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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.

I dream of this same room repeatedly. In my dreams, this room is in my house, but it's not in my real house. To reach it, you have to go up a long staircase and there is a small area before you reach the door to the room. The room is usually empty, like we are moving in, but in my last dream, it now had built-in benches on one side. You walk straight across the room to open a door to an atrium or courtyard. Usually the courtyard is empty and looks like it needs a lot of work, but this time I was surprised as there was greenery out there, and to my right along a short path were a row of green ceramic elephant planters with healthy green plants in them. I was so excited to see the elephant planters! In my dream my son is with me, and I want to give him this room as his own, but he doesn't want it, so I think to myself that he still wants to be with us in the rest of the house. I then tell him that I'm going to take it for my sewing room or computer room. This room is so familiar to me; I feel like I've been in there many times, and I'm never afraid when I'm there. What do you think this room represents? BTW, my son is very psychic, and is very in tune with his grandmother who passed away several years ago. She visits him frequently in his dreams, and what happens in the dreams comes true. I'm also somewhat psychic, but not as much as my son. (Sometimes I hear voices or catch a glimpse of someone who is not really there.) Thank you for interpreting this recurring dream for me, and take care!

Linda

Dreamchaser:

WARNING: This week's answer will seem unbelievable to some readers. Please proceed with an open mind!

Now that I've stated my disclaimer, I can tell you that you are having a classic alien abduction dream. (The word abduction is not the term I am most comfortable with, but it is the term most familiar to most people.)

Please be aware that you are never taken without your permission. Your human mind is shut down for the most part so that you don't become alarmed. Things ARE different there, so if we were to wake up while we're gone, it would scare us.

That's why your son didn't want stay in this room alone. Children remember more than adults, but I digress...

The stairway and the landing are obviously what you see when you are being taken up into the ship. The landing is self-explanatory. The empty room (more than likely white) is classic as well. We see lots of empty rooms there.

The benches along the wall are also very common. (We have to sit somewhere!) The atrium with the greenery and the elephants excited you because they were elements that were earthly and normal to you. You were excited to see something from Earth because you were in such a foreign environment.

Entire families are often taken in the night; aliens don't just take one of us. Of course, your son was with you, and he is actually more aware of what's happening than you are. Before I started to become aware and accept what was happening with the aliens around us, I was terrified by the dreams my son would tell me about, as he would give me really graphic accounts of his abduction dreams.

Your son doesn't want to stay by himself; he wants to be with you where he will feel safe. Trust me - he is safe with whatever is taking him. Aliens do not want to hurt or harm us; they are actually changing our DNA so that we can live in the New World. They are studying us and trying to help us. They can also cure us from disease and affliction. We have nothing to fear here.

This room represents a place where you are cared for. After they are done doing whatever it is they have to do to us, they let us rest and regroup for a while. That is what this room is to you.

The reason you like it so much is because you have such good feelings while you are inside of it. It's familiar to you because you have been going there throughout your entire life on this planet.

Every person I've ever met who was aware of their own psychic ability also had dreams of big white empty rooms and/or houses. You and your son are perfectly normal. Be not afraid!

I wish you and your entire family many more peaceful encounters - I mean dreams.

2605

Astrea:

I feel the room you're dreaming about is where we go when we die. You're getting to go there while you're still ALIVE, and you're getting to take your son with you. You're getting to furnish your afterlife home with the things that you love to surround yourself with in life. Isn't this what Heaven is supposed to be like?

Your dream is a foretelling of Heaven for you. How wonderful to be able to see what very few people can see before it's time to go there! Not only is this your vision of Heaven, you're beginning to populate it with people you love and the beauty of nature.

You tell your son you may make this into your sewing room because sewing must be one of the things you do that makes you happy. Your soul knows that you can make this room into anything you like.

Whether you subscribe to any organized religion doesn't matter: your soul is evolving towards the ONE, and this may be one of the last Earthly incarnations you'll have. This Celestial Room is being made ready for when you eventually depart this world; you're doing the decorating and landscaping way ahead of time.

Certainly the symbolism in your dream stems from things that you see and hear in your waking life. You take stairs that go up to this room because most of us think of Heaven as above us. The plants you're seeing are the verdant greens and flowers that are common in heavenly landscaping.

The various pieces of furniture and other elements of decor are symbols of things you love. The special door to your room is the door to your waking heart. Unlike most people, you never fear to open it and walk in to your own deeper nature.

The absence of fear in your dream convinces me that this is the place you'll choose to go when it's time for you to move on from the Earth plane.

I was most interested in the elephant planters, for elephants symbolize things that last. They are there in your upper room because you will remember these dreams all your life, even if at some point you stop having them, and the room will remain ready for you whenever you get there, no matter how long it takes.

You're happy in these dreams, and you're probably a happy person when awake too, which is almost as rare as people who have wonderful, foretelling dreams!

I urge you to develop your dream power for two reasons. First, you can stay connected to that place you've created to welcome you later on, and second, perhaps you can help other people to discover their own special rooms.

It would be so healing for people to KNOW that when they leave here, there is a wonderful place waiting for them that is exactly how they want it to be. You see, everyone has such a place - most of us just can't remember the dreams we have about it.

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.