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You are here: Home / Archives for money

11 Ways To Fill Your Home With Hygge.

February 25, 2018 //  by Admin//  Leave a Comment

I was inspired by the Danish term for simplistic, cozy living after a friend sent me an article on it a few years ago. Hyggehouse.com describes it like this.

“Hygge (pronounced hue-guh not hoo-gah) is a Danish word used when acknowledging a feeling or moment, whether alone or with friends, at home or out, ordinary or extraordinary as cozy, charming or special.”

Hygge is practiced in the homes and hearts of the Danish, and in the home and heart of a lot of inspired families around the world, including ours, due to it’s exposure through countless articles and books on the subject circulating throughout the internet.

Hygge is that feeling you get on a rainy Sunday. The feeling that makes you just want to curl up in bed and read a good book with some favorite snacks in arms reach. I LOVE cozy living and practice it daily.

Here are 11 ways I practice Hygge at home whether I am literally at home or in a retreat center somewhere in the world.

  1. Warm cocoa or tea.
  2. Cozy blankets.
  3. Candles.
  4. Good smells.
  5. Baths.
  6. Board games.
  7. Books.
  8. Journaling.
  9. Togetherness.
  10. Decorating with plants and good lighting.
  11. Unplugging from the internet and other electronics.

How you practice Hygge?

Author:

Alana Roach

Owner & Director of the Explorations of Self Travel Community

Category: Lifestyle, Mindful LivingTag: #digitalnomad, #entrepreneur, #family, #home, #hygge, #wellness, grace, health, inspiration, meditation, mobile, money, mother, selflove mindfulness, wanderlust, Yoga

You Can Thrive.

October 12, 2017 //  by Admin//  Leave a Comment

There was a time in my life when I would have given anything to escape. You know what I mean. When you experience something so devastating that all you want to do is get out. You start to question things and numb out until one day you can’t do it anymore. You reach a breaking point and there are two choices.

 

1.You can thrive

 

2. You can wilt. 

Choosing to thrive takes guts. To thrive is to be ALIVE and show up no matter what. You won’t make a wrong choice when you CHOOSE to face the truth in the right here and the right now. You can not lose here.

Living is FULL of emotion. Full of ups and downs, twists and turns. Don’t live in the why. Live in the how.

How can you do it?

How can you succeed?

How can you LOVE.

How.

How.

How.

Rest assured that this will take time. Your journey was meant to be long and full, dear ones. You are sitting on the precipice of something exquisite and no one can do it but you.

You are so full of potential. So ridiculously SMART. So wise in your animal skin. Awaken to that Truth.

Choose to help another by living fully in this lifetime. Express your unique paint brush and sound unlike anyone else who has come before you.

I dare you.

I dare you to step up and step IN to your POWER. 

With love and so much light and respect for your incredibly journey on this Earth,

I thank you so much for being you.

Sincerely,

Alana Roach

Owner & Director of the Explorations of Self Travel Community

Category: Creative Explorations, Lifestyle, My Travel, Travel, YogaTag: #digitalnomad, #entrepreneur, Costa Rica, destination, dreams, fierce, grace, health, inspiration, meditation, money, mother, motherhood, new, selflove mindfulness, sound healing, spiritual, spring, thrive, Travel, traveler, traveling, wanderlust, wildlife, Yoga

5 Steps to Manifesting Your Dream Lifestyle

May 4, 2017 //  by Admin//  Leave a Comment

Spring is here and how beautiful it is outside. Spring energy is ALL about creation. We plant seeds for them to grow into beautiful blooms of variety. We release the old. Welcome the new. What are you wanting to create this Spring? How can I support you in making your dreams a reality?


5 Steps to Manifesting Your Dream Lifestyle

…

Category: Integrative Health, Lifestyle, TravelTag: #digitalnomad, #entrepreneur, Costa Rica, destination, dreams, fullmoon, grace, health, inspiration, mobile, money, nomad, selflove mindfulness, sound healing, Travel, traveler, year spiritual, Yoga

A Shameless Retreat

January 9, 2017 //  by Admin//  Leave a Comment

Retreat! Surrender! Give-in! Fall back!

 

We live in a culture where retreat means defeat. In the West, life is viewed as a competition and we are programmed to believe that if you are not winning you’re losing. We’ve heard it so many times: winning is not everything; it’s the only thing. So can we end up stressed out and spend our time living on a mental and emotional battlefield instead of authentically exploring our self. The masculine bravado and militaristic vibe of our culture has seeped into these words. It’s not by accident. There is a war that is being waged on going inside ourselves. The consumer culture can’t take that because if we all looked within we would learn that happiness is inside of us and we really wouldn’t be compelled to fill the void with useless products.

bungalow-_-compassion-_-bed-with-terrace-_-present-moment-retreat-_-boutique-hotel-_-spa-resort-_-yoga-retreat-_-restaurant-_-playa-troncones-mexico-_-chris-hannant-photography

So, in this exploration of self, we are not called to force our way in. We are called to retake. Sure, we have re-take what ‘surrender’ and ‘retreat’ can mean, but we can do so peacefully. We have to fall back. When we fall back, we are vulnerable. This is the last thing the culture teaches and tells us that vulnerability leaves us open to attack. But vulnerability is going inside and taking an honest look about who we are and what we feel. And in that nakedness, we discover that we reject the struggle and the dog-eat-dog world and resent having to cling to it out of the necessity that our survival is at stake.

 

On retreat, we learn that we don’t have to cling to it! Meditation, yoga and sound healing create the space to silence the clamor of our minds and align us with our true nature. But we have to surrender to get there! What we are surrendering from is the way we think we ought to be and what we should do. In the clarity and understanding of our true nature, we naturally flow. We don’t have to think. There is just a knowing. That’s the beauty of it!

 

To retreat;

gentle-yoga-by-dagan-beach-_-beach-_-ocean-view-_-boutique-hotel-_-spa-resort-_-yoga-retreat-_-restaurant-_-playa-troncones-mexico-_-chris-hannant-photographyit is a quiet and relaxing space where we can feel the truth and beauty of our being. It’s in retreat that we lose the false ego that makes us fight outwardly to avoid the unrest we feel inwardly. By flowing with rest, we see that it was the unrest that made us fight and force in our lives in the first place! Enjoying our journey requires surrendering our false ego –that aspect of our being that runs programs contrary to our highest and best self. And when we do that, we reveal our true nature that is already there because we feel it from that quiet place of clarity and understanding.  Surrender is tough for the false part of ourselves because it does not want to let go of the stories that keep fueling the patterns that don’t serve us. The catch is that the false ego has to turn itself in – or should I say inward – and see how it is sabotaging our greatest good by causing suffering based on craving, delusions and many other mental and emotional patterns.

stock

The solution is simple. No matter what comes up, surrender. Your false ego can lay so many traps for your mind because it knows you so well. So let yourself be caught. Sit there. Don’t avoid it. Let the feelings come up to be known and cleared. Stop running from it. Once your thought or emotion has nothing to take from you, it has no power over you. It has no fuel to sustain itself. By virtue of your soul sovereignty, your essence cannot be taken away. You are eternal conscious light and love. So the only thing that you can surrender is what does not serve you –and then you are left with what you have always been – light and love. Surrender removes everything that obscures our light. In offering up our obstacles to the flames, we are transformed.

May you hear the call to retreat, so that your life may answer with all the joy, beauty and creativity you have to shine!

About the author:                       Brian is a teacher and healer. He brings the mind, body, heart and soul back into balance through overtone chabowlnting, crystal and tibetan singing bowls and tuning forks.

He has the unique ability to hear oto-acoustic emissions, the natural
frequencies emitted by the body.

His spiritual name “Anahata Nada” means “unstruck sound” and echoes his ability to hear the sounds of the cosmos. Anahata also means heart and speaks to Brian’s passion to help others hear the sound of their heart to guide them on their journey.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Follow on instagram @anahatanada333                                                                                                www.besoundnow.com                                                                                                                                                                                                             Contact:  bjrusso333@gmail.com

Category: Basic Yoga, Meditation, My Travel, Travel, YogaTag: #digitalnomad, #entrepreneur, Costa Rica, destination, fierce, grace, health, inspiration, mobile, money, nomad, retreat, selflove mindfulness, Travel, wanderlust, wildlife, year spiritual

A New Year to LIVE

December 31, 2016 //  by Admin//  Leave a Comment

I remember the first time I saw the picture that changed everything for me. It was of a man, somewhere on a seemingly deserted, white sandy beach, doing a one armed cart wheel. His legs were dancing in the brightly painted turquoise sky, and I knew in that moment that there was much, much more to life. There was more to life than the daily grind, and the striving for… what, exactly?

The Spiritual Path is like this. We get these glimpses into the very center of our SOUL and in an instant, we are changed forever. But we are not REALLY changed, we are just coming Home to, the inevitable and unshakeable Truth of our Existence, and who we REALLY ARE; who we were always meant to BE.

photo share @braziltravelbeaches.com
photo share @braziltravelbeaches.com

So how do we get so lost?

We wake up, brush our teeth, drink a cup or 2 of coffee, eat breakfast (If we are lucky) go to work or school or both, watch TV, distract, distract, more distraction. We spend money, consume, go into debt to make more money, and spend more money to get out of debt as debt consumes our lives. We end up angry, resentful, gaunt, and ultimately the lack of motivation to do anything is gone, and yet we keep going. We keep going as if we were somehow animated through wire and chord. We become caged in our thoughts, animated by our emotions, reactive, depressed, and spun out. We begin to think that THIS is the norm.

Photo by Kristopher Allison
Photo by Kristopher Allison

I remember the first time I saw the picture that changed everything for me, because it TOUCHED my Soul. Somewhere deep down in the core of my being, I felt like a tapestry that was just coming to life and woven by the Divine. Unlike the feeling of chord and plug, I felt powered by something far GREATER, far Superior to woman/man made (Though woman and man has made some really incredible things.) I can hardly describe it, as Spirit goes, It is ineffable. I do know that I couldn’t turn away or go back to sleep.

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you

Don’t go back to sleep!

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep!

People are going back and forth 

across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,

The door is round and open

Don’t go back to sleep!”

― Jalaluddin Rumi

By the New Year of 2012 I had broken a lease, went on a leave of absence at work, finished a semester in college with notice that I would be taking at least one if not two semesters off. By February of 2012, I was living and back packing through my sacred heart’s home. India. Though my flesh isn’t from this INCREDIBLE land, my soul most definitely is.

By New Year’s of 2013 I became a full time yoga teacher & I started to fully allow my rainbow colored tapestry to become a muse and channel for other hearts’ songs. I woke up every morning asking how I could serve the Divine Energy that changed everything for me, that BREATHED Life back into me (As if it were lost somehow, lol.) Animated by this Divine Spirit, I came to step into my PURPOSE on this Earth. I was GUIDED to combine what inspired me and made me HAPPY in order to take it to the masses so that THEY could be HAPPY; while continuing DEEP inner work to shed the guiles of the ego so that I could be a CLEAR and unencumbered channel for God.

Photo by: Dimitry Kotov
Photo by: Dimitry Kotov

By New Year’s of 2014 I was looking at leading my 3rd yoga retreat in Costa Rica after living on the Nicoya Peninsula of that land for 6 months. I was leaving the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with in order to marry the MAN/WOMAN that has never and will never leave my side. God/Goddess. In 2014 I began my courtship with Divine. Truly. Though I strayed (Or thought I strayed) from the ULTIMATE Truth of who and what I was, Divine always persisted that I was GREAT. Thank you, Divine, for always BELIEVING in ME! 😉

By New Year’s of 2015 I was incorporated as a full fledged wellness and yoga retreat business, and embarked on the most important business of all, motherhood. This was the year of fine tuning my skills. I registered for an Integrative Nutrition school that I had been wanting to go to for many years, but was too afraid to believe in myself enough to do it. This was the year of staying in touch with my dreams, whilst recognizing what didn’t serve me (Attachment to anything that was material and changeable.) It was surrendering selfishness in order to be able to serve my daughter and my Dharma.

Photo by: Jordan Sanchez
Photo by: Jordan Sanchez

By New Year’s of 2016 I was sitting alone in a hotel suite. I was taking time for myself, ringing in not only the New Year, but my 30th birthday, 7 months pregnant with my daughter, and fully open to learning more from Divine. “However can I serve YOU and this Planet,” was my daily morning prayer and invocation. I spent time mapping out my life on a Vision Board and hours meditating on what I was grateful for (Everything) and what I desired to CO-CREATE with the Universe and my daughter. This is a great practice for anyone on a New Year’s Day. I suggest you try it if you haven’t a ritual planned already!

The New Year of 2017 is upon us, with the Solar New Year already among us (Winter Solstice.) My beautiful, nearly 8 month old daughter is sitting in my lap as I finish writing this. I am now fully realizing my dreams, traveling the world and teaching what I believe will help AWAKEN individuals to their HIGHEST Potentials in this incarnation. I am so, SO grateful for what is to come, because in my experience, what the Universe DELIVERS is far Superior to what I can even imagine in my BIGGEST DREAMS!

Photo share Kristopher Allison
Photo share Kristopher Allison

What LIT you up and INSPIRED you in 2016? What were your happiest moments, and what challenges did you over come? What do you want to DREAM into being in the New Year of 2017? How can I help in praying for you to fulfill this? How can I help guide and support you? Leave comments below…

A New Year’s 30 Day Warrior Woman Course to LIVING YOUR DREAMS starts soon. Stay tuned to the, “Self Heal with Alana,” Facebook page or email SelfHealwithAlana@gmail.com for information. Come away with the Explorations of Self Tribe and me to fully be present with yourself and to unwind from the daily grind on one or more of these incredible Wellness Retreats, information at www.explorationsofself.com or email explorationsofself@gmail.com

In deep DEVOTION and AWE of this WILDLY ABUNDANT UNIVERSE,

I go in PEACE & JOY,

Alana

 

Namaste, soul family

13925864_10207460986383449_4494511862760385250_oBIO : Alana Roach  is a International Yogi currently based out of Annapolis, MD. Formerly adorned by the city lights and the busy streets of America, she was then whisked away by the illustrious path of yoga and took to traveling the world to share it with others. A few years back she started to write about the transformation she undertook by  practicing conscious meditation. Her passions became her career and she now holds RYS Teacher Trainings & International Retreats, Health Coaches, and writes every opportunity she gets. In her spare time she loves cuddling with her daughter,  surfing, being in nature, and living amongst her ever growing and global loving and conscious community. She is on Facebook , Instagram, Twitter, and can be reached by email explorationsofself@gmail.com & for health coaching at SelfHealwithAlana@gmail.com

Category: Creative Explorations, Meditation, Mindful Living, Move Your Body, My Travel, YogaTag: #digitalnomad, #entrepreneur, Costa Rica, destination, dreams, grace, health, inspiration, mobile, money, new, nomad, selflove mindfulness, Travel, traveler, wanderlust, wildlife, year spiritual, Yoga

Overcoming the Hindrance of Money to Live Our Dreams

October 4, 2016 //  by Admin//  1 Comment

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.” Steve Jobs

So, there we have it. We have an inner calling to become a…

but how do we achieve success despite the reality of our bank accounts or the prospect that we will have to leave our now secure job in order to run our own business.

Despite our greatest financial fears, we take the leap of faith.

photo-1474752651386-dc296d69dc90

A leap that is sure to be full of high and low roads ahead… but we are happy. For the first time in our lives we are truly fulfilled in what we are doing, because we believe in it. We are no longer working laboriously towards someone else’s dream, because we are now the dictator of our own, and that feels so right.

–

I, like you, was at this crossroads 5 years ago. I was working full time to support my college education and living expenses. All of that work was fine except when the question of, “Well, what do you want to do with your college degree,” came up, I would say, “I wish I could get a masters in teaching yoga (I understand that is possible these days, but at that point, it was not.) Plus, that is not all I envisioned. I wanted to travel, teaching yoga and other eastern healing modalities like Ayurveda, while writing about it. This was the only thing I felt excited about it. So, you guessed it. After a 3 month trip to India, where I took a break from the rat race lifestyle, I decided to take the plunge.

Yes, I was scared. Terrified. I have taken a ride on the emotional roller coaster while

Woman walking with bicycle along beach sand summer lifestyle carefree

making the detailed decisions to cut the strings of my old path, to make way for the new.

I do not come from money. The family I was raised in was taught that money was always lacking, and this is just how things were for us. I understand why my family felt this way, but I chose to re-write that s tory. It has taken a lot of inner re-wiring on my behalf. I am talking years of continual (Still working on this) inner work. It has also taken making the, “Abundance Lifestyle Mentality,” a spiritual practice. If you really want to make it in the field of your choice, especially if you are a pioneer in this field, you have to be smart and do your research on what works.  I could write a book on this paragraph alone.

So how do we overcome the hindrance of money to live our dreams?

  1. What stories are you telling yourself? 

I don’t have what it takes.

I am not good enough.

I am not where I want to be.

These are all examples of the lack mentality. We have all had moments where we feel less than, afraid, and stuck. When we feel this way, we can get stuck in the endless loop of the negative script. A script that we are writing. If we are constantly walking around saying things like, “I am sorry,” we are affirming that we are in a sorry vibration.

The good news is, is that we have the ability to change our vibratory state by simply catching these thoughts in action, and choosing something else. Something up-lifting. This is simple, but not easy! It takes discipline. It takes doing it when you may not feel like it. It takes courage to shake things up within our patterns. This is where what distinguishes successful, happy, and wealth people from the rest. You can do it.

Repeat after me.

I have what it takes.

I am enough.

I have enough.

I am blessed to be where I am.

I attract what I desire with ease.

I am abundant.

I am happy.

I am… _____ 

2.  Feel fulfilled in the here and now.

This is a bit of an off shoot of #1. It is important. We can get so wrapped up in what we do not have, that it creates a negative loop in the mind that says, “I don’t have enough,” “I need to stock up now, because I may not have the means to in the future,” “I have over spent my paycheck and I can’t pay my bills.” Do you see how this can keep a lack mentality fed?

You have the ability to budget wisely. You can catch yourself before spending that money on something that is not a necessity, and save it for passive income. Budgeting is an essential tool for living your dreams. While building our businesses and creating our empire, we need to make our money work hard for us. For most of us, that tends to be a smaller amount of money in the beginning, but over time, this financial discipline reaps many rewards. The biggest reward being financial freedom.

A lot of us can feel like restrictive spending is punishment. This is an old tape that a lot of us subconsciously play. If we say to ourselves, I have all that I need in the here and now, we will spend money on things that we really do need, instead of things that we do not.

nic07

3. Be grateful for what you have.

This simple exercise changed my life the moment I implemented it. This was something that made HUGE shifts in my thinking processes and drew in the rights people, places, and things at just the right time. I know you have heard it before, but this can not be stressed enough.

Be Grateful For What You Have.

Commit to a 28 day practice of writing down at least 10 things you are grateful for and why you are grateful for them. Take a moment to review your list, pausing after each one to close your eyes and breath deeply to really feel this gratitude. To drum up the sensations of gratitude on days where you feel that your tank is empty, bring to mind a person, place, or thing that instantly makes you all warm and fuzzy inside. Use this energy to bring into your field of gratitude and say, Thank you, thank you, thank you.

4. Stop comparing yourself to others.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”    Marianne Williamson

There is no one else in the world exactly like you. You are a unique fractal of this Universe. Whatever your belief system, the awareness around the specialness of you must stay at the forefront of your mission of walking, living, breathing, and fulfilling your dreams.

Be patient with yourself and have a clear vision of where you want to be in 1 month, 6 months, a year, 5 years, and beyond.

Trust that you have a unique expression and that it matters to the world that you fulfill your destiny of pursuing your dreams.
Trust that we all have this unique capacity to live our heart’s song.

There should be no competition in this.

“A flower does not think of competing to the flower next to it. It just blooms.”

― Zen Shin

5. Do not quit before the miracle happens.

If we have big dreams, we need to take big action. This doesn’t all have to happen in one day, and in fact, that is where I see a lot of people make mistakes. I see it all the time. Clients I work with become inspired. They go full steam ahead for a few days, maybe a week, or a few months, but then they burn out. Instead of taking a few small steps every day, they take huge leaps without building a firm foundation. They then get impatient with the progress, and become discouraged. They stop all progress all together an give up.

Never give up.

Yes, follow your dreams without hesitation, but do grow your roots deeply into the earth while blossoming your beautiful array of vibrant and blossoming branches.

I promise you that any small action on a daily basis matters immensely to your cause, and the harvest is coming, and in this moment the harvest is the fact that you are taking steps to do what YOU were born to do. Wow.

I am so inspired by you.

Thank you for having the courage to read this and to continue on the path to an abundant lifestyle of your dreams.

nic08BIO : Alana Roach  is a International Yogi currently based out of Annapolis, MD. Formerly adorned by the city lights and the busy streets of America, she was then whisked away by the illustrious path of yoga and took to traveling the world to share it with others. A few years back she started to write about the transformation she undertook by  practicing conscious meditation. Her passions became her career and she now holds RYS Teacher Trainings & International Retreats, Health Coaches, and writes every opportunity she gets. In her spare time she loves cuddling with her daughter,  surfing, being in nature, and living amongst her ever growing and global loving and conscious community. She is on Facebook , Instagram, Twitter, and can be reached by email explorationsofself@gmail.com

Category: Creative Explorations, Mindful Living, My Travel, Travel, YogaTag: dreams, money

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Alana’s love for yoga came from firsthand experience with just how powerful the practice is. “In 2009, Yoga found me. Inside the studio, she experienced a deep sense of belonging, but the most profound part was what happened after. “I felt as though I was at true peace. I finally knew what the word meant. Until that moment, I had just understood it cerebrally. There is something profound to be said about Peace dropping into the heart.” Read More

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