Today I am revealing my spiritual beliefs that have guided me towards living the life of my dreams. I really do live my dream life now where I can live on a tropical island, have an uncapped income, and can travel the world, unlike the life I used to live in my 9-5 job in New York. I recently went to a spiritual retreat and it really made me want to share these beliefs I hold with you and new things I have learned so you can change your life too.
In this episode we will cover:
Message me on Instagram: @christabellatravels
CODEWORD: Spiritual Podcast
Message me on Instagram:
(tell me you came from the podcast!)
https://www.instagram.com/christabellatravels/
FREE: How to Get Started as a Digital Nomad Masterclass (2 hr training)
https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/masterclass
Digital Nomad Starter Codes:
Discover the best remote career for YOUR personality
https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/offers/i5HuJjbk/checkout
Enroll in the Digital Nomad Life Academy
https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/dnla
Follow me on Tiktok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@christabellatravels
Today I am revealing my spiritual beliefs that have guided me towards living the life of my dreams. I really do live my dream life now where I can live on a tropical island, have an uncapped income, and can travel the world, unlike the life I used to live in my 9-5 job in New York. I recently went to a spiritual retreat and it really made me want to share these beliefs I hold with you and new things I have learned so you can change your life too.
In this episode we will cover:
Message me on Instagram: @christabellatravels
CODEWORD: Spiritual Podcast
Message me on Instagram:
(tell me you came from the podcast!)
https://www.instagram.com/christabellatravels/
FREE: How to Get Started as a Digital Nomad Masterclass (2 hr training)
https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/masterclass
Digital Nomad Starter Codes:
Discover the best remote career for YOUR personality
https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/offers/i5HuJjbk/checkout
Enroll in the Digital Nomad Life Academy
https://www.digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/dnla
Follow me on Tiktok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@christabellatravels
Christa Romano: [00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to the Digital Nomad Life podcast. I'm your host Christa, also known as ChristaBellaTravels on TikTok and Instagram. Always feel free to slide into my DMs and let me know if you heard this episode. I would love, love, love to hear your feedback, especially because today's episode is going to be, revealing much more of my personal self and revealing of my personal soul, my spiritual beliefs that have guided me towards living the life of my dreams.
Christa Romano: If this is your first time listening to this podcast, just to give you a little taste of who I am and who you are listening to right now. I've been a digital nomad for the past 10 plus years. I actually left the United States. I'm originally from Boston. I lived in New York City for a few years.
Christa Romano: I did the whole corporate rat race thing, working in an office job, trying to have that sex in the city life in New York City. City wearing pencil skirts to work and riding the subway and whatever. Anyway, after a few years, I got very disillusioned with that. realized I was living in a matrix [00:01:00] slash rat race and needed to get the F out.
Christa Romano: It was in 2013 that I had a. Huge shift in my life. To me, it feels like a rebirth. I always think about it as I did before 2013. That was my old life. And now I'm in my new life. I'm 10 years into my new life. And yeah, in 2013, what I did is I booked my first one way ticket to Thailand. And, uh, the rest is history.
Christa Romano: I have not lived in the United States since then, of course gone back to visit, but I have been able to make money online. And so, So many different ways as a freelancer, as a content creator, as a remote employee, as a contract worker, as a consultant, as a coach, just so, so, so many things. And now what I do is I am a remote entrepreneur.
Christa Romano: I have a business called the Digital Nomad Life Academy and I help people become digital nomads. And that's why I have this whole podcast, right? I'm here. Yes, of course, to educate you about my [00:02:00] business podcast is such a great marketing platform. And I just love that I'm able to talk so easily about what I do because I love, love, love what I do.
Christa Romano: I really get to make a difference in people's lives. And I know that the experiences I have had in my life And the things that I have learned and the wisdom that I have gained over my 10 years of living a, a pretty unconventional life, right? A life where I'm abroad, a life where I don't have a boss, where nobody tells me what to do, where I literally am the captain of my own life.
Christa Romano: This is pretty unconventional and I just know that the people that are listening to this podcast, people that found this podcast, you're here for a reason. And I just can't wait to share with you just some life philosophies that I have picked up, that I have really been living by over the past decade.
Christa Romano: And I hope that some of this can be transmitted to you and that it can make a difference in your life. That's what I'm [00:03:00] here for. So without further ado, I'd like to share with you the spiritual beliefs that have shaped my life into what it is today the most. And I'll be sure to share with you lots of recommendations of books that you can read and people that you can follow to just really start living life.
Christa Romano: on your own terms. Essentially, that is what I believe my mission on earth is, is just to help people live a more authentic life. So let's get into it.
Christa Romano: So before I get into what the beliefs actually are, I'd like to share with you what inspired this episode for me to record this at this particular time in my life. So of course I've had these beliefs for a long time. Um, I am personally someone who considers myself a very philosophical thinker and, uh, love existential conversations and all of that.
Christa Romano: So why am I making it right now? Well, if you know me, you know that I live in Bali, Indonesia, which is a super spiritual place. Um, it's very much a Hindu [00:04:00] island, but there's just religions from all around the world. people representing New Age spirituality, etc. as well. And, um, there's a place that's about an hour away from where I live in a city called Ubud called the Yoga Barn.
Christa Romano: that I went to last week for this two day spiritual philosophy course where I sat for 12 hours for two days in a row. So literally 24 hours of listening to this Indian man. I believe that he's a Sikh. talk about life philosophy, just talk about life. And, uh, yeah, I just have this whole, if you can hear it, beautiful notebook filled with notes that I took.
Christa Romano: And I guess my reflection on the whole workshop is that nothing that I heard was totally mind blowing and nothing about it was necessarily new to me. I mean, these are concepts that I've been thinking deeply about for a long time, but it just felt so good to be hearing it all said in a very concise, clear way where you just hear it and you [00:05:00] know that it is the truth.
Christa Romano: Um, it just makes sense. There's no refuting. So many of the things that he was sharing. So, that is what inspired this episode. And as I was just listening to all the things that this man was saying, I just thought I need to share this with my audience. I mean, this is the thing that will make the biggest impact on people's lives.
Christa Romano: So just a little bit more about what I do, right. I help people become digital nomads and the way that I do that is by first giving people a career assessment where I analyze not their work history, not their resume, but actually their personalities, their likes, dislikes, interests, and we really look at their subconscious beliefs about who they are and who they think they are and where they fit into the world, etc.
Christa Romano: So it's a really holistic approach. way of me tuning into my clients and then helping them come up with a remote business idea that feels really aligned to who they are as a person. Now, something that's really interesting that [00:06:00] happens in the career assessment process is that I might suggest something to someone.
Christa Romano: And even though there's indications all over there, Essentially, personality tests are a career assessment that I give them. They have this resistance of, Oh no, I can't do that. And then with further investigation of, I say, okay, well, why can't you do this? Because what I see as an objective third party, non biased person looking at you and you've given me all the information, I think that you'd be perfect for it based on information you gave me.
Christa Romano: So what's holding you back? And there is always some kind of belief. There is always some kind of belief. past experience or memory or relationship in that person's life, usually a relationship with their parents, actually, you know, a fear of judgment, et cetera, that holds that person back from fully flourishing in the thing that actually makes the most sense for them.
Christa Romano: So I feel really grateful that I have a great track record as a coach [00:07:00] and I can really help people understand why they have those beliefs. So that they can clear them and then actually move forward in life doing something that they were always actually meant to be doing. If you can hear it in my voice, I really light up when I talk about the work that I do.
Christa Romano: So the point is, I just know that it's the beliefs that literally change your life. It's not, actually, the step by step systems that you can follow. I mean, you do need the systems, but it's the beliefs underneath the systems that make the biggest difference. Just a side note, actually, I was talking to somebody in the DMs the other day, because you can always DM me on Instagram, right?
Christa Romano: I love to talk to you. Um, somebody in the DMs was like, Hey, I'm really interested in joining the Digital Nomad Life Academy, but I'm just curious, what's your success rate, like what's the ratio of clients that do well and the ones that don't. And the truth is I don't have a specific ratio because people come into the program and sometimes they have lifestyle goals, [00:08:00] sometimes they have career goals, sometimes they have personal goals, sometimes they need to heal, the number of people that I have helped support is not quantifiable.
Christa Romano: But I did say, well, I do, I have 30 photos of me with other clients who once they have created a business, they've come to Bali and met me. And then there's lots of other people that are all over the world that I haven't met yet that are still doing the Nomad thing. So I definitely have a great track record and I could give you a number of You know, I could come up with a number, but what really matters is why that person was asking about the failure in the first place.
Christa Romano: So my response to that is it's not me that will dictate whether my clients fail or not. My step by step system works. It clearly works because Dozens of people have been able to follow it and then they get the results and then they quit their jobs. They start making money online and they travel the world.
Christa Romano: So the ones that don't, what makes them different? It's not because they can't do it. It's because they [00:09:00] believe that they can't do it. And that brings me into the very first belief that I will share with you.
Christa Romano: The first belief that I want to share with you is really the foundation of everything else that I'm about to say and that is that I am a soul having a human experience or a spirit having a human experience. Not necessarily a human having a spiritual experience, but it is the other way around.
Christa Romano: Inherently what I am is consciousness, is a soul, is a spirit. With that as a foundational belief. I think it's important to consider what is a soul and what is a spirit. Well it's not necessarily something we can touch, it's not necessarily something that's tangible. Essentially, it's energy. And a really important belief, and this is not just a spiritual belief but it's also actually quantum physics, is that everything in our universe is energy.
Christa Romano: We are energy. [00:10:00] Actually, that is 99. 99999999 however many nine percent of what we are. The amount of matter in our universe is so incredibly small compared to the negative space and compared to energy. We live in an energetic universe, and we really cannot forget this if we want to completely change our life.
Christa Romano: Because when we remember that we live in an energetic universe, We start believing in the unknown, and we start understanding that there is more than just what we can actually see with our physical eye. There is more than what we can just touch with our physical hands. You start to understand that everything is an energetic vibration, and when you know that, You can start being conscious of energetic vibrations and then you can start working with it and being more conscious of it.
Christa Romano: The things that you are conscious of, you have access to altering and changing. The beautiful thing about [00:11:00] energy is that because it's not matter, it can be very easily transformed and transmuted in an instant. Your vibration, right? When people say, Oh, this person has a high vibe or low vibe. That is a thing.
Christa Romano: Like we are all literally vibrating and you have the power to change your vibration.
Christa Romano: Just a little thought exercise for you right now. What is something that you can do or that you do that just makes you feel better? Is it having a cup of coffee in the morning? Is it the feeling of the sun on your skin? Is it having a beautiful connected conversation with someone you love? Is it a hug? Sure, the skeptics might say, yeah, well, all those things obviously release some kind of chemical in our brain and that's why we feel different.
Christa Romano: And I'm not saying that that isn't true, like it is true that there are, you know, chemical signs and symptoms of these things happening, but at the end of the day, what's happening is your experience, which is that you feel [00:12:00] differently. You are literally vibrating differently. This conversation is not void of science and logic, by the way.
Christa Romano: I love combining science and logic with my spiritual beliefs because they all work together. And actually, the more science we can put behind our spiritual beliefs, the more I believe them. And then that makes me feel even more empowered to change my life. So it's important to remember that even though what we as humans can experience is physical matter, what actually is our universe is energy and energy is always in motion.
Christa Romano: So here's a spiritual philosophy that came out of the course that I just took, which is that in our energetic universe, we are always moving and therefore we are either moving towards something or or away from something, but we are never actually static. When people write to me and they tell me, Krista, I would love to become a digital nomad, but I just feel so stuck.
Christa Romano: That's not true. [00:13:00] It's not possible to ever actually be stuck. Whether you are not moving or not, everything around you is moving. And therefore no day, no situation, no belief system is ever exactly the same as it was the day before. I would encourage you to think about sending me that message and sharing with me that you feel stuck is actually on the linear graph of moving away or closer to your dreams.
Christa Romano: Sending that message is moving closer to your dreams because you have just taken action. You have just taken an action to move yourself closer by connecting with somebody who you see as someone who could possibly help you. Which, yes, I absolutely can help you. That's literally what I have dedicated my life and my career to.
Christa Romano: So, even though you might feel stuck, you are never actually stuck. So if you're never actually stuck, what you need to consider is, am I moving closer to the direction of my dreams or farther away from the direction of my dreams? Listening to this podcast, I would definitely argue [00:14:00] moving closer to your dreams.
Christa Romano: You took an action to discover this podcast, to click on it. You've dedicated your time to listening to it. And right now what you are doing is actively shifting something inside of you. You are actively working on changing the way that you think about life so that you can move closer to your dreams. So I just want to remind you that no matter how stuck you feel, you are not actually stuck, but Are you moving away from your dreams?
Christa Romano: Most people, I would argue, are moving away from their dreams when they are not interested in personal development, when they are not taking it upon themselves to seek out mentorship, when they are telling themselves, Oh, I can just grateful for exactly where I am in life and gaslight myself into saying that, Oh, I'm doing what I was supposed to do.
Christa Romano: So therefore, I should just be happy and stay exactly where I am. That, I would say, is actually moving away from your dreams because you're not even focusing [00:15:00] on your dreams now. Now what you're doing is focusing on what you, quote, should be doing. Another belief, and I say this a lot in my podcast, this one really, I think, is super important, is the concept that when we are born as humans, we come into this world in this.
Christa Romano: same exact way as everybody else, and we also leave this world in exactly the same way as everybody else. So when we all come into the earth in the same way as everybody else, we are all on the same playing field. There is no person that is more godly or deserves more than anybody else. We are all even, we are all equal.
Christa Romano: But that is something that we very quickly unlearn in our early years of life. Because when we are children, we are not fully autonomous, and we don't have freedom, and we also don't have full access to all of our brainwaves. And we have caregivers that are feeding beliefs that they have and maybe what they [00:16:00] believe is that they are in control over your life because you are their offspring and so they teach you that they are closer to God or that they are more of an authority over your life than you are and so what they share with you is that you quote should be any certain way.
Christa Romano: You should be growing up to become a doctor or a lawyer or you should be pursuing sports versus art, but what we have to remember is that that person, yes, they're your mom, yes, they're your dad, they have only been on earth for Earth on planet Earth for anywhere between 15 to probably 50 something years more than you, which actually in the grand scheme of humanity, it's really not that many years.
Christa Romano: What kind of wisdom could somebody who is just a few decades older than you possibly hold that would make them more godlike than you? when you all came to earth the same way. And I share this because as a coach I'm often listening to [00:17:00] people share with me what their belief systems are and when they use the word should specifically that tells me that they are living in a state where they are being controlled by another person's belief systems.
Christa Romano: And yes we can absolutely respect and admire and appreciate what other people think is the best way to do life, but at the end of the day, that person doesn't actually know any more than we could know. Because no one knows what is the right way to do life, and there are infinite ways to do life. And even if, you know, you really love and admire the way that your parents did life, your circumstances are always going to be different than theirs, because you were born in a different generation.
Christa Romano: So it's just not possible to do things the same way as anybody else. So why are we trying? At the end of the day, we are all here on earth born to live a life that is true for our very specific and unique soul and spirit. So when I hear someone say, Oh, [00:18:00] I should be doing this, or I should be whatever in my head, I know that that is an indication that they are not being authentic to who they are.
Christa Romano: So as a little thought exercise, I'd like to ask you right now, what do you think you should be doing with your life? Now that you are whatever age that you're at, where do you think you should be in life? And now I want to ask you, why do you think that you should be that way? The only reason why you think you should be any particular way is because you are allowing some other earthly being to control your life's narrative.
Christa Romano: And we got to stop that if you want to be happy. If you want to actually be living life that is meant for your soul and your soul. spirit. Your soul and your spirit are unique and you deserve to live a life where you are expressing your own soul and your spirit as uniquely as possible, as authentically as possible, as true to yourself as [00:19:00] possible.
Christa Romano: In the society that we live in though, there is a lot of pressure that is coming from other energetic beings and that can make us weak to start following our authentic expressions. So when I say that we are holy and uniquely responsible for our own life, that is true and I'm not saying that it's easy to take full responsibility for your life, but it is your responsibility.
Christa Romano: Every time that we blame someone for something else and we say, oh well because that happened to me when I was a kid or because my boss is treating me this way or my boyfriend or my girlfriend is acting this way so therefore I am feeling in this vibration and therefore it's stopping me from living my full expression or because my parents, you know, put all this pressure on me.
Christa Romano: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, sorry, it's your fault, it's your fault that you're unhappy because you always are in motion. So what are you doing with that [00:20:00] motion to either move you closer Or further away from where you want to be remember it's not always easy to move you closer to where you want to be Like I recently went through a breakup and that shit was hard Like I didn't want to break up, but I just knew that this relationship was not serving my highest purpose And I could have easily stayed in the relationship.
Christa Romano: I could have easily made it work. I could have chosen love, right? I could have chosen that path. And actually that would have been the path of least resistance. It's easier to continue on the same path that we have been on. It's easier to let other people convince us of what is right for us. It's easy for us to take direction from another.
Christa Romano: But that also would not be the case. taking full ownership of your life. The truth is though, you always are in ownership of your life. So when you are listening to somebody else, essentially what you're doing is lying to yourself [00:21:00] because you're still choosing and it's still a decision, right? It's still your responsibility.
Christa Romano: Like it's your responsibility that you listened to another person. Hope that makes sense. I think I spoke about it in another episode recently, but I had a client that was just telling me about how, um, he doesn't have the time to be working on his side business because the company that he works for is very, very, very demanding.
Christa Romano: When I first started working with him, I was like, okay, well, let's try to find a way that we can carve out some time or some energy for him. for you to actually be working on your business while maintaining this job. But at the end of the day, like literally just the, the job really is that demanding and he actually just doesn't have the time.
Christa Romano: So that's a situation where my client could fall into this victim situation like, Oh, but I really want to have a business, but I can't because of this situation that's outside of me. It's like, no, every day that you go into that. You are choosing to go there. There is no person that's [00:22:00] forcing you to do that.
Christa Romano: There is no person that's forcing you to keep that job. The reason why you're keeping that job, the reason why you're going along with this situation is because you are choosing to do that. So that would be a situation where my client is not a victim. He is very much in control over his own life, but he's giving his power away.
Christa Romano: And he's lying to himself that he's out of power. He's giving that power away to his employer. So I just want to ask you, who are you giving your power away to? Who are you blaming? For why your life is the way that it is, and what can you do today to start changing the direction of your energy to move closer to your dreams?
Christa Romano: What can you do today to start taking more ownership of your life?
Christa Romano: Now just a few things that I know like the typical listener of this podcast could do. One could be finding out another way to make an income so [00:23:00] that you are happier on a day to day basis, have more energy on a day to day basis, maybe you have more time on a day to day basis, but just if you are unhappy with your current professional situation, you have to recognize that there is nothing besides yourself.
Christa Romano: self that's actually genuinely keeping you there. So you know, you might have to make the hard decision to take a pay cut or you might have to take the hard decision to, I don't know, even default on your loans or something. But like, the point is. That's still a decision that might be moving you closer to your dream life, or you might say no, defaulting on my loans is absolutely going to move me farther away from my dream life for this reason, this reason, and this reason.
Christa Romano: And okay, I don't know your life, don't know what's going to move you closer or farther away from the direction of your dreams, but you are the one that knows and you might have to do some creative thinking, some creative problem solving in order to figure out what that path [00:24:00] is. But this is what I'm saying, like, you got to take responsibility for what's happening in your life.
Christa Romano: And you're the only one that can do it. There is no one that's coming to save you. You are the captain of your ship. And you are responsible and there is no one to blame but yourself.
Christa Romano: And every day, in every minute, in everything that you do, you are an energetic being in an energetic universe and therefore you are either moving closer or further away from where you ultimately want to be.
Christa Romano: Okay. I think that's a good little wrap up of that one. Now I'm going to move on, it's kind of a new collection of beliefs, which really have to do with tuning into what it is that you want in life and how are other people affecting how you take action on what you want in life. Something that I think was a belief that was given to me when I was a child was that [00:25:00] choosing happiness is selfish and that it might even actually be wrong to choose what makes you happy.
Christa Romano: That what you should choose is what's right for other people or what's better for society or for humanity. But actually what is good for humanity and society. Are you doing what makes you happy? Because when you do what makes you happy, when you are living out to the fullest expression of your soul, that is how you're actually going to be able to contribute to humanity in the biggest possible way.
Christa Romano: Maybe it's not even contributing to humanity. Maybe it's just contributing to the people around you. Which, by the way, whoever the people that are around you are temporary people. That's another big belief, too, is that when we enter this world, we are on our own. Even if you're an identical twin, you still are entering this world literally on your own.
Christa Romano: And sure, you enter the world [00:26:00] to whoever your biological parents are, but in most cases, we exit this world without our biological parents and everything that happens in between. We are not with our biological parents every single step of the way. They never have a full context of who we are as a person because we have friends.
Christa Romano: We have our own experiences. We were born in a different generation. We have watched different TV shows. We've just been influenced by different things. And we have different lives. The thing to remember there is that You are. on your own in this life. And sure, you will have companions along the way, but ultimately, because it is just you having an experience on this earth on your own, you always need to be looking out for yourself rather than people pleasing and choosing someone else.
Christa Romano: I like to envision this concept as, us all being on a little rocket ship, like a little one [00:27:00] person rocket and we all are starting off our journey of life in our own little rocket ship and we might be riding our little rocket ships alongside our mom and dad for a little while and then, you know, we kind of veer a little bit to the right and they veer a little bit to the left, we veer to the right when we're going to school and then we start riding along other little rocket ships and then we have a whole little gang of cute little rockets when we're a kid and then as we get older, as we get further along in our path, we're new rockets come into place.
Christa Romano: And then, you know, at some point our parents drop off and then someone else comes in. And maybe there's one other special person, our person, our romantic life partner, who rides their rocket ship with us until the end. But they weren't there with us at the beginning. And the chances of them being there with us until the very, very end are actually pretty slim.
Christa Romano: And that's only probably one rocket ship. So, this is just a reminder to you to stop pleasing people and remember that your rocket ship [00:28:00] is only riding along someone temporarily in this lifetime and therefore, you should not be driving. Changing your entire life to make that other person's little rocket ship journey more comfortable.
Christa Romano: That person in their rocket ship, it's probably one of your parents, right? Who's sharing with you that, Oh, but they're going to be sad if you move away or they're going to be disappointed if you don't become a lawyer or whatever. That's their journey to be disappointed. That's their journey to be sad that their kid is moving away. But your journey. is your journey and it is only your journey and it will ever only be your journey so that's why again you really need to take full responsibility over your life and not let someone else drive your rocket ship because they're not going in the same place as you they're not going to end up in the same place as you now i've heard some people like i've shared that metaphor with other [00:29:00] people and they're like oh wow that's kind of dire like that's bleak it's a bit sad it's a bit depressing but it's just the reality.
Christa Romano: And I mean, if anything, I think you can, take that metaphor and think, wow, it's so special that I get to ride my little rocket ship alongside somebody else for any length of time. That's so cool that we get to share our experience with other people and that we get to understand what other people's journeys are like.
Christa Romano: The deeper that we can go with them, the more that we can learn about even what's possible out there. there. Like what are the horizons that we could explore? So back to the rocket ship example, and the desire thing. Okay, so your desires are sacred because your desire, when it's clean and unaffected by other people projecting their desires onto you, your path in life will become much clearer and more straightforward.
Christa Romano: Something that so many people say to me when I first start working with them is that they feel out of touch with [00:30:00] their passions. They think that they don't have any passions, or they don't know who they are, they don't know what they're good at, or they don't believe that they are good at anything. But my answer to that is always, that's not true.
Christa Romano: That is just the dust from other people's little rocket ships that have been covering your windshields. Because we all have desires, but we hide our desires. We suppress our desires because we are people pleasing other people. So when you stop pleasing people, when you really get in touch with who I am, what is my unique purpose on this earth?
Christa Romano: Where do I want to go? That's how you can start. driving in your straight line. And then the people that are going in the same direction as you will naturally start to enter into your life. And that's also, by the way, how you're going to start attracting more beautiful relationships into your life, more relationships into your life of people that deeply, deeply resonate with you, that see you for who [00:31:00] you are.
Christa Romano: Something else that really comes up with a lot of my clients is that when they first start working with me, they think, Oh, like, I just don't know anybody who's doing this. And some people that I share in confidence that I want to become a digital nomad, or I want to quit my job and go travel the world, or I want to just live life in a slightly different way.
Christa Romano: They think that I'm crazy. And that's because they're not. They're just not going in the same direction as you, but you've been trying to go in the same direction as them. Or you've been following a path that was laid out before you by a different person, but it wasn't actually your own. So, as I've said several times, and I say it often, and I have a whole episode called It's Not Easy, But It's Possible, It's not easy.
Christa Romano: to wipe that dust off the windshield. It's not easy to choose your own path. It's not easy to get actually really clear on who you are because there is a lot of other people's energy affecting us. So it's not easy to do this, right? It's not [00:32:00] easy to drive your rocket ship in a straight line which will be the easiest and quickest you know, the most beautiful path of least resistance for you and your soul.
Christa Romano: So it's not easy, but it's possible. And if you want to live a better life, if you want to change your life, which of course you do, if you're still listening to this crazy existential episode, then you do. You do want to change your life. You do want to have a better life and you deserve to have a better life just like everybody deserves to have the best possible life.
Christa Romano: And that brings me to the next point. What makes a good life? What makes an extraordinary life? So in this spiritual, philosophy course that I took last week, guru, um, was asking us this question, what makes an extraordinary life? And then everybody would go around and they'd think about what their answers are.
Christa Romano: And I'd actually encourage you to pause this episode and think, what do you believe makes an extraordinary life? Well, I can share with you what I said to the guru when he asked me that question. And so what my answer was [00:33:00] is, I think that an extraordinary life is one that involves contribution. When I think of people that I believe are extraordinary and who have lived extraordinary lives, I think about people that have made extraordinary contributions.
Christa Romano: big impacts on humanity. and then lots of other people had different answers that, yeah, were super different than mine. But what the guru said is actually what makes an extraordinary life is the moments of happiness that you get to experience on a minute by minute basis. And at first I thought, hmm, are you trying to tell me that Steve Jobs, for example, didn't live an extraordinary life because I'm pretty sure he made a huge contribution to humanity by developing the iPhone and, you know, just Apple in general.
Christa Romano: And, uh, he made such a big impact, and, is that not extraordinary? The reason I'm bringing him up is because I know that most people that worked with Steve Jobs said that he was a very challenging person to be with, and I think [00:34:00] Difficult people are not happy people, right? they're difficult because they're experiencing some kind of deep internal difficult battle and they're unhappy.
Christa Romano: So, um, what I understand is that I don't think that Steve Jobs was super happy on a day to day basis, but was he not extraordinary? And what the guru said is, well, even if he is making a great contribution to humanity, to society, what did he think about his life? when he was dying. And actually then the guru shared that Steve Jobs, like a fact about him, was that he ended up giving the book of the autobiography of a yogi to everybody around him before he passed.
Christa Romano: so he had realized towards the end of his life that he hadn't lived a life that he felt was extraordinary. And if we are all here on our own life mission, then it doesn't matter what society thinks about our life being extraordinary. All that matters is how we feel at the end of life. That is what will make us extraordinary.[00:35:00]
Christa Romano: And when we can look back on our life and say, I lived a happy life, that is the most extraordinary thing. Personally, I feel that I live an extraordinary life when I look back on so many of my memories over the past 10 years. I mean, okay, my life was not extraordinary before I left the Matrix. My life was not extraordinary when I was living in New York City because I was sad.
Christa Romano: I was depressed all the time. I was riding this underground subway to work all the time. I had seasonal depression and I was feeling bullied by my boss and my coworkers and, um, I was not doing work that fulfilled me. I was not doing anything that felt meaningful. I wasn't happy. And so what did I do?
Christa Romano: I didn't play the victim. And I, I took some crazy scary action and I faced the fear of criticism that I had, which people did criticize me. They judged me deeply to my face, behind my back, etc. But I still did the scary thing and then I took action and changed [00:36:00] my life. By learning new things, by booking the plane ticket, just by taking action.
Christa Romano: And now, I think back over the past 10 years and just all, oh my gosh, just the dazzling memories. Literally moments where I have been brought to tears by the sight in front of me. Like, I have this one specific memory of being in Norway. Up in Arctic Norway, the mountains are just unreal. They're so jagged.
Christa Romano: It looks like dinosaurs or like, um, pterodactyls or whatever should be flying around the tops of the mountains and then you see the fjords, which are this tropical shade of blue, the water in them and the sky is purple and it's been sunset for hours because you're way up in the Arctic and you just know that the northern lights are coming out soon and then when it's golden hour, which also lasts forever because sunset takes so long because you're way up in the Arctic.
Christa Romano: The lighting on the tall golden grass is just, I felt like I was in the presence of God or some kind of higher spirit who knew that I was there or had [00:37:00] guided me to that moment. And I was just walking around by myself and yes, I cried. I think that when I die, I will think about that moment and I will Use that moment as a Anecdote to say I did live an extraordinary life.
Christa Romano: And why did I live an extraordinary life? Because I choose what makes me happy. I choose what is right for me as hard as it is. Like I said, you know, leaving my last relationship was devastating and so sad. And also, I knew that I would be really, really hurting my partner, but I had to do what was right for me because my path, we were just not going in the same direction.
Christa Romano: I just had this intuitive sense that His rocket ship was not going to be the one that was going to be with me for the rest of my life. And that's hard to do. It's hard to admit. But if I want my life to continue to be extraordinary, I have to do the hard things and I have to continue choosing myself and my path in order to end my life in a way that it will feel [00:38:00] extraordinary.
Christa Romano: Just real quick on that same note about the extraordinary life is that when I shared my question about, wait Guru, were you telling me that Steve Jobs didn't live an extraordinary life? And then he said, oh, do you really think that he felt that it was extraordinary? And then he shared this quote by Alexander the Great.
Christa Romano: Right? This person that, you know, for generations, millennia, we look back and we think about this person. We think, wow, he lived an extraordinary life. He conquered half the world. He was more successful than maybe any person in human history, which, by the way, is true. We have to talk about what defines success, that's a whole other conversation, but he's touted as someone who's been incredibly successful.
Christa Romano: His name is Alexander the Great. Actually, he has a quote where when he was dying, he said, bury me in the coffin with my hands out, my hands out of the coffin, so that the world can see that I am leaving empty handed. Wow, so [00:39:00] powerful, right? Like people that come into this earth, Alexander the Great, sure, he was born as an aristocrat as a, I don't know, whatever.
Christa Romano: I don't know his history, but I'm sure he was born into some kind of important family. So maybe he had privilege. Maybe he had some kind of societal privilege and he did a lot, right? He took massive action. And then when he was leaving. Life, why did all of that matter? He was still going out the same way as everybody else.
Christa Romano: And at the end, when we have no kind of material possessions to leave life with, all we have are our memories. All we have are our feelings and our emotions. All we have is our ability to be grateful for the life that we lived. And I'm just imagining, I mean, I don't know Alexander the Great, but I'm just imagining that for someone to be such a fierce leader, he probably had to live with a lot of anger in his heart.
Christa Romano: He probably had to live life not being super happy, but being full of anger. conviction, [00:40:00] right? Of, uh, let's, we're going to go out there and we're going to conquer this other country. And, you know, you have to have some kind of power and motivation behind whatever it is that you're doing, especially if you're going to do something so great.
Christa Romano: So I'm just guessing that his general vibe throughout his life wasn't necessarily super happy and peaceful. So did he live an extraordinary life? I mean, sure to society, but again, what does it matter? What does it matter at the end?
Christa Romano: At the end, what matters is how we feel about ourselves. So as we are responsible for every single thing in our life, we have to take responsibility and do things, even if they're hard to make our life become what we want it to become, because our desires are sacred and we cannot be living life being dictated by other people's desires that wouldn't be authentic.
Christa Romano: But why do we do it? Okay, so now this is another belief that I think is so important to share. This one's so game [00:41:00] changing. And that is a concept of projection. so one of my favorite books ever is The Four Agreements. And actually, there's another book that I read first called The Fifth Agreement.
Christa Romano: So I can't remember which one this came from, but The author talks about this concept of projection, which essentially is the lens through which we see the world based on what is in our subconscious. Okay, so now I gotta stop and describe what is a subconscious, right? So the consciousness, consciousness right now in my consciousness, I am aware of the words that are coming out of my mouth.
Christa Romano: I am conscious of the fact that I am thinking, I mean, that's just because I'm actually paying attention to it in this exact moment because I'm talking about it, but I'm kind of conscious of the fact that I hear some noises outside and I'm a little bit distracted by it. I'm conscious of the fact that my stomach is growling because I haven't had lunch yet.
Christa Romano: I'm hungry. And what's in my subconscious, is all of my memories, all [00:42:00] of the vocabulary words that I have, all of the mechanisms that are making my stomach growl, all of my belief systems, my motivation behind creating this podcast episode, all of the relationships in my life and how I feel about them and the state of my heart and my vibration and all of the All that is in my subconscious, we, of course, are not always conscious of what is in our subconscious.
Christa Romano: they're at different levels, but our subconscious is so much bigger than our consciousness. If you have Google handy, you can bring up an image of an iceberg and they say that an iceberg is a good representation of our consciousness versus subconsciousness. Our consciousness is the tip of the iceberg.
Christa Romano: That's above the surface. sea level. But what's below sea level is the rest of the iceberg, which is like 75 percent of the whole mass. And actually, I think that our subconscious is even more than 75%. Our consciousness is really just one little part about what's happening [00:43:00] in our internal experience. Our subconscious holds the keys.
Christa Romano: And so, What the guru was describing this weekend. I thought this was such a great metaphor. He said think about two computers. If you have a regular computer or a super computer you could say a MacBook Air versus a MacBook Pro like the best one that you could possibly have with all the Space and the fastest mechanisms and whatever.
Christa Romano: What is the main difference between the two computers? And the main difference is the hard drive. The main difference is the memory. The computer that holds more memory has more power. And therefore, if your consciousness is a MacBook Air, your consciousness is a regular computer, and your subconscious is the high powered MacBook Pro with all the memory, when the two are needing to complete a task, which one will accomplish a task.
Christa Romano: more efficiently and better and faster? [00:44:00] Of course, the answer is the one with more memory, the more powerful one. And your subconscious is so much more powerful than your consciousness. But we don't always have access to what is in our subconsciousness. So Basically, a key to life is developing your consciousness and making your conscious mind bigger, and more powerful and more aware of what's happening.
Christa Romano: When you can become more aware of what is in your subconscious, of what your actual beliefs are, of what are your core memories, of what meanings you made behind your memories, of how different relationships impact your life. Not just relationships with people, but relationships with things, with concepts, like your relationship to money, your relationship to safety, your relationship to security, your relationship to love, to friendship.
Christa Romano: Like, you need to understand how you relate to all those concepts. so that you can have more consciousness about [00:45:00] how you relate to them and therefore then you can take stronger more deliberate action towards changing your life because otherwise your subconsciousness is going to keep running the freaking show of your life and guess what your subconscious hates the most?
Christa Romano: Your subconscious hates to feel fear. Your subconscious will do anything to get you out of a state of fear. So it will sabotage you. It will make you blurt things out that you didn't mean to say will trigger you, will cause you to have an emotional reaction. Which by the way, I think another big belief that I have that really changed my life is that emotions are, are not bad.
Christa Romano: And even though an emotion might be big, it doesn't mean that it's wrong. And, um, it's okay for us to experience the emotion of, feeling sadness, of feeling anger, of feeling fear. Like, As humans, we were given all of these emotions and for us to be in our full human expression, we should be experiencing all of them in our life.
Christa Romano: Like if we're [00:46:00] suppressing any one of them, we're actually not living out our full human experience and potential. But the thing is, we wanna have a bit more control. over our emotions. We don't just want to react in anger and fear. But the reason why we do it is because our subconscious is ruling the show.
Christa Romano: Okay, so I keep saying this is a big concept. This is a big concept. And the concept is projection. So I just needed to clarify what the subconscious actually was in order to get to the projection part. But the thing is that every human has their own subconscious. We're really only sharing with each other.
Christa Romano: our consciousness, um, but our subconscious, what's really running the show. Okay. In our subconscious, again, remember there's fear and there's beliefs and our subconscious is what colors our perception of the world. We are all seeing out of our eyes with a lens over our eyes. And that lens is our.
Christa Romano: projection into the world. So let's say that I'm wearing [00:47:00] rose colored glasses and that's the way that I see the world. Just because I see the world with a shade of pink, someone else might be seeing the world with the shade of blue because that's what their glasses are. That's what their subconscious projections are going to create for them.
Christa Romano: So when someone is talking to me and I say, Oh, interesting. That person's hair is pink. I'm actually seeing that person's hair as pink because really what their truth is, is that they're platinum blonde. But when I wear rose colored glasses, I'm seeing it as pink. I promise I'm going to get to the point here, but someone else who's wearing blue glasses is going to see that person's hair as blue.
Christa Romano: So what we need to understand is that every person, the way that they interact with us is. is because they are wearing some kind of specific glasses that's making them see a situation in a specific way. And they're wearing those glasses so the way that they see the situation is their truth. But it is only their truth.
Christa Romano: It is not [00:48:00] necessarily your truth. It is theirs. And your glasses are going to be different. Your glasses are unique. Everybody has different memories and they came into this world at different times and different generations. They have different friends. They have different experiences. So no person has the same pair of glasses that they are seeing the world through.
Christa Romano: So we all of course, we want to see eye to eye. We want to be more detailed in explaining what it is that we are seeing, but a lot of people aren't conscious enough. To do that. A lot of people aren't conscious enough to fully express themselves. Instead, what they're doing is just blurting out whatever it is that they see expecting that the other person is going to see without taking into account the fact that that person has different glasses on.
Christa Romano: So you're like, okay, Crystal, what the hell are you talking about? Why is this relevant to becoming a digital nomad? So the reason why I think about projection all the time is because as I shared with you, um, you know, when I first really changed my life, when I kind of had this rebirth, like when I booked my first ticket to Thailand, everybody looked at me like I had three [00:49:00] heads and why did they do that?
Christa Romano: But when, for me, I was seeing the world through my lens, through my projection. And my lens was that I have all these spiritual beliefs that I, of course, shared with you today and that I believe that the purpose of my life is to do what lights me up the most. That's how I'm going to contribute the most to this world and maybe I don't have all the answers right now, but I know that what lights me up is traveling and I, I, just need to do that.
Christa Romano: Of course, we can all connect the dots looking backwards and we can see, oh, if Krista 10 years ago had not pursued her dream life, she wouldn't be impacting all these people that she's helping change their lives. So I didn't know why. booking that first one way plane ticket was going to do to my life and how it was going to help me contribute to society, but I just had to trust and believe that following my passion was my ultimate purpose.
Christa Romano: So I did, right? But other people didn't see it that way because other people are scared of following their passions and why are they scared? Probably because they have other people [00:50:00] around them that have judged them in the past and made them feel bad. judge them in the past and it hurt their feelings, which by the way, I was thinking about this today in a yoga class, but the concept of hurting feelings is like we can hurt our body, right?
Christa Romano: And we can actually see the physical mark on our body when our body is hurt. Um, but a feeling, how do we hurt a feeling? A feeling is an energy. So what's real, right? Like we are, our energy can be hurt. Our energy can change a vibration when we hear it. We're like, altering that energy of our feelings.
Christa Romano: Anyway, so other people who have had their feelings hurt are scared of things because they have been judged in the past. So what they are reacting to when I share with them something that they would have been scared by, they would have been scared to do, they were reacting from their lens from the whatever colored glasses they were wearing.
Christa Romano: And that's what they were [00:51:00] projecting onto me. So I had to be very strong in that moment because it was scary for me to be judged by so many people. Like, we don't want to feel like everybody's judging us. We don't want to feel like people think that we're crazy. I mean, there's all kinds of biological reasons why we are so averse to judgment.
Christa Romano: but what was stronger for me was my belief to do something that felt right for me. What was stronger for me was my desire to travel the world. So luckily that was so strong. and therefore I was able to just get past all of these really heavy projections.
Christa Romano: Because of that, I had to do really heavy projections. Take a lot of breaths and remember, okay, this person, um, you know, they're, they're telling me that I'm crazy. They're looking at me like I have three heads, but it's probably because they are wearing these different glasses than me, and that's their truth and their experience.
Christa Romano: Good for them. Good for them for [00:52:00] having that kind of different experience. They are on their rocket ship. They started their rocket ship in one place. They had all these things that happened to them on their journey and they're going to end in a different place than me. So therefore, whatever their judgments are of me don't necessarily matter or I don't want to make them matter to me.
Christa Romano: I could have made them matter. I could have, you know, changed my behavior because of that. And that would have been my responsibility. back to the first belief, right? The first belief is we are wholly responsible for our lives. And if you are someone who is very sensitive to judgment, you need to understand that it is your responsibility to stop being so sensitive to other people's judgment.
Christa Romano: And hopefully with the beliefs that I shared today, you will feel more empowered to not Feel so worried about what other people think of you because what other people think of you literally doesn't matter. What other people want for your life doesn't matter. What other people expect of you to do What other [00:53:00] people want you to do what other people think that you should do or how you should be It doesn't matter It doesn't matter.
Christa Romano: You have to get clear on who you are, what you want, what your soul is intended to do here on this earth. And you might not have all the answers, but following your passion, just tuning into what will make you happy and remembering that it's Selfish to choose your happiness. Ultimately, the path will unfold.
Christa Romano: Ultimately, you know, sometimes our suffering ends up creating our biggest lessons and therefore our greatest contributions. So the final belief that I want to leave you with is that everything is always happening for a reason. You, you are not a victim, right? Everything is happening for you. Even if you were a victim, technically when you were a child, whatever happened to you when you were a child, you've got to trust that ultimately it happened for you because it shaped you.
Christa Romano: It shaped your beliefs. It [00:54:00] shapes your perception and however you perceive things, whatever your beliefs are, is your contribution to planet earth. And When you can just get really clear on who you are and what you can learn from those earlier experiences, you sharing your learnings, you sharing your wisdoms is what's going to be your biggest contribution and you don't need to understand it all right now.
Christa Romano: You've got to trust the process. Remember that you're in this game called life, this rocket ship that's going real fast and someday it will end and we don't know when it's going to end. So you owe it to yourself to just wipe the dust off of your windshield, get clear on who you are, get clear on where you are going and go fearlessly in that direction.
Christa Romano: Take action. Remember that you are always moving one way or another, either towards the direction of your dreams or away from them. And you are the only one that can [00:55:00] drive your rocket ship. No one's coming to save you. It is you and only you from the minute that you're born until the minute that you die.
Christa Romano: So you might as well make the most out of it and choose to do things that make you happy because that is how you will live an extraordinary life. And I believe that if you're listening to this podcast, you want an extraordinary life. A digital nomad's life is extraordinary, which by the way, being a digital nomad doesn't mean anything specific.
Christa Romano: It just means that you're free. It just means that you're going where you want to go, that you're working when you want to work, that you're existing where you want to exist, that you're being where you want to be, that you're doing what makes you happy. To me, people that are digital nomads are usually pretty stoked on life because why wouldn't they be?
Christa Romano: They're just living life the way that they want to live, which, remember, is not selfish. Someone else projects onto you that it's selfish. That's their way of seeing the world. It's their lens. It's their perception and it doesn't matter what [00:56:00] other people think. What matters is what you think. So hopefully that little rant at the end tied it all together and hopefully you feel more empowered now than ever to actually take some action and start changing your life.
Christa Romano: Like remember you're not stuck. We're in, we're in ever, ever moving vibrating universe and uh, you can always take action and you are taking action. I mean if you got through this whole thing, um, I really appreciate you listening to my, again, existential rants and ravings and lessons learned and Just thoughts, I want to share that, uh, there's way more where this came from, um, inside of the Digital Nomad Life Academy.
Christa Romano: If you like this vibe, I welcome you to join. Slide into my DMs on Instagram, You can ask me for a discount, literally, I just like give them out like candy in my DMs if somebody messages me, I'm like, sure, yeah, like, come into the program, like, let me make it easy for you, let me help you, make this a full fuck [00:57:00] yes to join, because I just think that, my marketing, this is my marketing by the way, right?
Christa Romano: Like me just sharing who I am authentically. I know that when I share myself so authentically, the people that are still listening to this episode, you are the vibe. Like you're literally seeing my freaking soul right now. And if you're seeing my soul, it's probably because a piece of your soul resonates and we are similar.
Christa Romano: Literally just today, girl slid into my DMs and she was like, Christa, I listened to the very first episode that you had, which is all about my story of like how I became a digital nomad, listen to that if you haven't yet, but her story was almost word for word the way that I would have written my story 10 years ago.
Christa Romano: And I just had this crazy thought of like, whoa, like there are so many people out there that are literally living my old life and they want my new life and they, and somehow the universe has given them access to witnessing what their parallel reality could be. And it's via me. It's about my life. Because I've just done it, like I've done [00:58:00] things, I've made the mistakes and if you want a quantum leap into your new life, just learn from someone who's already made all the mistakes.
Christa Romano: I can literally teach you and you don't have to wait 10 years. to be where I am. You don't have to wait 10 years to be living on a tropical island, making multiple six figures, having all the time in the world to go on a yoga date on a Tuesday morning, whatever. Like you can, you can do whatever you want, um, with your life and you don't have to wait a decade.
Christa Romano: You can just start right now. because I can teach you and, and in the meantime, we can have a whole lot of fun, um, vibing hard to conversations just like this. So if you are still here and you want to chat, I'm never going to push you into joining the D.N.L.A., the Digital Limited Life Academy, but if you're down, I'd love to share with you more about it, about how it can totally change your life and again, quantum leap you into the next parallel reality, which is whatever you want it to be.
Christa Romano: So [00:59:00] slide into my DMs with the code word spiritual podcast. It has to be like that, like two words, spell it correctly, spiritual podcast into my DMs at @christabellatravels on Instagram and you'll get an automated message from me that will say something like, Hey, thanks for listening to the podcast.
Christa Romano: I'm glad that whatever resonates with you, like, tell me about your life and I'll ask you a few questions for you to just give me something to work with. It's like, Tell me about yourself so that I know you know so much about me now. We got to even the playing field a little bit if we're going to have an actual conversation.
Christa Romano: So I'm going to ask you some questions about who you are as a person and what your beliefs are and what you what you want and then we can actually and I'll read the DMs when I have a minute and I'll write back to you and we can talk about if there's a way that I can support you in your journey of changing your life of just making your dream life reality. and if I can't, I'll send you in another direction, but I've helped a lot of people just saying I've helped a lot of people change their lives. [01:00:00] And I just love it. And I know that I'm here for this purpose. So I can't wait to connect with you again, slide in @christabellatravels with the words spiritual podcast.
Christa Romano: And I can't wait. Otherwise, I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Bye.