to be used as a way of tapping into the God within you. It helps you hear “the words of God” (aka your intuition). Our intuition is how our internal guidance ultimately takes us to the passions and projects, which will ultimately give our lives purpose and meaning.

Your book empowers readers to create their own personalized set of rituals. Why is this important?

Yoga is not meant to only be practiced on a yoga mat. It is meant to help us with the real struggles in our everyday lives! When I stopped practicing yoga so hyper-vigilantly on the mat, I learned to move my yoga practices into my daily life off the mat more often — while cleaning my toilets, sitting in traffic, etc. I started meditating (counting my breath) when I had a spare moment throughout my day and not always as a super structured item on my to do list. As a single mom and an entrepreneur, who is always passionate and excited about some sort of new creative project, I needed yoga to fit into my life not just from 7-9 am, but in all the in-between moments as well.

That is why rituals work so well. They train us to habitually do things differently and are ultimately a reminder of the intention we are working towards. It's not really about the practice, but about the purpose behind them, or our reason for doing them. Rituals keep us motivated and inspired and moving in the right direction. When your rituals are frequently repeated, that consistency can be even more powerful than doing one long practice each day.

What is the most important thing that someone who wants to create a set of rituals needs to know?

Start small so you can do them consistently with ease. Let one small ritual come and see for yourself how it starts saturating all of your life. Then add one or two as your capacity for them grows. If you want to learn to meditate, start by taking ten breaths at a time here and there. You don't need to sit for one hour in the beginning, although you can. Let it be easy and be compassionate with yourself. Do ten breaths when you first wake up in the morning, and then again when waiting in the carpool line, and ten more while taking a shower, and you will have started a new habit of checking in mindfully into the present moment and not just while sitting in a quintessential yogi posture.


Kori Hahn is the author of Rituals of the Soul and founder of a community gathering place called the Santosha Society, which is dedicated to travel, surfing, and the soulful. She hosts numerous trips around the world for hundreds of women who study Ayurveda, yoga, meditation, and all things related to soul growth, knowledge, and fulfillment. Visit her online at www.SantoshaSociety.com.

Excerpted from the book from Rituals of the Soul. Copyright ©2021 by Kori Hahn. Printed with permission from New World Library.

My ex-boyfriend is in every dream I have. I can't seem to get him out of my dreams! I'll even dream that my current boyfriend and I live together, when suddenly I see my ex in the dream living with us too. What does this mean? Why is he in every dream I have? (I'm a Taurus.)

Dreamchaser:

Though you say your ex-boyfriend is in every dream you have, I don't believe that is really the case. Your ex isn't in every dream, he's just in the dreams you remember when you wake up. The fact that you only remember the dreams he is in, however, is quite telling.

To put it simply, you are not over your ex-boyfriend, and you don't want him out of your life. You aren't in love with your new boyfriend, nor are you ready to move on to a new relationship.

The fact that your ex-boyfriend is not only showing up in the dream where you and your new boyfriend live together, but your ex actually LIVES there with you two - well, do you really a need a psychic to explain that one? You still love him and he still lives with you inside your head and your heart. No matter where you go and no matter who you date, no matter where you live or who you live with, your ex-boyfriend is still there.

I'm not sure how this idea began, but a lot of people believe that we have to have a romantic relationship to feel happy or complete. That doesn't work, for we can be lonelier than ever while lying in bed next to someone.

Having someone in your life is not what you need to be happy, for happiness comes from the inside out. While things may bring us fleeting pleasure, nothing on the outside can make us truly happy for long. For example, if I was a miserable person and someone gave me a brand new car, I would feel happy for a little while. The car couldn't continue to make me happy, however, and sooner or later I'd be miserable again.

You have to find your own happiness. You have to be whole and complete before you even enter into a relationship, for whatever is broken inside of you will become a GLARING issue when you are involved.

I suggest you find a book, audio tape, or class to try to help you find a way to become happy inside of yourself. Iyanla Vanzant's books work really well for me. There are also some great teachings by Dr. Wayne Dyer and Marianne Williamson.

Find something that calls to you so you can start to heal yourself from the inside out, as obviously, the whole outside in thing is not working for you.

Please remember that you are human, and what you're going through is very common. There have been multitudes of stories, poems and songs written about this very problem for centuries. We all try to fill up a hurting hole with someone or something new, but it rarely works. You have to heal the hole - then you can go on to new love.

I wish you love and healing on all levels.

*****

Astrea:

The first thing to remember when you're dreaming of an ex is that people aren't necessarily people in dreams. Instead, people are often SYMBOLS of other things or issues in your life.

I often have a similar set of dreams, and I was very interested in ferreting out the answer for both of us, so I did some research on the subject and found various theories on what these dreams might mean.

It seems the most popular interpretation of your dream is that your current boyfriend may be missing some of the good qualities that your ex had, and you wish that he had those same qualities. I'm sorry, but for me, that's a hard one to swallow.

The second most popular answer is that you fear that your current boyfriend may turn into someone like your ex - into someone who (for whatever reason) you couldn't tolerate. That seems far more plausible to me, because I would NEVER want my current husband to resemble my ex in any way, and I sense you don't want that either.

The more metaphysical answers were vague, but one that made good sense was that your ex symbolizes not himself but OTHER things in your life that you long to change, such as your job, your schedule, or your marital status. He could also symbolize something from which you long to heal. This would be something other than your relationship with him, such as some traumatic experience from your childhood.

My best psychic advice is to examine what's going on in your life now and what's going on in your current relationships, not only with your boyfriend but with other people who have a big influence on you.

Your ex could symbolize something in your waking life that is bothering you, so your subconscious is gently trying to help you figure out what that is. This could take some time, so be patient while you examine all the possibilities. Some issues are buried so deeply in our subconscious that it takes a while to discover what they are and work through them.

Of course, if you want him to stop coming into your dreams immediately, without having to do any kind of in-depth soul searching, self-hypnosis or drug therapy, just place your shoes under the bed facing opposite directions from one another, and off to peaceful dreamland you will go.

Dealing with heavy duty emotional issues shouldn't make your dream life miserable. If you know there are issues to solve, try to work through them while you're awake - it's a lot easier than seeing your ex night after night in your dreams.

Once you get back to pleasant dreaming, I hope your dreams of love happiness all come true!

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.