Transcending Physical Limitations: The Power of Sacred Spiritual Practices

Michael Herst
00:00:00

Hey, one more Thing before you go. Have you ever wondered how sacred spiritual practices can help you transcend the limitations of physical existence?

Or how soul awareness can bring peace amidst war and politics, especially in this day and age? Stay tuned.

We're going to answer some of those questions and more because in this episode, we explore sacred spiritual practices and their transformative power. The celestial melodies of Nada Yoga, Finding peace amidst war in politics through soul awareness.

When we have a conversation with an expert in this field whose extensive experience and insights can help you feel good about everything. I'm your host, Michael Hurst. Welcome to One more Thing before you go. My guest is Dr. Katherine Corona.

She's an accomplished speaker, teacher, and spiritual guide with 24 years of experience.

She's also a published author of Tapping your Spiritual Source, a uniquely talented vocalist with the voice of stillness and a pioneer in conflict resolution and healing life issues. Dr. Corona has spoken widely across the US in optimizing one's potential practical spirituality and personal healing.

With degrees from the University of Colorado and the Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy in Los Angeles, she brings a wealth of knowledge and wisdom to our conversation. I'm excited to help you discover how you can transcend physical limitations and find inner peace through sacred spiritual practices.

Welcome to the show.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:01:38

It's great to be here. Thank you, Michael, for having me. What a privilege.

Michael Herst
00:01:43

What an. What a fantastic journey you've had in life.

So many, so many different opportunities for you to make people's lives positive, make your own life positive as well.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:01:54

I had this kind of unusual and amazing and wonderful experience when I was about 19 where I lived on a ranch in Colorado, and I lived in a little barn apartment above the barn, two rooms, but in the big ranch house.

Some people that followed Native American spiritual traditions lived there, and they would invite me to sweat lodge ceremonies, pipe ceremony, and then they moved out and some Sufis moved in at a famous teacher called Rashad Field. His students lived there. So just sort of by osmosis and by neighbors. In some ways, I came into the spiritual journey there.

It's just right in my backyard.

Michael Herst
00:02:42

That's a fantastic catalyst to the journey that you. Your journey of discovery, I guess. And that's what you had. It.

It's, it's a privilege, I think, to have that wisdom carried on through those individuals that helped you.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:02:54

Yes. You know, people that were on a spiritual path. Well, the medicine men, of course, they grew up with it.

The medicine man that came and led the ceremonies up on the ranch west of Boulder, Colorado, was Archie Fire Lame Dear. His father was John Fire Lame Deer, who wrote Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions.

Michael Herst
00:03:15

Very cool.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:03:16

Famous book. Yep. So all the. The ceremonies were in Lakota. I didn't. I didn't know what they were talking about, but I just went.

I actually, I was studying hard sciences, physics, chemistry, biology at University of Colorado and I lived there. But I. They invited me. I didn't know what they were inviting me to, but they said there would be a female feast afterwards. So I went for the food.

Michael Herst
00:03:44

You know, don't. We all.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:03:46

We all. I went for the food and then my life was forever changed.

Michael Herst
00:03:50

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Actually. I'm grateful we both, we have that in common about being from Colorado and the connection with the Native American community there.

I grew up with Native American community around Manitou Springs from those areas. And I got to go to a lot of pow wows and the Native Indian dancing and so forth and met a wonderful Robert Taltree, who's also a medicine man.

He and his wife came to our house at Woodland park and blessed our house there traditionally. And it brought a very. It was a huge impact in my beliefs and my spiritual beliefs, actually in connection to Mother Nature.

So I'm so happy that we have a little connection like that. That's pretty cool.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:04:33

We do.

Michael Herst
00:04:34

It is cool. I like to start a little bit at the beginning. We mentioned Colorado. Did you grow up there?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:04:40

I grew up in Illinois and I moved here to go to college and I've been here ever since. So about 50 years I've been here.

Michael Herst
00:04:49

So what was your family like in. You went to university. We spoke about that before. Had you. Let me clarify this question. What'd you want to be when you grew up?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:05:03

Well, as far as in the world, what I wanted to be, I played with different ideas. A psychologist. I wanted to work with people in counseling. Then I wanted to be a biologist. You know, how things change.

But the thing that I really wanted, and I think what we're talking about in our topics of spirituality was one of the things that when I was. When I had to go to kindergarten, I just didn't want to go to kindergarten. I didn't want to leave home.

And so I started talking to Spirit, whatever that was. I started talking to God, to Spirit. And I was like, what? And I asked, what am I meant to do out in the world?

So it was really clear to me that I had a privilege of a life. And the best thing I could do with the life was to be the best person I could be.

So that's What I wanted to do when I grew up and I was crystal clear about it. I was crystal clear that I had the choice and I didn't want to. The way I put it in a five year old's mind was I didn't want to wreck my life.

I wanted to use it in the best way I could. And that meant two things. Being the best person I could be, which at 5 years old I didn't know any idea how to do.

But that set me on the path, on a path, on many paths, to learn how to be the best person I could be. And the other thing was service.

And that was really clear that the best life I could live would be to somehow contribute, to somehow be, be there for people, for things, for animals, forever, for wherever I was called, that I could lend a hand. So I knew those two things when I was five and I was really crystal clear about them.

And then I think life just unfolds, at least for me and probably for anyone who chooses. Whatever your intentions might be, life comes to meet us in our highest intentions.

Michael Herst
00:07:11

Yeah, that's probably very, very profound to be at that age and really understand where you want to go in life and what your sole purpose is. I think we all want to know what our purpose is. We all strive for that. What am I supposed to do? What am I here for?

And how can I achieve that purpose? And it's what an honor to be able to have that done at such a young age.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:07:36

I don't know why or how or what, but yes, it came to me then. And you know, I think to know, to have a certainty about your purpose and direction of life is also a privilege.

Because I worked with women in the Boulder County Jail for a couple years. And what I found with them was they did not have a purpose because I brought it up.

One day I went in there, I put a curriculum together for my once a week and I said, we're going to work on goals. And I just saw blank stairs. And I said to them, does anybody know how to work on goals? And I still saw blank stairs.

And then I drilled down, I went, do you know what a goal is?

And what I found with every woman in the module, which was about 20, was that they had never even had the inkling that they could have what they wanted in life. Nobody had ever told them that.

Michael Herst
00:08:50

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. That's really unfortunate.

I noticed that in my law enforcement career, actually in the neighborhoods that I built with most of the people that I had dealt with in an individual. I worked at a domestic violence task force for a number of years. It was multi agency domestic violence task force.

And we saw a lot of incidences where those individuals that grew up in an environment, a dysfunctional environment that didn't allow them to learn the value of having positive goals in their life, unfortunately. So I can understand where you had come from, but you obviously were given a position that you were able to contribute something to them.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:09:36

Well, I sparked the spark and get and show them that they could have, excuse me, they could have, they could have ideas about what they wanted in life. And so not everybody even has ideas.

You think that, you know, we all want to know and then we go to what is our purpose and that we can go to what is in our highest consciousness to be and listen to that, to know what our true and true purposes, a purpose that makes us feel fulfilled, joyful, happy in life. A lot of times we cannot, I find, come up with that in our heads, in our minds. A lot of times we're.

Some people are pushed and pulled by society's conditionings what other people want for us, what we think we should do.

But in our soul or in our higher consciousness, there is a purpose that's lit up, that really can serve others, serve ourselves, and move us into a certainty that we are on the right path. So that's what I tried to spark.

Michael Herst
00:10:51

In people, which is very positive atmosphere. I mean, you know my statement earlier and what you just said there.

I think that, you know, there are individuals that don't grow up in a dysfunctional family, but the societal and cultural norms demand that they do something. You need to go to college, you need to have a white picket fence in front of your house and have 3.2 kids in this kind of thing.

And we find that sometimes it may not be everybody's purpose.

And I think when people get locked into something like that, they don't know how to step outside of what they're governed by their parents, their grandparents, their. Their community for how they can move out.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:11:34

Yes, so true. And we each have to get to look at that, right? If we want to look at that, we can each and choose to find, well, what is a.

What is the highest purpose for me, for my life, where I can really fulfill my life, fulfill my life's purpose and move forward with certainty on my life's purpose. And that's found inside.

Michael Herst
00:11:57

You think that we can change and find. I mean, I had to redefine my purpose in life.

So I know from My own personal experience that we have the opportunity at any age to be able to redefine our purpose. Do you agree with that?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:12:12

I think it's always changing. I think we end a chapter, start a new one. End a chapter, start a new one.

And a life is not necessarily linear, but more like a spiral that we spiral within our lives. So I think we're always moving toward moving deeper in a life. And I think every life is a spiritual life. And every purpose starts to change.

We change. We get older, we get stronger, we get less strong. Things happen and shift. Shift our course, and we shift with it. You know, we all have a choice.

Do we fight our course that sometimes is presented to us right on with, unexpected, unexpectedly, or we just flow with it, learn what we have to learn, open to what we learn from those shifts and the changing tides and learn those things and then just keep moving.

Michael Herst
00:13:16

I think that's profound. How can sacred spiritual practices, like we just talked about a little bit, we just touched on it. We were talking earlier.

How can spiritual practices help us transcend limitations of our physical existence and kind of help us understand that direction in life we need to kind of strive for?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:13:37

Well, think about any experience you may have had that you felt was bigger than yourself or in a relationship with somebody, or friendship with somebody, or a work environment with somebody. And when two or more are gathered, for example, it's bigger than the two that are there.

That, in a sense, is transcending your individual self into something greater than yourself. And as an individual life, to go inward with sacred spiritual practices which have been.

Which are in every faith tradition and have been used throughout thousands of years as a key, as a way to deepen your relationship with what is transcendent inside of you. Once you connect with what's transcendent inside of you and follow that trail, that path, then you start your life.

In my experience, life becomes so much grander and bigger. Not that it might look bigger on the outside.

I don't mean in the way society might look at a famous person or a billionaire, but it becomes bigger in terms of what is blossoming in joy, in peace, in calm, in certainty, in fulfillment, in service. So that's a little bit about transcending your physical existence into a spiritual existence.

Michael Herst
00:15:10

I think we should all strive for that spiritual existence. How do you think theology or does theology or religion play into this at all? How can we interpret what our levels like?

For me, for example, I was Catholic. I grew up Catholic. I was a. Not a practicing Catholic any longer.

I've Come more into a spiritual side of life and understanding our universe from that perspective, do you. Do you feel that that kind of plays into how we define our new purpose?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:15:48

Religious. Religious experience can certainly, and it certainly gives us community.

If we choose that in each faith tradition, we can find community, which is really important to a happy life, of course. And when you drill down into the more refined or esoteric parts of every faith, you'll find loving.

Basically, it all comes down to loving the spiritual heart, the Sacred Heart, Catholicism, and in that sacred Heart, the loving that also transcends physical existence. So most of us were born into a faith tradition. That's how we have grown up, or not grown up. We were born into it.

Maybe that still serves us, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it serves us on the community level. But each life has its own connection with what's bigger than us, with our soul, with our eternal self.

And in that connection, in that relationship, we can go way beyond where each person is.

Their own walking scripture, their own holiness can walk life as a prayer, as the Native Americans would say, to walk a holy life, a life as a prayer. On the outside, a religion can guide you there, but it's for each individual to step into it and choose it and then follow where it leads.

Not where a religion leads, necessarily, but where that inner connection with what is eternal, with the soul, with the holiness, leads.

Michael Herst
00:17:40

Yeah, I love that. I love that.

I think that's one thing that I did learn from the Native American community that I had been associated with in regard to connection to the universe and earth, Mother Earth and my soul and how it all integrates into one. I think that's the reason I love meditation. My wife practices yoga.

Because of my physical issues, I can't do yoga, but I do do qigong, which is for those out there, as a medical form of Tai Chi, which is similar to yoga, but from a different perspective. How do you think the concept, or can you help us understand the concept of Nara yoga and maybe how that relates to all of this?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:18:32

So there's what we call what has been called the celestial melodies in every tradition, in Hebrew, the voice of the heart. In every tradition, there's been a connection with what's also called the sound current or the sound current of God. And what?

So everything is created out of vibration, energetic frequency, or you can think of that as sound.

And each level of consciousness, the physical, the mental level, your emotional level, your subconscious, unconscious, and into soul, has a vibratory frequency. Some people can hear it like a beautiful sound in each Level of consciousness can. Has a different sound.

Some people feel it, a rhythm, some people or a sense. Some people who are more visual might see different frequencies of light and color and the sound. And it's always singing to us.

If you've been practicing yoga, many yoga classes end with the Om, the sound of the universes. I like to practice the hu, which comes from Sufi tradition or in Aramaic, Christianity, Allah hu. And in Islam, Allah hu.

The hue is the sound of creation, and it has a frequency and energy field.

So when you practice nada yoga, it's practicing those sacred sounds that, like a tuning fork, you can start to attune yourself to these higher vibratory frequencies. In a meditative state, usually in silence or stillness. Open your spiritual ears to listen and then jump, like jumping in the river. Let it.

Let that sound current take you into the higher realms, the spiritual realms, the soul realm. And then you open your spiritual eyes and ears and just see what's there for you.

Michael Herst
00:20:41

Is that does that. The purpose when you're talking about those sounds and the different homes and the different frequencies and so forth, the purpose that you see.

Sometimes you watch individuals that do the. You can't see my hands. The bowls, Tibetan bowls, Tibetan bowls and things like that. Is that something similar? Can we relate that to that?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:21:05

In a way? I mean, those are beautiful sounds and really lovely frequencies.

And if you go to a sound bath where they play crystal bowls or gongs or Tibetan bowls, you'll feel that energy. It's not unlike if you walk into a kitchen and there's a family talk going on and you can feel the vibe in the room, right?

Or maybe somebody's pouring their heart out in your coffee room at your. At your work, at your corporation where you work, or. And you feel that. You walk in and you feel that vibe, right? And it's not unlike that.

So you can recreate all different kinds of vibratory frequencies. We want to put ourselves hopefully in the highest vibratory frequency. Tibetan bowls, crystal balls, these kinds of things.

Gongs are here on the physical plane, but they can lift us into higher planes of existence.

But inwardly, when you go in and get still and quiet and listen or feel or look inside, you can start to connect attune, align with the spiritual frequencies and this is the way. Or if you're in church, in some of those Catholic rituals, especially a high Mass, it's a beautiful. I'm just getting goosebumps.

It's a beautiful, beautiful energy. You know, I grew up Catholic also, and I remember midnight mass and that the frankincense and the choir and you're transported.

I was transported as a little kid.

Michael Herst
00:22:47

Especially with the acoustics in a church.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:22:49

Yes. Oh, my goodness. Which is how. Why they were built with that, where you get that resonance in the sanctuary, it was.

Those old cathedrals were ancient cathedrals were built for the resonance of the sound. So there's an inner resonance. We all have our own resonance. We all can harmonize with our higher self, our true self. No, that's fine.

I mean, I can go on and on. So please.

Michael Herst
00:23:21

No, I was going to say that. How does nada yoga differ from, like, my wife does yoga every morning and every evening. How does nada yoga differ from.

I don't know what type of yoga she does. So we'll just call it standard yoga.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:23:37

Well, there's a lot of different kinds. Hatha yoga, bhakti yoga, vipassana. Nada yoga is the yoga of sound. So it's not what you traditionally might think.

We don't have very much of it in the west, actually. There are very few people that practice nada yoga. You can probably find it on the Internet. But I studied. I always wanted to go.

There's a school in India called the Nada Yoga School, and I always wanted to go there. And gratefully, when the pandemic came, one good thing was they put their classes online so I could go and get a certificate in it.

But I had been practicing with sound current teachers for. So the Sufism branch of Islam is what I would call a sound current tradition.

And then I studied with a teacher called John Roger, who's a sound current teacher, basically. And nada yoga is a sound current. So it's yoga that's not physical, like you might be used to seeing or going to a yoga class. It's a yoga of sound.

So you use sound with your body, in your body to attune yourself to the higher frequencies, to the chakras or the energy centers. And, you know, one outcome is you feel calmer. So on that level, you feel calmer, your body feels stronger to bring a frequency into it.

Just like going to a midnight mass or a beautiful church service or whatever faith tradition you might follow, or walking in the woods for that, walking in the woods and feeling that upliftment. So nada yoga is a practice to feel that upliftment, attune yourself with sound.

It comes from the Vedas, the ancient Hindu texts, and many, many traditions teach a sound attunement. Even the Latin chants, if you listen to a Gregorian chant, it lifts you up.

Michael Herst
00:25:41

Well, you know, it's interesting because when I did my master's degree, I have an interdisciplinary was in interdisciplinary studies with a focus on digital media. Music or performance and art.

Well, in the performance part of it, I got to learn the healing effects of sound and the methodologies used to help individuals heal.

And every time what you just mentioned, it brought me back a memory where I had to do a research paper in regard to that very fact that healing sounds were able to heal people that at the time they didn't know was PTSD. They just, they called it. It was World War II vets that they call it shell shock.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:26:23

Yes.

Michael Herst
00:26:23

Instead of ptsd. But you had these individuals that were so shell shocked. But when the nurses put, you can't see my Italian hands moving.

They put, they put a record on and the music, everybody would calm down and everybody would relax and, you know, they kind of go into this blissful arena instead of the chaos that they were in prior to. And it showed the ability for sound to be able to heal and how music heals us. That's the way songs are written.

We can resonate with music in regard to our favorite love song. Brings us back to the first time we met someone or the first dance we had or the first meeting we had with somebody.

It always brings back a positive memory. You know, I know dementia patients, my father in law had dementia, Lewy body dementia.

But when he was the most cognitive is when we turned the radio on for him, you know, so I think that resonates with what you're just saying. It kind of emphasizes that I think music can touch our soul, is a universal language that touches our soul. And so nada.

Yoga is a kind of a universal language through music.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:27:42

Right through.

Michael Herst
00:27:44

Through sound.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:27:45

Excuse me, through sound. There can be melody with it. Usually you think of it with what's called the bija mantras or seed mantras. These are sounds in Sanskrit.

Om is one, for example, hu is another, sa is another. Ma resonates at the heart. These are seed mantras or sounds that have a vibrational frequency. And when. So this is an ancient spiritual practice.

That's sort of where we started to kind of go back to where we started. What are some ancient spiritual practices?

Practicing sound or a chanting practice is one that can start to attune you to the higher frequencies, shift your body, move yourself into your soul level, which has its own sound, not necessarily a physical sound, but an inner sound or vibration. Sound is not just sound. Remember, sound is a rhythm, a tempo, a field of energy. Right.

So there can be sounds that are so subtle, so refined that we can't really even hear them, but we can sense them. And these sounds can really transport us and bring us into a transcendent, into what's beyond the physical as well.

So we can start to resonate and lift our own vibration into. Into these sounds. And that's the practice of Nadi yoga.

Michael Herst
00:29:15

So from there, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. You mentioned the word soul. And in today's society, we apparently are not in a huge. Not apparently.

We are in an immense amount of conflict in regards to what's going on, both politically as well as the wars that are going on and what the. Any kind of escalation that may or may not present themselves. In what way can we kind of.

We can bring a soul awareness to ourselves to bring peace amidst all this political and outside chaos. Because I think, you know, you're talking about balancing our soul. You know, what's going on right now hurts my soul.

So how do we bring a soul awareness to bring peace amidst all that?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:30:04

Well, the soul can't be hurt. Okay, that's just a little misnomer there. The soul lives. The soul is that eternal part of us. It's our God self.

It's our spark of the divine, our divine presence. Many words for it. True self. It can never be hurt.

Our emotions can be hurt, our minds can be hurt, our bodies can be hurt, or anything in the psychic physical level can be hurt, disappointed, upset, triggered. And we all have to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. That's part of a life.

I don't think any life is an easy life, but it's all been designed. This life and including what's going on in our society now around the world is all designed. I know it does for some people.

It doesn't seem like it, but if we can transcend that, so be a part of it, but right on top of it, where we work to make things better, to lift however that might be. And that sometimes doesn't mean doing, doing, doing.

Sometimes it just means holding in the highest loving energy that you can and holding in that and being strong in that and being in the beingness rather than the doingness. And you can be aware of everything that's going on and yet be above it at the same time. And that doesn't mean ignoring it or bypassing it.

It just what bothers you. It just means noticing it, accepting it, and not judging it.

So how do you not let what's going on in day to day life and in the world and with the wars and the conflicts, you don't judge it. You don't judge it. Now that's easier said than done. But what does even that word judgment mean if we unpack that?

It means that you just hold in the wanting, the well being for everything and everybody. And that's where you come to peace. So you accept and you do it for yourself. So those part, you do it for yourself first. So those part of yourself.

I can, I bet your audience, we all have parts that we may not be that fond of within ourselves, whatever that part is, might have fears or angers or doubts or, you know, we got grouchy with being on hold with the automatic. That's what gets me sometimes.

Michael Herst
00:32:40

Oh, the computer put you on hold?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:32:44

Yes. Yeah. Or traffic, all these. And we might not be that fond of ourselves there. So.

But you know, we, we can, you know, the thing is not to judge for very long. You know, go, you go, oh, that's driving me crazy. And then go, okay, off of that. Let's just love that part, accept that part. That's just me.

Get a kick out of yourself. Find the fun. Enjoy yourself and all your foibles and flaws. Give yourself a break. Give yourself a break and don't, you know, try not to do it again.

Try not to. But if you do, okay, we're all human. I have the 80% rule.

The 80% rule is I don't hold myself to perfection ever, because that's a judgment in and of itself and an exercise in suffering. But I hold myself to about the 80% rule.

If I can live up to about 80% of what I think is the highest behaviors and practices, I'm pretty good with that. And I'll keep striving for better, keep working towards better in my soul. I'm better just here on the physical. It can be a challenge.

So that's how I work with myself to master.

You know, we can all work with self mastery, and that means working with different parts of our consciousness, our mind, and what does it do and where does it bring us and what thoughts are you having? Our heart, how are you holding and loving and joy and peace?

Our body, are you taking good care of it and nurturing it and loving it, and then how are you sharing that with others? And wherever you kind of fall beneath the 80%, try to, you know, move to more excellence in that. And that's a bit of self mastery.

Michael Herst
00:34:45

Well, I think we all need to take lessons in regard to that. Obviously throughout this life, no matter what, where you come from or what situation you're in.

Currently, I as a police officer for as long as I was and a sergeant, you know, conflict was constantly.

It was, you know, every day there was some sort of conflict that we had to deal with, which was sometimes we took home, sometimes it's hard to not take home kind of situation.

But you learn a different person perspective in regard to conflict resolution, in regard to how to handle it and how to adjust to it and how to try to resolve it within other individuals. I know you have a background in conflict resolution. How do you. How has that influenced your approach to spiritual guidance? In regard.

I mean, I use conflict resolution in my daily life in regard to that, which in turn helped me with my personal stuff. But how would you, how do you use your background to enhance your approach to spiritual guidance and healing?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:35:48

And healing particularly. I love that question. So I studied with a man called Marshall Rosenberg. He wrote a book called Nonviolent Communication.

And he worked in a lot of community works with Palestinians and Israelis. And he was a clinical psychologist and got a lot of people out of institutions by looking for what their needs are.

So what I do, I call for healing is I call it the campfire. So I've unpacked my consciousness.

Okay, so there's the child within the emotional level of consciousness, as I mentioned just a minute ago, the mental level of consciousness, the soul high, which is our inner master, our inner guide, the eternal self, the body wisdom. And I anthropomorphize all these levels of consciousness. And then I call in my imagination for a campfire, a pow wow.

And in my imagination, then I ask them these different levels of consciousness, I give them a name, a look. I and I develop this inner relationship with all these parts of consciousness for healing.

Then if I'm triggered or I'm disappointed or I'm disturbed in some way, I'll call a campfire inwardly. Take a few minutes, doesn't take long. And ask for the different parts of me to come forward around the campfire.

And then it's kind of a gestalt approach, if you've heard that word. And then I ask the different parts of my consciousness, who needs to be heard? What's going on with these different parts?

And then I be quiet and I listen. And it may be the child within will be going, you know, I've just been. You've been working too much. We need some play time. And then I'll negotiate.

Well, what's play time? Playtime is going out for A walk or playing with my horses. We need more time with the horses. Okay, and then here's the.

Here is the key to working with yourself and healing. When you negotiate something inside yourself and you are in agreement with all parts, you act on that then.

Because if you don't, you won't trust yourself. So if that inner part goes, you need more time with your horses, to play, to feel better, and I don't do it, I stop trusting myself. Right?

So if you say, well, I want to lose a few pounds, and then you say, I'm not going to eat ice cream for two months, and then you go eat ice cream, you've. You've broken your inner agreement. This is very important to revere that inner agreement. And then you broke.

Now you can forgive yourself and renegotiate it, of course, always, because we're not going to be perfect, but we're going to be 80%. And then you follow that and you master your inner levels in this way. Or maybe who comes forward to speak to you is your soul.

And your soul goes, I want more. I want more time in nature to feed my soul, to feel, feed all my parts of myself, whatever it is for you, and it'll be different for everybody.

The spiritual practice, and this is a spiritual practice, is to listen to these parts of yourself and then work with yourself to feed their needs. So in conflict, there is usually one party's need or both parties needs are not being met.

So it's one reason mediation doesn't work really well, because you work with compromise and compromise doesn't get people's needs met.

And people go away and they've come to an agreement, but nobody's happy about it, or they're a little bit happy about it, but they don't walk away fulfilling. But if you can ask what do you need?

And what do you need so you can come to attunement, you can come to where the againstness melts away and you come to peace. I think that's the deepest part of conflict resolution.

You can do inside yourself, which I just described with the campfire, and you can do it outside yourself with different parties, different people within a family, different groups, by asking what's the need that needs to be met? And then doing the action steps to fulfill those needs.

Michael Herst
00:40:48

I think it's a great observation for us to understand that any kind of conflict that we have, whether it be outside or internal, that we have the opportunity to address it in such a way that is comfortable with us and in such a way that we can also move ourselves away from that conflict and create a positive environment to grow from.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:41:08

Exactly. Well said. It's beautifully said. And the conflicts usually teach us something, whether it's within ourselves or without.

And if you're the peacemaker, you know, God bless you. That's a hard job. God bless you if you're the peacemaker.

Michael Herst
00:41:25

Yeah. Thank you. I think speaking for that community in all regards, we appreciate that because it is a tough job in that regard.

Which also brings me to the importance of community and support in any of these journeys. I think you mentioned it earlier in regard to your community or your tribe and so forth.

How important do you think it is to have and remain in community and to seek out that kind of community support?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:41:55

Oh, it's just such a key to a happy life. Because seeking out community support, friendships, connection is a key to happy life. I mean, this is where we get. We get.

I think our greatest fulfillment and joy is in relationship with others.

I mean, certainly solid time for self reflection and solitary time and silence in spiritual practices or in nature or however you do that is also necessary. You know, we need both. We're people, we're. We are a species. We are a herd species, aren't we? We like to move together.

Michael Herst
00:42:34

Yeah. It's interesting because I, you know, I watched. I don't know if you think about the Blue Zone of the Longevity Blue Zone and one of the.

There was a Netflix special that they had done on that. I kind of follow the eating habits of that whole process with the Blue Zone and Longevity.

And one of the main intersections, especially from Okinawa, Japan, is Community. And they had a segment in regard to that then where they had.

If somebody in the community, one of their spouses passes away, the rest of the community always ensures that the remaining spouse is still involved in community.

And they have a group that goes around and makes sure that they all stay in community so that none of those individuals that had lost someone is in despair, in grief, is alone. And they stress the importance of the community and how it's both physically and emotionally a necessity of. Of continuing to live and to.

And to live long and happy is having that community that you know that if something happens to you, those around you are going to come take care of you as well and be there for you. And then you could be there for them.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:43:48

And you can be there for them. Absolutely.

Michael Herst
00:43:51

It's pretty cool.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:43:52

There's so many ways to have community. You know, it could be pickleball. Right. It could be sports.

Michael Herst
00:43:58

Yeah.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:43:59

It can be choir. I love My choir community. It can be the horse community. What your spiritual community could be a coffee chat. Coffee chat.

Michael Herst
00:44:10

Go have a coffee chat.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:44:12

Podcast.

Michael Herst
00:44:13

A podcast. Exactly. A horse community. Community is great. How do you see intersection of science and spirituality living in the future?

Do you think there's a going to be a merge? Do you think it has any influence on what's going to take place?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:44:28

Oh, that's an interesting question. I. There's. There's a story where the scientists are walking up a mountain. They're doing what they do and they walk up the mountain.

They want to get to the top and when they get there, there's a priest. So science brought the pre. Brought them to the same place as a spiritual leader. I have a mass. I have a doctorate degree in spiritual science.

And what that so. And I started with hard sciences.

But what in my undergraduate spiritual science taught me and practicing that learning that taught me that we each have our own path to spirituality and to our soul in our spirit. And to watch what methods you can use to get the benefits you can use scientific method to. In spirituality.

What methods can you use to get the benefits you might be seeking for? So when I. So for example, if you, if yoga is.

If you have an intention, okay, A goal, an intention that you want to be the best person you can be, what methods do you use and what helps you to get there? And how do they change? Because they're always going to change. So.

And then how do you implement those so you can look at your life or your path of spirituality scientifically? Look, start with a hypothesis, okay?

If I practice sacred spiritual practices and define what those are for me and spend five minutes a day doing that, will I feel oneness with the universe, with God? Will I develop a relationship with my eternal self? Will I know where I go next after I leave this planet?

You can pose those hypotheses to yourself and then you can ask yourself what methods can I implement to work towards that? And if the MA and you practice those methods and then if those some don't work. Of course. Correct.

And then, and then measure or see what your benefits are. That's an approach to your own spiritual and life path that you can use at scientific.

Michael Herst
00:46:54

That's perfect. I think that works out really, really well because then you get, you get the. You get a basis and a foundation to.

To be able to build upon and move forward. It works really well. Yes, I know that you have a lot of offerings.

You have a website and you have a book and you've got some classes and some practices and some coaching. There's just a whole slew of multitude of things that people can do when they reach you. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how to reach you?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:47:24

Well, on my website, soul and spirit.netsalonspirit.net I have a complimentary daily inspirational quote if you'd like to receive in your email an inspirational quote from one of the spiritual masters throughout history I curated. I love reading the different masters throughout all the faith traditions. So I spent a very long time curating a daily quote for a year.

There's 365 of them. You can go on soul and spirit.net and just register and get those. And then I have the Yoga of Love, Light and Sound.

So you can actually see a little bit of Nadi Yoga. That's complimentary. I took my book, I made it an ebook. It's a hard bet book, but I made an ebook and that's complimentary.

And then I have a subscription program. So I took some of the ancient spiritual practices that I learned in the past 50 years and I put five recordings.

So an invocation, a teaching from one of the spiritual masters throughout history, an affirmation based on the teachings, an ancient chant that we've been talking about, and a guided meditation with stillness, five to seven minutes. And I made a subscription program. And if you, if you decide that you want to give spiritual practices a try, it's all done for you.

And then once a week I get on Zoom and you can ask me questions or we, we can share together. And also I do a guided meditation. So that's part of that subscription program.

So I just took everything and I just like, I want to give this to everyone.

Michael Herst
00:49:13

Yeah, you got a lot of stuff on your website. You got a lot of opportunity on your website. In fact, what I put up on screen was only a very a portion of what's available to everyone.

So you give opportunity for people to be able to improve their lives in such a way that they can walk away with something very positive. So thank you for being here. I really appreciate you sharing your journey with us and for creating that opportunity.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:49:39

Thank you, Michael. This has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you for letting me talk about my favorite subjects.

Michael Herst
00:49:46

We got to have another conversation. We just have to make sure that we continue this conversation because I'm sure you have much more that you can share with us.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:49:54

We didn't get into healing and I'd love to talk about that sometime.

Michael Herst
00:49:57

Well, you'll have to come back and we'll have to. We will have to do that. This is one more thing before you go. I know that we're cut on time. This is one more thing before you go.

But before we go, do you have any words of wisdom?

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:50:11

Find the things that open your heart, everyone, and make them a daily practice. And your life will blossom more than you could ever dream.

And there's so much adventure and so much fun in connecting with your soul and your spirit and just blessings, blessings on, on your path.

Michael Herst
00:50:31

Brilliant words of wisdom. I think we should all take those and put them on a sticky note and put them right on the computer screen in front of us.

Katherine, thank you very much, honestly, for, for sharing your journey and for being here with us today. I appreciate you very much.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:50:44

Namaste.

Michael Herst
00:50:46

For everyone else out there in the community, thank you very much for being a part of One More Thing before you Go. Please like share, subscribe and pass along and one more Thing before you all go. Have a great day. Have a great week and thank you for being here.

Dr. Katherine Corona
00:51:01

Thanks for listening to this episode of One More Thing before you Go.

Check out our website@beforeyougopodcast.com you can find us as well as subscribe to the program and rate us on your favorite podcast listening platform.