78) Feeling Behind in Life? How to Trust the Timeline You're On

Today I want to talk about the timing of life and how painful it can feel when you look around you and you see everybody else is kind of doing the same thing and you feel behind in life. This feeling can be super isolating and I personally have felt behind in life so many times.

So this episode is here to validate you if you feel behind in life, job, romance, finances, but also to lift you up because you just need a reframe. In this episode I want you to ask yourself do you even want the things you feel like you should have and who is projecting onto you? We are going to talk about letting go of comparison and realizing you are just where you need to be and how the timeline of your own life can ultimately manifest in ways beyond your wildest dreams.

DM me this CODEWORD @christabellatravels:
Timeline Podcast 

Chapters:

00:48 Feeling Behind in Life and Wanting to be a Digital Nomad 

03:10 The Isolation of Wanting to be a Digital Nomad 

05:09 Forget the word “Should” 

05:59 My Spiritual Beliefs and How I Define  Life's Purpose

08:50 Dealing with Comparison and Projection of Others 

16:12 Projection and Its Impact on Your Path

31:42 Overcoming Fear of Judgment of Becoming a Digital Nomad 

33:40 Launching Your Digital Nomad Business Despite Fear

35:31 Embracing Unconventional Paths of Becoming a Digital Nomad 

42:41 Feeling Behind in Life

48:01 The Journey to Your Life PhD

55:43 The Career Assessment Call

59:04 Digital Nomad Life Academy

01:03:18 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Transcript

Christa Romano: [00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to the Digital Nomad Life podcast. I'm your host Crista also known as @christabellatravels on social media and I share with you my social media right at the beginning because I really love to hear from you. I love to have discussions about the thing that I'm talking about in these episodes.

Christa Romano: You know, I'm gonna be sat here talking for I don't even know how long, putting out a lot of information and my insights and I'm just curious to hear what you Think about it to this particular topic of today's episode is one that I feel has been really bursting to come through me, especially over the past couple of weeks.

Christa Romano: And I love to pay attention to signs like that. I just, I, from all angles, I've gotten this sign that I need to record some kind of episode about the timing of life. And I don't think that this is necessarily going to be Me giving advice or whatever, but I do think that I have a unique perspective on the timeline of life that I would love to share with [00:01:00] anyone who just feels that they are a little bit behind.

Christa Romano: Personally, I have felt behind in life so many times.

Christa Romano: And I know how painful it can feel when you look around you and you see everybody else is kind of doing the same thing. It can really make you feel super isolated. It can make you feel like an alien or a black sheep. Which are just, yeah, I don't know. Alien is just something that I've always resonated with.

Christa Romano: For some, for some reason, I just always felt like my brain, the way that I viewed the world is a little bit different. And I like to think that the people that listen to my podcast also have, an undercurrent of that feeling inside of them as well.

Christa Romano: So to not be operating on the same timeline of life as everyone, that could be that you didn't. Graduate high school or college at the same time as everybody else. Or maybe you didn't even go to college. But everyone around you did.

Christa Romano: Or maybe your parents expected you to have a certain kind of career by a particular age and [00:02:00] you just have not been able to make that happen.

Christa Romano: Perhaps you feel a bit, quote, behind in the relationship department of your life, in the romantic department of your life. Maybe somehow, quote, everyone around you has been in relationships or they all got married at a certain time. Maybe you're in your late 30s or even 40s and you're dying to have a baby but you haven't yet found that person.

Christa Romano: And you feel like you're running out of time. This biological clock concept, if you will. Or maybe there's even a very young listener in this audience. Maybe you're in your teenage years and your body is just not developing at the same pace as the people around you. The final example I'll give is that maybe you were operating at the same timeline as everyone around you and then you had some compulsion within you to just burn it all to the ground and you decided to get a divorce or completely change your career or go back to school or maybe make a major kind of identity shift.

Christa Romano: Maybe you recently sold all your [00:03:00] stuff or put it into storage and booked a one way plane ticket to anywhere. Maybe you just became a digital nomad. Or maybe you've been trying to become a digital nomad. All of these examples are opportunities to have a person look around them and see that 99 percent of other people are operating life in a linear timeline, all at the same pace, and you somehow are not on that pace.

Christa Romano: Again, this can feel incredibly isolating and when you feel isolated, something about our deep biological survival instincts kick in and it makes us feel scared.

Christa Romano: It is inherently against our survival to be isolated. So just want to validate right now that feeling that you are not on the same timeline as everybody else is scary. It's a pretty negative feeling, but I hope that what I share in this episode will help you reframe the fact that you are on a different timeline and help you see the absolute [00:04:00] beauty in it.

Christa Romano: Actually, I even invite you to pause this episode, journal about it a little bit, and then come back once you have thought about your answer. Where have you been comparing yourself to others, and how that has robbed you of joy? Now, there's two other questions that I think are really important as we consider, how you've been comparing yourself to others in terms of the timeline of life.

Christa Romano: And one is, do you even want to? to get that degree authentically? Or are you thinking that you should have that degree? And I want to talk about the concept of should. And finally, I'm going to wrap up this episode by talking about how that thing that you feel behind it in life, just because you don't have it yet, it doesn't mean that you won't have it in the future.

Christa Romano: And maybe in fact, the delay that you're currently experiencing on having that thing that you want is actually serving you in ways that you can't even imagine. Like there could [00:05:00] be so many benefits to starting that quote PhD of your life much later. Okay, so much to talk about. So the first thing, like I said, is about whether you actually even authentically want that thing that you feel like you quote should have.

Christa Romano: And I want to talk about who's making you feel like you should have this certain thing, or you should be at a particular point in your life. A lot of the people that might make us feel like we should be at a certain point in our lives usually include our family members, like our older family members, like our parents or even our grandparents,

Christa Romano: or it could be a friend.

Christa Romano: And in some cases it could even be the side eyes of strangers.

Christa Romano: the beauty and the opportunity of living life on a different timeline. So I want to share with you my perspective on why it is an opportunity to live life in a different timeline. [00:06:00] But before I do, I think it's really important to share what's the basis of my perspective. And for me, it's a spiritual belief that I've held for many years.

Christa Romano: Um, it doesn't come from any particular religion or tradition. It's just something that I think I believe and maybe you believe it too. Maybe it checks out. If it doesn't, of course you are welcome to disagree with me or you're welcome to stop listening. If you're here for it, here's what I believe. I believe that yes, we are humans, but really what we are, are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Christa Romano: I'm going to say that again. We are spirits having a human experience. Scientists agree that we humans have something called consciousness, and nobody really knows what it is. But I like to refer to it as our soul.

Christa Romano: And if our soul is consciousness, it's probably here on earth for some kind of reason. Do I know what the [00:07:00] reason is? No. Do you know what the reason is? Maybe not, maybe you do, who knows? We all get to decide what we think is our purpose, our reason for being here on earth. What I think my reason for being here on earth is, is to learn and grow.

Christa Romano: And because of that belief, I like to think about the world as a classroom, the world as a school, the world as a learning opportunity. And we start off our lives, our souls start off our lives with zero information. We are a complete blank slate. And then by the time that we die, hopefully we will have learned so many life lessons.

Christa Romano: We will have overcome so many challenges that we have so much learned, gained, and earned wisdom. And we get to become a wise old elder and pass on our learnings to the next or newest generation. And that is [00:08:00] how our world is. Evolves. That's how humanity evolves because we go through experiences in our human lifetime and learn from them.

Christa Romano: So. Now I'm on the perspective part, right? But it's based off of our souls are here to learn. again, we can think about life as a school or as a classroom. Now I want you to think about people who are students and all the different kind of students that exist. So there's kindergarten students. There are high school students.

Christa Romano: There are college students. There are master's students, and there are PhD students. And all these students, while they are in school, are learning very, very, very different things. The kindergarten student is learning their ABCs, and the PhD student might be learning all about quantum physics. Now, to bring this back to the conversation of souls and the timeline of life, I invite you to consider the fact that maybe you [00:09:00] feel behind in life because you are actually a soul that is here to get your college degree, your master's degree, or maybe even your PhD degree.

Christa Romano: While some other people who you are comparing yourself to might actually be here to learn their ABCs or simple math. Perhaps the reason why you feel behind is because what your soul is here to learn is something that is much more complex than what another soul might be here to learn. Which could be the basic traditional stuff.

Christa Romano: Which could be. Again, everything that you learn in high school, and then maybe again, the traditional timeline of graduating, getting a job, getting married, having babies, retiring at a certain age, having specific vacations, et cetera, mean, this isn't to dismiss anybody that is having that kind of very traditional life, but I just came to [00:10:00] this conclusion lately that maybe the reason why I personally.

Christa Romano: I am 36 and don't have those things, right? I'm 36 and I don't have a husband. In fact, I'm single right now. So I don't even have a boyfriend. So 36 don't have a boyfriend. I don't have a mortgage. I definitely don't have a baby.

Christa Romano: And because I don't have those things, there are certain parts about my life that I have not yet learned. Like, I don't, I don't know anything about motherhood because I am not at that part of my education, of my soul's education.

Christa Romano: Now the question is, does that mean that my soul is behind? Because I'm pretty sure that I already have a PhD in several other areas of my life. And if it's not a PhD, it's definitely at least a freaking master's degree in travel. I have a master's degree in healing family dynamics. That's something that I've had to put a lot of my effort and concentration into.

Christa Romano: If it's not a master's [00:11:00] degree or a PhD degree, I at least have a college degree in personal development work, and that's why I'm able to talk about it so fluently on this podcast. I've minimum got a high school degree in spirituality and world religions. It's something that I've been very interested in learning and something that I put a lot of time and effort and attention into fostering.

Christa Romano: So just because I have not yet gone to the school of motherhood. And I do not have my Ph. D. in it, like someone, my grandmother, for example, who raised seven kids. Like, I can't compare myself to her, but at the same time, she also can't compare herself to me, because I don't even know if she ever left the United States.

Christa Romano: But me, I'm pushing 70 countries soon. And I Bet you there are a bunch of people out there that have some things that maybe I feel behind in. Like maybe they have the dream husband [00:12:00] and the white picket fence house and maybe they have the two adorable kids and they have all this stuff and I don't have those things.

Christa Romano: But those people might be comparing themselves to me as someone who is incredibly fulfilled by my career, having. An amazing,

Christa Romano: fun filled, freedom focused lifestyle. Someone who has an impact on thousands of people because of my audience. This concept can really be applied to anything. So at the beginning of this episode, I gave a shout out to, you know, maybe a teenager who's going through puberty and hasn't fully developed yet.

Christa Romano: And maybe he or she is looking around at all of their peers and is saying, Oh my gosh! All these girls have boobs and they have their period and I don't have mine yet or all these guys talking about how somebody else has had their voice changed already and they haven't yet. But actually, studies show that based on when you develop like physically in life, it actually creates [00:13:00] different personality types in different people.

Christa Romano: This is some fact or stat that I heard that I always thought was just so fascinating because Personally, I was like a very late bloomer in life. Okay. So, um, I remember being a teenager and just looking around at all the girls around me and thinking like, wow, I feel like so small, like a child. And how might that have actually shaped my perspective on the world and how maybe developing much earlier would have affected a different girl.

Christa Romano: So they say that, uh, girls who develop in puberty earlier than other girls tend to have. Of course, increased attention from men at a really young age. And how might that affect the way that they shape the world? Or how might that affect the way that they see the world? And how might that affect the way that they interact with men?

Christa Romano: They also say that girls that develop earlier

Christa Romano: tends to show them that they need to quote grow up faster or make some think that, so therefore that can change [00:14:00] their relationship with their own inner responsibility. Whereas maybe girls that develop a little bit later in life get to remain more free spirited when they're older. And if we look at boys, boys who develop earlier who might look more like a man when they are younger can be parentified by society, right?

Christa Romano: Like given more responsibility, which could make them act as leaders. And it could also develop maybe men that have more of those toxic masculinity traits. Who knows? And they say that boys that develop later on tend to develop stronger non physical skills such as emotional maturity and emotional depth.

Christa Romano: So there's benefits to developing early and there's benefits to developing late and there's cons to developing early and cons to developing late in both of the sexes. But don't we know how much teenagers compare themselves to others? Like I said earlier on in this [00:15:00] episode, we, it is, it is part of our survival to want to be like other people.

Christa Romano: And it's can be very, very triggering when we are not like the other. Because it makes us feel isolated. And when we are isolated, we are vulnerable, but that is our little lizard brain. That is our conscious brain. That is our ego preventing us from seeing the gifts and the beauty and the opportunities in being on our own unique timeline.

Christa Romano: Have you ever heard the expression comparison is the thief of joy. This is what they are talking about. So, I want you to ask yourself now, when in life have you compared yourself to other people? And when you were comparing yourself to others, what did you deprive yourself of in terms of seeing the opportunities that you have because you are different?

Christa Romano: And can you give yourself an [00:16:00] opportunity, can you do a thought exercise to ask yourself what benefits might you have for having a PhD in something that these people that you're comparing yourself to do not have a PhD in?

Christa Romano: Now I want to talk about all three categories of people who tend to project onto us when it comes time for us to change our lives, build a business, become an entrepreneur, book our first one way plane ticket, quit our corporate jobs, etc. But before I get into talking about the projection that we tend to receive from our family members, let's just define what projection is in the first place.

Christa Romano: And by the way, this is one of my most favorite. favorite concepts in psychology to me. It literally was game changing, life changing, and I think you will understand why, as I explain it. So, um, Of course, I have chat GPT open here and asked it to define a projection for me. So it says that projection in psychology is a [00:17:00] defense mechanism where individuals unconsciously attribute their own thoughts, feelings, or desires, often ones they are uncomfortable with.

Christa Romano: or wish to suppress onto someone else. This allows them to avoid confronting their own emotions or beliefs by externalizing them to others. Now let's talk about this in a practical sense. Okay, so oftentimes our parents will be our biggest critics when we are wanting to become an entrepreneur, right? All the time.

Christa Romano: I hear my clients telling me that their parents are constantly saying, why don't you just get a quote, real job. Don't you think that it's been long enough that you've been traveling the world? When are you going to come back to reality? Things like that. Statements like that. Or maybe our parents are saying, you know, remember health care is always hiring.

Christa Romano: That's what my mom always used to say. Um, so. Why is that projection? Well, we have to put on our empathy hats and [00:18:00] think about our parents perspective or our parents projection. Now, projection, it's just like a movie projector, right? You have the film, which is the content that is being displayed. And in this case, the display is their word choices.

Christa Romano: So you have the beliefs. or the film role, and then it gets projected onto a wall. But it's getting projected through that person's own lens of reality. So in the case of a parent who's offering not super supportive commentary, like, why don't you just go get a job and stop wanting to travel the world? We need to think about, well, what's on their lens of reality and what's in their belief system in the first place.

Christa Romano: So our parents generation, first of all, they did not grow up with the internet. So basically anybody that's in a generation above you does not have the same relationship to [00:19:00] technology that you do.

Christa Romano: So first of all, your perception already just from the mere generation that you were born in is going to be different than that person's and Our generation really helps shape our belief systems. So I'm thinking about my grandmother, for example. I think if my grandmother, bless her, if she were still alive and she were young today, she would totally be a digital nomad.

Christa Romano: She always was telling me that she was so envious of my lifestyle and all the places that I went because she wished that she could do that too. But she Objectively did not understand my business as much as I tried to explain it to her, as much as I tried to share with her that, um, no, Nani, like, there's a lot of potential for me to make really good money here.

Christa Romano: still, she would probably say things like, why don't you just get a job like your sister, your brother, your cousin or whatever. Now, that's her [00:20:00] projecting her beliefs on to me because what she believes is that safety in finances is the number one most important thing and it's more important than pursuing your passion of travel.

Christa Romano: But guess what? My grandmother grew up during the Great Depression when money was very scarce for so many people and it really put them.

Christa Romano: into a tough situation. So in her belief system, money is scarce and therefore the risk of being an entrepreneur is simply too big. Even if the dream outcome of traveling the world full time is part of the equation. And that's actually what's really authentic to her. Still her belief systems are blocking her from being able to see my perspective.

Christa Romano: Let's do another example of a parent. So, um, I think that women in the United States were literally not allowed to have their own bank account until like the 80s or something. [00:21:00] So if your mom was an adult in the 1980s, your mom grew up with far less rights than you did if you're a woman. So for a woman who has less rights, she needed to lean on a man.

Christa Romano: And maybe her primary role that she grew up always believing was going to be her primary role was to be a mother. And if she was going to be a mother, therefore, she Being an entrepreneur was a risk that was simply too big and so she will not understand fully. She can try to listen. She can try to hold space.

Christa Romano: She can try to empathize, but she will never be able to fully understand your perspective as a female aspiring entrepreneur in the 2020s

Christa Romano: as you do. So what she's going to do is she's going to react to your situation through her own lens of and project her beliefs onto you.

Christa Romano: Now, is she someone that you should take advice from? Well, one thing that I always [00:22:00] say is don't take advice from someone who's not living the life that you want to live. Because they will have an unrelatable chance. Lens of which they see the world and therefore their advice that they give you is going to be incredibly skewed.

Christa Romano: And it's not that they mean any harm. Okay, now let's talk about your friends, right? Let's talk about friends who might say things like, yeah, but when are you going to get a real job? Or, you know, don't you think that this little business of yours has gone a little bit too far? Like when are you going to start saving for retirement?

Christa Romano: Da da da. Okay, so if your friends are telling you, When are you going to start saving for retirement? Let's think about their lens and the life choices that they have made based on their belief systems. Well, maybe those kids, your friends, have overbearing parents that beat the idea into them that they need to have a good job with solid benefits.

Christa Romano: So your friends lived their [00:23:00] whole life neglecting their passions in favor of a good job with benefits.

Christa Romano: Your friends unconsciously might actually desire to be a full time traveler too, just like you want to be. Or maybe they want to be an entrepreneur. Maybe they think that entrepreneurship is brave and cool, but because they have already made the life decision not to pursue that path and instead to listen to their parents, they think, well, everybody should be listening to their parents because that's how I did it.

Christa Romano: So they're going to project their beliefs onto you. And if they're a little bit jealous too, subconsciously, the projection is going to be even stronger because jealousy is a feeling that doesn't feel good in our bodies and we want to often suppress our negative feelings, so we will cover it up with the defense mechanism of projection.

Christa Romano: So this can be masked as oh, yeah, but it's just because I really care about you Like I want you to be happy and successful. I want [00:24:00] you to have money. I want you to be safe When really they don't want to actually confront the fact that They have been making decisions that were not super authentic to them, but instead we're making decisions based on what their parents wanted for them.

Christa Romano: And that is painful for them to acknowledge. So instead they're going to try to convince you that what they believe and what they have chosen is the right way. And if you agree with them, then they get to live peacefully, knowing that they have made the right decision. And that even though they wanted to travel the world too, that they didn't, that they've done the right thing. Hopefully, this is all making sense. And I swear there's a big reason why I am sharing all of this with you. It's because of this concept of you operating on a timeline that is different from other people. It's hard to stay on your own timeline when everyone around you is projecting their beliefs onto you, trying to get you onto [00:25:00] their timeline, which is actually to validate.

Christa Romano: their timeline.

Christa Romano: Now, this might be controversial, but I'm just going to say something that I believe is that when someone who loves us or we can flip it around too, cause we do it too. When we love someone else and they share with us their dreams and we are not fully supportive and celebrative of them, um, We're probably projecting our own insecurities onto them.

Christa Romano: And you know what? It's okay to be insecure. Like we all have insecurities about things, but we can't let other people's insecurities lead us astray from our highest purpose and from our

Christa Romano: desired timeline. Because the thing is you're listening to a podcast called the digital nomad life podcast. And you [00:26:00] might be a digital nomad already. If you are, you're like maybe 10 to 20 percent of my listeners, but the vast majority of my listeners are people who are aspiring digital nomads. So if you are in that category, if you are someone who is an aspiring digital nomad, that means that there's something in your heart that's calling you towards this higher timeline, which I believe is authentic to you specifically.

Christa Romano: Especially because the nature of a podcast is a very private experience. We usually only listen to a podcast by ourselves. We don't share it with the rest of the world. Every single episode that we're listening to. So you're listening to me in private right now. I almost guarantee it. And I am calling you out on the fact that you're listening to a podcast called the Digital Nomad Life Podcast.

Christa Romano: But you are not yet a digital nomad. And I want to ask you why. Why? Or why not? Why are you not [00:27:00] yet what you want to be? Who have you been listening to up until this point that has led your life on a path that was not in the digital nomad direction? Maybe you just learned about the term digital nomad, and if that's the case, welcome!

Christa Romano: And I'm so happy that you're here, and I can't wait to share more with you about how amazing this lifestyle is, and how literally it's just amazing. A lifestyle that allows you to be so fully expressed in your authenticity, which to me just feels so good and so amazing. But if you didn't just learn about the concept of being a digital nomad, if you've been, if you've known about the concept for a while, if you've been thinking about it for a while, um, Really ask yourself right now what or whose opinion has been restricting you from going full send into the direction of your dreams.

Christa Romano: And I'd actually like you to take a minute again and [00:28:00] pause the episode and think about that and surface as many names as you can.

Christa Romano: Is it mom and dad? Is it your grandparents? Was it your teacher? Was it your best friend?

Christa Romano: Was it that person at the bar that you met last week that you really admired and had on a pedestal

Christa Romano: and they told you that

Christa Romano: being an entrepreneur is really hard and not everybody's cut out for it? Why do you think they said that to you? Well, we can really only assume, right? Because we will never fully understand someone else's interpretation of the world. the world, we will never fully understand someone else's reality. So the best thing that we can do when we are trying to pursue our highest timeline and our true purpose is just to simply remember that everyone is always projecting onto us, always, always, always, always, no matter what.

Christa Romano: Unless you are working with a trained coach, and I will actually give [00:29:00] you that caveat. So, I'll speak about myself for a moment. As a trained coach, when I am in a client session and I'm receiving, you know, the hopes and dreams from one of my clients, I am very intentionally phrasing my responses to them the most minimal projection that I can do.

Christa Romano: And you know, it's a really conscious effort that I have when I'm in a coaching call. for that hour, two hours, right? Like for two hours, I'm consciously like, don't project, don't project everything that comes out of my mouth. I'm thinking about it. And sometimes I even say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to share with you my opinion, my perspective.

Christa Romano: And FYI, my perspective was formed based off of this memory or this experience that I had. So that my clients can make the best decision for them, whether they're going to fully accept my feedback and advice or not. But I'm a human, right? And I'm not always wearing my [00:30:00] coaching hat. Sometimes when I'm with my friends or when I'm with my family members, of course I project onto them because it's an unconscious thing.

Christa Romano: thing that humans are always doing. So just remember next time that someone gives you a piece of advice, or next time someone says, Hey, maybe you should get a real job. Or next time someone says, how long are you going to keep traveling the world? Or do you really have the money for this? Or aren't you saving for retirement?

Christa Romano: Or someone tries to tell you not to quit your job, whatever it is. Remember that they are perceiving your situation from their own lens of reality, and it's simply not the same as yours, and they are on a different timeline than you, no matter what. We are all on different timelines. They are pursuing different life PhDs, life master's degrees, life school degrees.

Christa Romano: They're still pursuing their degree, whatever they're in. [00:31:00] And No one is the ultimate teacher. The only one that is the ultimate teacher is actually our own highest selves. Because every human is on a different timeline. So, boom, mic drop on that. Okay, now I want to talk about the third category of people that might project onto us.

Christa Romano: And that is strangers. Okay, so you might be listening to this episode and you might be like, No, Krista, everyone around me is so supportive. I'm so grateful. I have the best parents in the world. My friends all think that what I'm doing is amazing. They all think that it's so cool. Okay, okay, okay. Alright, no one that you know is projecting onto you, but still.

Christa Romano: Why have you not yet accomplished what you want to accomplish? Why have you not yet become a digital nomad? Why have you not taken the steps to, for example, join the Digital Nomad Life Academy, a program that gives you everything, everything, everything, everything that you could freaking need. Like, if you know that a [00:32:00] resource like the Digital Nomad Life Academy, that's my business, if you know that it exists and you really want to become a digital nomad, And you technically could swing a few hundred dollars a month for a few months in order to join the program.

Christa Romano: And you haven't joined it yet? It's because you're scared of the strangers projecting onto you. And here is the mind bending truth about worrying what strangers will think. Okay, so this is for anyone who is about to post on social media and then you freeze because you don't know who's gonna be watching your stories.

Christa Romano: And Or you have been trying to announce your freelance services but you haven't yet because you're not sure who's watching. Or you don't want to post that YouTube video because you're scared of what the trolls will think. This one is for you. Okay, hope you're sitting down for this one. Because if you are afraid of what [00:33:00] strangers think of you, especially faceless, nameless strangers on the internet, What you're actually doing is judging yourself and not wanting to put yourself in a situation where you will be harshly judging yourself because it hurts to harshly judge yourself.

Christa Romano: When we are scared of what other people think about us when these people are faceless, nameless strangers, that is our own inner critic talking. And it is actually us projecting our beliefs about ourselves and about the world onto innocent strangers. So let's take the example of you want to launch your business and you want to be big.

Christa Romano: Yeah, creating a digital nomad business. But the thing that you're worried that strangers will think of you is, oh, there's another Baroque traveler just pretending to work online. We have to ask [00:34:00] ourselves, why are you thinking that they are thinking that when we don't even know who they are? We don't even know what their perception of reality is.

Christa Romano: Because they're a stranger. They literally don't exist to us. They're just a dot on the internet that has no face and no name. So this energy, this belief system, has to originate from somewhere. And you're the one coming up with that belief. So what you have to understand is what you're doing when you're scared of what strangers think is there's a belief deep down inside of you.

Christa Romano: It comes up into your conscious mind. And then when you're about to click post on social media, you project that belief out into the ether. And because there's no human actual legitimate specific human for it to bounce off of, it just bounces right back onto you. And so you get to [00:35:00] think you get to protect yourself by saying, no, it's what other people think.

Christa Romano: It's what society thinks. Everybody quote, everybody. Everyone else, whoever everyone else is, thinks this thing. But actually, it's you thinking the thing. You're the one that came up with that belief in the first place.

Christa Romano: Are you letting this land? Like, are you feeling the truth of this? And do you have any examples from your own life? Again, pause the episode, think about it for a sec, because this is such an important concept to understand, especially if you are pursuing both entrepreneurship and digital nomadism. These two things combined are unconventional ways of living your lifestyle and an unconventional way of approaching your career.

Christa Romano: So when things are unconventional, they're scary [00:36:00] because we don't have the backing or the support of our whole society. When we do something or when we make a decision where we are not doing what everybody else is doing, it puts us into this I am the other kind of situation and that feels very vulnerable and vulnerability feels scary Just like, if you are trying to survive in the woods, you lose your pack, you lose your tribe, and you're there, and now you have to be the only one defending you?

Christa Romano: No strength in numbers? That's very scary, and akin to the feeling of death. So, I just want to validate you here, that like, if you've been scared, of posting your unconventional ideas about your lifestyle or your career or your future business online. You've been scared to tell people it's very valid to be scared, but also at the same time, you have to remember that your [00:37:00] fear is either stemming from other people projecting onto Or you projecting your negative and limiting beliefs onto strangers.

Christa Romano: Because, do you know what I have learned? Is that the more that I share my unconventional ideas, things that have always traditionally made me feel like a freaking alien, have made me feel so much like the other, when I actually share those, what I get mostly is Is people coming out of the woodwork being like, Oh my gosh, I resonate with you so much.

Christa Romano: Or wow, Krista, that thought, that thing that you put out there inspired me so much. Hey, I know the content that you've been putting out there. has been a little bit edgy lately, but I wanted you to know that it really has helped me overcome this thing, or helped me become more adventurous, or, hey Krista, I just think it's amazing that you've done all these quote, crazy things.

Christa Romano: Like, you [00:38:00] know what? It's kind of crazy that I've traveled to 66 countries. That's freaking nuts. And back in the day, when I told other people that I was booking a one way ticket to Thailand because I had just quit my job and I was thinking about pursuing English teaching, but I wasn't really sure the way that people looked at me, like I had three heads was intense.

Christa Romano: Like it made me really feel like, Oh my gosh, do I belong in a, in a psych ward. Should I stop this plan right now because everyone else seems to think that I'm utterly insane. And what I had to lean into was the fact that these other people that are looking at me like I have three heads. Well, they haven't done all the research that I've done.

Christa Romano: So they're missing a lot of information that I have. These people also simply do not understand my passion for travel, but my passion for travel runs so deep and hot. [00:39:00] How could, how could any average person possibly understand that and resonate with me on that? Like, because it's so intense within me.

Christa Romano: Maybe someone else has a child, for example, and their risk tolerance was so much lower than mine was when I was a 25 year old who had a college degree and a few thousand dollars in my bank account. And really, like, not a lot to lose. My risk tolerance was pretty high at the time. But someone who would have a lower risk tolerance, of course they would look at me like I had three heads because they were imagining themselves doing what I was about to do and it made them want to die because they would be that scared.

Christa Romano: I was scared too, but I was also really excited. But if someone else isn't feeling the same excitement as me, all that they're going to feel is fear and that's what's going to be coming across on their projection across their face when I am receiving the feedback from [00:40:00] them. Anyway, I feel like I've beaten this point to death.

Christa Romano: I hope you understand that other people telling you that you should be doing something else or why aren't you doing this other thing like I'm doing, They are projecting their beliefs onto you and you get to make the conscious decision of whether you want to take everything that they're saying and apply it to your life because this person is someone that you respect so much and you want to be just like them.

Christa Romano: Okay, in that case, maybe, but if you don't want to be just like them, like exactly like them, then think for your freaking self. Tune into your own authenticity. Ask yourself,

Christa Romano: What is your truth? What would be right for you to do based on your desires, based on your passions, based on your skill set, based on [00:41:00] your interest, based on your life PhD, life master's, life high school degree that you are pursuing, based on the fact that you don't know what your higher self is pursuing.

Christa Romano: Based on the fact that you have a specific level of risk tolerance that someone else might not have. Based on the fact that when you were young, some TV show put a seed of an idea in your mind and that's been a dream that you've had all along. So these people that are projecting onto you, they don't know what your dreams are.

Christa Romano: They don't know what you see behind your eyes when you close them. They don't know what you dream about at night. Only you know these things. And the more that you really get in touch with what you dream of and what's right for you and tuning into who the fuck you are, what your personality is like, who you have always been without the fear, without the [00:42:00] judgment, without the projection of other people, without following the rules, without listening to other people's opinions, but just you on your own on a little island without any influence from other people.

Christa Romano: Who would you be? What would you be doing? And that is what will be the guide to your highest timeline. That is how you will get a life PhD. in whatever you're meant to get a life PhD in. And I genuinely believe that every single person here on this planet is here to pursue their own uniquely designed life PhD.

Christa Romano: And this actually leads me into the, the Last thing in this episode that I want to talk about, which is why you might not have the thing that you want to have yet and why the delay might be the best thing that's ever happened and is happening to you.

Christa Romano: So the [00:43:00] delay, right? The big desires that we have in life, the things that we want, that we feel behind in. Some of the main categories of things that make people feel this way could be, first of all, all that white picket fence life type stuff, the kind of matrix things that everybody else seems to have at a certain time, right?

Christa Romano: Where maybe it's graduating at a certain time. If you didn't graduate on time, that could make you feel behind. If you didn't get a job or a start a career that felt meaningful to you, then you might feel behind in that category. I think for a lot of people, they remain feeling behind in this category for a really long time and maybe you are one of them.

Christa Romano: Maybe you are someone who you've been wanting to change your career. You've been wanting to do meaningful kind of work, but you feel really lost and confused out of touch with what your passions are. And because you are out of touch with your passions, but quote, everybody end quote around you all seems to have [00:44:00] their shit together.

Christa Romano: So therefore you feel behind. Or maybe you've got your career sorted, and what you actually want now is to do the things that happen biologically at a certain timeline. Like maybe meeting your partner in life and then having a baby together. Maybe you're in your 30s or 40s and you're still single and you don't have that person.

Christa Romano: Or you're worried that you're not going to be able to be fertile for much longer and therefore you're missing your chance and you feel behind in life. Or maybe it's another thing, like everybody around you is getting mortgages and a house and you haven't really pursued that path yet, maybe because you don't want to, or maybe because you don't have the financial resources to, but either way, you feel like everybody else is doing it and you're not, and therefore you're behind.

Christa Romano: Another thing could be financially, right? That everyone around you, quote, everybody, everybody else has, you

Christa Romano: They're 401k, they're saving for retirement plan, everybody [00:45:00] else has a bank account with a whole bunch of zeros in it and instead you're in debt or whatever, like you're behind financially. Maybe what you really desire is to be abundant financially. Maybe what you want is to be able to go to a restaurant without ever having to look at the prices on the right side of the menu.

Christa Romano: Or maybe you want to splurge on the senior stylist at the hair salon without blinking. Maybe you want to fly business class but you never have and therefore that makes you feel behind. Or maybe you dream of being a world traveler. Maybe you want to visit every country in the world. Maybe you want to have all these big life experiences.

Christa Romano: Maybe you have a huge bucket list of things that you want to do, but instead what's happening is every single day, the sun comes up, the sun goes down and you commute to work and then you go home and you might have a little cry about it and you ask for vacation time and it gets rejected. And meanwhile, you've still got this.

Christa Romano: Bucket list. You've got this [00:46:00] vision board. You've got all these places that you want to go and you're not able to do it because you're stuck and therefore you're behind on your dreams. So pick which one, which one do you feel behind in? Or maybe you feel behind in all of them. If you do, welcome to my world because all those examples are examples from my real life, right?

Christa Romano: All of those things are times when I have felt behind in life. And this is so true. Meta. Because I'm making this podcast, dude. Like, oh my god, the irony. It's amazing. And this is my point. I have felt behind so many times in my life.

Christa Romano: But now, in my mid thirties, I can look back and I can see exactly why I didn't find my partner yet because if I had, I wouldn't be living the amazing lifestyle that I [00:47:00] now have because I had to go out there and I had to figure it out myself. I never would have created the business that I have if I had been living the white picket fence life.

Christa Romano: I wouldn't have visited all the places that I visited if I hadn't gotten fired from my job like 13 years ago. If I hadn't been so deep in scarcity around money, I wouldn't have had so much motivation to figure out how to make money online. If I hadn't had a traumatic childhood where I really wanted to be free and to travel, I wouldn't have been as motivated to travel the world in the way that I did.

Christa Romano: If I had felt like I knew what my purpose was for my career, I wouldn't have tried so many different careers that ended up making me a really freaking good career coach because I can relate to so many different people with so many different kind of [00:48:00] careers and interests. And now, based on all of those areas that I was behind, that I felt really behind in, in life, I I am either already a life PhD in, or I am figuring it out.

Christa Romano: I believe that I have a life PhD in travel. I for sure have a master's degree in business and entrepreneurship. I definitely know all about making money. And I know a whole lot about tuning into your authenticity. And I know a lot about feeling behind in life, right? Maybe I have a PhD in life on feeling behind in life.

Christa Romano: That is something that I have a PhD in and therefore I'm able to talk about it for a freaking hour on a podcast that thousands of people are inevitably going to listen to. So do you understand how the Timeline of your own [00:49:00] life ultimately can manifest in ways beyond your wildest imagination. Do you think that back in the day when I was feeling so frustrated that all I wanted to do was travel, but I had no freaking idea what kind of career I was going to pursue.

Christa Romano: I had no idea how to make money online. I had 3, 000 to my name that someday I. would be teaching people how to make money online and how to figure out what their perfect career is? What? What? Like me? No, I was the most behind in all of those categories. It's crazy. But that is what ended up happening, right?

Christa Romano: That is my truth. And do you know what? About the like, relationship and baby thing? Like, maybe? Maybe ultimately I'll meet my person and I'll have a baby and then I will be able to be a Mom who's [00:50:00] so far away from the mentality of a teen mom. I will be a mom who's very emotionally intelligent, who really knows myself, who's a coach.

Christa Romano: And I feel like that will make me a great mom someday, right? But maybe I'm not going to be a mom. Maybe I'm not going to be my person. Maybe I'm, not going to. I don't ever have a PhD in that area, but maybe I will end up having some kind of life PhD in a different area that I can not yet anticipate.

Christa Romano: Maybe I'm gonna end up leading some kind of movement of living your best fucking life as a happy woman in your 40s. I don't know. I mean, whatever. I just, I'm giving you real life, vulnerable examples from me where you can see that like, I'm still a student. in life as well. Sure, there are lots of things that I have received a life PhD in and that's why I'm talking about them on this podcast to help educate and give other people a perspective that hopefully helps them based on what [00:51:00] I have learned in my school of life, right?

Christa Romano: And also I am a school, I am in the school of life in many other areas as well. We all And that's another thing that I really want you to remember too, when you are receiving the projections from other people that are making you feel like you're not on the right timeline because that person that's saying, Oh, but you should get a good job.

Christa Romano: Here's how I did it. Here's my perspective thinking about one of my clients right now who like her parents are always telling her that, you know, she should bail on her entrepreneurship endeavors and, and just. to get a normal job, right? For her, like, you know, maybe she respects her parents because they have it all figured out.

Christa Romano: They have a beautiful home and Martha's Vineyard and whatever. And, and if she admires that and that's what she wants, okay. But those people who are giving her that advice, they do not have a PhD in [00:52:00] some other areas of her life that she might want to explore. In those other areas, she might have a higher education in that area of life than they do.

Christa Romano: And this can happen a lot, by the way, with our parents. Like, when we grow up, when we're really young, we look to our parents like they are God. Because they're so much older than us, they've taken, hopefully, such good care of us, they teach us so much, we learn everything. Everything that we know through our parents.

Christa Romano: And so we really pedestal them when we're younger, but then when we get older, once we become an adult, we see our parents for who they are, which are mere mortals that have been on earth for a mere 20, 30 years longer than us. And they are on their own timeline of life and they have their own PhDs in life that you know, that they are incredibly studied in and knowledge about and have a lot of wisdom on.

Christa Romano: And. They are also [00:53:00] students of many other things that we might actually have a PhD and we get to go teach our parents things. We get to teach people all kinds of things based on what we have learned in our school of life. So I want to leave you and wrap up the episode with that concept. It is that you have a PhD in something.

Christa Romano: I don't know what it is right now. You might not be aware of what it is right now, but I bet with enough soul searching, you could figure out parts of your life that you genuinely have so much learned and earned wisdom in. You have gifts that you can share with the world. You have talents. Maybe you have talents that are just emerging.

Christa Romano: And you could be an absolute star student if you were to just go continue pursuing that field of [00:54:00] education. But you've got to be able to create the space for yourself to pursue those things so that you can land on your highest timeline, wherever that may take you. And again, it's okay if you don't know where it is that you're going yet.

Christa Romano: But if you desire to know, if you would like to figure out what is your highest timeline, what is the path that you are meant to be on, what could be a career that's truly authentic to you and who you are and what your PhD of life is, then I just want to remind you that that is actually my specialty.

Christa Romano: Thank you. Something that I do have another Ph. D. in is helping other people figure out what is their Ph. D. Or what is a Ph. D. they have already or what is a Ph. D. that they are best pursuing. And when I say Ph. D. I hope by now you know I'm talking about the Ph. D. of life. Per the metaphor that I gave at the beginning of this [00:55:00] episode.

Christa Romano: But if you're feeling behind in life because you don't know What career you want to pursue, you feel stuck in the corporate rat race, maybe you've been on one path for however long and you feel like it's no longer serving you and you want to pursue a different path but you don't know which one because you're out of touch with what you're supposed to be doing, with what your highest timeline is, then please, please, please, please, Do yourself a favor and just shoot me a message and just let me know about your situation and I will share with you how I personally can help you in the same way that I have helped hundreds.

Christa Romano: of other people figure out what their life PhD is. So I have this thing called a career assessment call. It's a service that I offer where we, you and I will be on the phone for about an hour, but you do a lot of preliminary work in order to prepare for this call, which makes it so freaking effective.

Christa Romano: Basically what [00:56:00] you're going to do is once you sign up for it, I'm going to send you a series of videos that are psychologically designed to open up your mind and make you open minded to all the possibilities there are of remote, specifically businesses. Because I'm not here to try to help you create a brick and mortar business, obviously.

Christa Romano: I'm here to help you be free. I'm here to help you make money from anywhere in the world. I'm here to help you liberate your schedule, liberate your life so that you can design your life to be whatever it is that you want. And I really believe that Only a 100 percent remote income will allow you to fully liberate your life.

Christa Romano: So trust that if you and I talk, I will only ever suggest to you completely remote options, but you're going to watch these videos. It's going to psychologically open up your mind to all the possibilities that there are out there. And then you're going to fill out this incredibly detailed form where I'm going to ask you how you feel about certain words related [00:57:00] to the workplace.

Christa Romano: You're going to take a gut check and then you're going to leave detailed notes for me. Then you're going to tell me major life stories that you have that made a lasting impact on you. I'm going to ask you about your relationship to all different social medias. I'm going to ask you how prepared you feel to learn certain skills that you may not yet know.

Christa Romano: And I'm going to ask you so many other questions. Trust this process takes you about, I don't know, anywhere between three to six hours to fill out this form. But it's such a beautiful deep dive into your own psyche. You're gonna learn so much about yourself literally just from the exercise alone. But then once you and I get on the phone together, first of all, you'll have just thought about all your answers.

Christa Romano: So they're right at that first step. Forefront of your mind so you're it's going to be very easy for you to recall and answer any question I could possibly ask you because how comprehensive the form is And then I also have all of the detailed notes in front of me so that I can just spot read and say oh tell me More about this.

Christa Romano: Tell me that [00:58:00] story. What did you mean by this? How did you interpret this word and Literally after usually about 30 to 45 minutes Or less sometimes we actually get to it within 10 minutes. It just depends on You how clearly you did the exercise, but yeah, anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour, I will be able to look at that form, meet you, feel your energy, tune in to you, notice your facial expressions, ask you, Oh, what were you going to say when you trail off in different sentences?

Christa Romano: Like, It's really a magical process. I will be able to suggest to you something that will probably make you feel so excited that you're going to say, why didn't I think of that? Wait, I can do that for remote work? What? Really? And then I'm going to be like, yeah, let me, let me share with you what this path could look like.

Christa Romano: And then I will. give you a vision of who you could be with this new career. I will paint the whole picture for you in your mind. Then you're going to be able to ask me questions of, okay, well, [00:59:00] if I did pursue this, what would I need to do first? What would I need to do next? And then I have the digital nomad life academy to guide you through that whole process of actually implementing what comes up on the career assessment call.

Christa Romano: And, you know, for most of the people that I work with, they're Maybe not starting from scratch. They could be actually starting from having a corporate career for many years. Maybe they do have some skills. Maybe they don't have some skills either way, for the most part, the people that I work with have never been an entrepreneur.

Christa Romano: So the entrepreneurship journey is one they are starting from scratch and it's a journey, like it's a whole. Lifestyle transformation to be an entrepreneur,

Christa Romano: regardless of the digital nomad part, right? Like people that come into the Digital Nomad Life Academy, they're shaking up everything. Like they're shaking up their career, they're shaking up their lifestyle. We're just talking about a major life overhaul, like making your life so different, it's [01:00:00] unrecognizable.

Christa Romano: Because when you are free, I mean, you can still choose to live where you wanna live. You can live at home if you want, but like you have the freedom to choose. That's what happens when you follow the coursework and the program inside of the Digital No Life Academy, which by the way is a whole year because it's such a big transformation.

Christa Romano: So when you join the DNLA. You get to start off slow, right? You start off with just the video modules that I shared with you that open up your mind to the possibilities. Then you and I get on a call and we do the career assessment process and you get the idea. You're like, okay, I see the vision. Now that's when the real work begins.

Christa Romano: And then by now you're probably, you've probably been in the program for about a month. So now you have 11 months left to slowly at your own pace, Own pace. Start making changes in your life that will move you a little bit closer to your [01:01:00] highest timeline, whatever that timeline might be. Right? It's your timeline.

Christa Romano: So your timeline is not gonna look like my timeline. My timeline looks like. Living in Thailand and figuring out a bunch of different careers and then living out of my suitcase for four years and then moving to Bali and da da da adopting a dog off the beach and like that's my timeline. Your timeline might be Moving to a cabin in the woods with your husband.

Christa Romano: That could be your timeline. The beautiful thing about the Digital Nomad Life Academy is that it's all people that have different dreams, but the thing that they dream of is pursuing their highest, truly most authentic timeline. And that means that it's a whole community of really big dreamers.

Christa Romano: Ambitious people that want the best for themselves and they want the best for you too. And they're ready to celebrate you for every little action that you [01:02:00] take. They're there to say fuck yeah when you finally quit that job that you hate. Because don't we all know that your parents or whoever, your friends are going to come out of the woodwork and be like, Oh, you quit your job.

Christa Romano: No. What about your benefits? F that. That is not the vibe inside of the DNLA. We are here to celebrate you truly because we want to be on our highest timelines and therefore we want you to be on your highest timelines and we all get to pursue that goal together. It's just such a beautiful environment.

Christa Romano: So, um, if you don't know about the Digital Nomad Life Academy, if this is the first time that you're hearing about it, you can scroll into the show notes. And watch the campus tour, and I'll just show you like the back end of the DNLA so you can actually see what it looks like. You can see where we communicate, you can see how many calls we have per week, etc.

Christa Romano: Or you can watch a free training that I have that's called the [01:03:00] roadmap, the 12 week roadmap to become a digital nomad. And basically that breaks down the philosophy of the way that I teach entrepreneurship and the way that I teach digital nomadism. And you'll also hear a lot more examples of what happens on the career assessment call that I mentioned earlier.

Christa Romano: So my friend, my listener, you have everything that you need available to you.

Christa Romano: To completely change your life. And you don't have to change every aspect of your life, but by working remotely, by having your own business, that's a business that you love, that feels exciting and authentic to you. You get to embark on a timeline for the rest of your life. That is your. highest timeline and that's what this whole episode is about and that's what you deserve.

Christa Romano: That's what we all deserve. We all deserve to do life in the way that makes the most sense for our highest self. But we have to stop taking the projections of other people so [01:04:00] seriously. We have to stop letting other people's opinions and other people's fears and other people's insecurities affect our timeline.

Christa Romano: You got this. I believe in you. And I genuinely would love to hear what you think about this episode. I hope that you can tell with the tone of my voice, I've been very passionate about this topic and I would love to just nerd out with you about it. So if you have any feedback on this episode, I would love to hear it personally in my DMs at @christabellatravels. 

Christa Romano: Feel free to send the keyword TimelinePodcast and I'll know that you came from this episode. Or, I have one more request. If you are a listener on Apple podcasts, for some reason, I have a lot of listeners on that platform, but very, very, very few reviews. So if you could review this podcast on that, it would literally help me so much.

Christa Romano: And if you do, you can always tell me if you want to screenshot it so that I can just [01:05:00] profusely thank you. It would really help me. Or you can just be an anonymous do gooder who just, uh, has this be your little act of kindness for today. Also, a review on Spotify is always helpful. I have lots of those, but guys, I just want you to know I really appreciate you holding space for me to rant and rave about the things that I care about and I'm glad that it resonates with some of you and I hope that this episode has helped lift the weight off of at least one person's shoulders and allowed you to feel free pursuing your own timeline.

Christa Romano: So, with that, thank you for your reviews, thank you for your time, and I will see you in the next episode! Bye!