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Let's Talk to Things Now. Grab your tea, coffee, or a glass
of wine and let's talk to Things. Hello everyone, and welcome to another
episode of Let's Talk the Things. I am your host, Ash and this
week we are talking to things about ways to bring luxury and indulgence into our
everyday lives. It's important that we stop waiting for that vacation to experience luxury.
And don't worry, I'm guilty of it too, but not to worry.
Today we are going to uncover ways to infuse opulence and luxury into our
daily routines. So when we think of luxury right, our minds often drift
to luxurious destinations and getaways and you know, maybe bubbled beast and champagne and
all those things that we love on vacation. But what if I told you
that luxury is not solely reserved for vacations. In fact, we can create
moments of appelence and luxury right in our own lives every day without having to
wait for that girl's trip, solo trip or vacation. No. I will
say, as of late, with the advent of the soft life, which
we've talked about before on this podcast, I find that women are trying their
best to implement it in their lives, right, And so that's a great
start. However, some of you just don't know where to get started.
And here's the thing. You don't have to have a lot of money to
experience luxury. I think luxury is a relative to the person, right.
So for one person, luxury maybe champagne and you know, expensive clothes.
But for another person, luxury might just be relaxing in bed with no kids
and no husband and just time for yourself, reading a book, you know,
or maybe reading doing all of that, reading a book in the bath
reverence style, that could be luxury for you. So it's not linear,
and that's the great thing about luxury. It's important to redefine the concept and
embrace the idea that luxury can be found in just the littlest things that bring
us joy. Right. So basically, we want to try to shift our
mindset to recognize that luxury can be experienced on a daily basis. Right.
So, for example, let's say you really love coffee, right, and
typically you make your own coffee at home. Luxury for you might be telling
yourself or creating a budget to have your favorite coffee from your favorite coffee spot
every day, you know, or every Wednesday or every month, you know,
whatever you can afford implement that luxury in your life. So again,
it might not be your daily life, but just I guess I shouldn't stay
daily life, just in your regular life, like it's not a vacation,
right. Or for example, like I said earlier, you know, maybe
your idea of luxury is to be able to just get away, maybe plan
a staycation, you know, go to your local hotel. A lot of
times local hotels have really good rates and you can stay overnight. Maybe you
can go for a day. You can do like a spa day or something
like that, you know, something where you don't typically have to pack a
suitcase, but you can pack a little bag and just have a luxurious day
for yourself. Right. Other small indulgences that can elevate your everyday experience could
just be literally sitting down, you know and savoring a cup of coffee before
you go to work, waking up a little bit earlier, so you're not
just in this rush to leave the house, you can literally sit down,
you know, look outside, if you have a veranda, sits on the
veranda, just watch the news, whatever you want to do, and there's
that moment where it's just to yourself and you can really savor your coffee,
your tea, whatever gets you going in the morning, you know, maybe
it's at night. Maybe you volunteer to do after school activities with your kids,
or you volunteer to help your friend with something, or you yourself have
all these plans. Maybe take something off of your schedule once a week that
you can promise yourself, Okay, this day every week, I'm going to
take a relaxing bath, and you scented oils and candles, and you know,
if you see things on sale. Home Goods is my favorite store,
but just things to like decorate your bathroom. Maybe you saw something at a
resort or a villa that you stayed at that you thought was so luxurious.
Recreate that if you can, you know, in your own home, and
so you can experience that every day. Speaking of your home, creating a
luxurious home environment is probably the best way to experience luxury every day, right
because the idea is God willing. You make it home every night, you
get up every morning in the same place, so you want it to feel
good, you know, all the time. And so the idea is that
our homes provide the perfect canvas for experiencing luxury, and by curating a space
that evokes comfort and elegance, we can then transform or daily lives into a
haven of indulgence. Right, So let's see ways that you can enhance your
living space. You can invest in high quality betting. Typically that's expensive.
However, I've seen very high quality betting on Amazon that I've heard is very
good. I myself have purchased high quality betting on like West Elm or like
I said, in home goods, a lot of times on sale, sometimes
even on clearance, just different colors. And sometimes if it's on sale and
you can afford it, just get it. You may not need it at
that moment, but it's just good to have, and especially if you can
get it on sale, that's like ideal. Right, So you can do
that. You can incorporate soft lighting, right because if you work in corporate
America, you're around florescent lighting probably all day every day. So maybe you
want some soft lighting. Maybe you want different color lighting. You know,
some people like to be able to set a mood with blue lights and pink
lights, and you know, maybe you want different color lighting for your mood.
They also have lightbulbs and all that play music through the light bulb.
So if you're someone that loves music and sort of like dim lighting. Back
to what we were talking about earlier with the bathroom or even taking a bath,
you could possibly get some of those lights that you can play soft music
or whatever type of music relaxes you, and then also incorporate that soft lighting
as well to give you kind of a spa feel right there at home,
included in your mortgage. I mean, honestly, you cannot ask for more
than that. Right, and last, but not least, another suggestion would
be to maybe surround yourself with different pieces of artwork or certain decor that like
make you feel relaxed. And as I said, one thing I can tell
you that I've done is when I go to different resorts or you know,
luxury villas, I always take photos of things that I find luxurious or relaxing
or you know, make me feel like I'm on vacation. Right, Because
likely you can't afford what's in the villa or in the hotel. Right,
But you can also you can always recreate it, right. You can always
go to your home goods, your what's the other store homegoods? Ah,
I'm drawing a blank, but basically any home store you can always find pieces
here and there. And if you know anything about home goods and those type
of stores, there's usually only one of that thing, so there's like a
slim chance that somebody else will will have it, you know, usually,
so that's always nice. But still you can kind of create your own interpretation
of what you've seen, and it's funny. I remember there was an episode
of Meet the Mitchells, if you guys are familiar with it, where Tammy
was redoing I think her bathroom or a room, I can't remember. She
was doing some type of redecorating and she realized that she had a photo of
basically what she created her room to be that was just in her phone.
So sometimes the universe works like that, right, Like you take a photo
of something, you might forget about it, maybe it was from a vacation
two years ago, and then you end up having the means to do some
redecorating and you realize, Wait, that's been in my head. I recreated
you know, this thing, this atmosphere that I've always wanted. So it's
kind of like having a semi vision board, I guess, but like just
in your phone. Another way you can create luxury is through the power of
aroma therapy. You'd be surprised how certain sense you know, like lavender and
just different sense that tend to relax you that usually find in spas, how
much that can create a spa like experience or ambiance at home, you know,
and how much there's just that sense can relax you. Right. So
that's something that again not very expensive, you can find almost anywhere that can
kind of create that luxurious atmosphere for you without you leaving home. Now,
we've talked about things that you can purchase, right literally thinks. However,
last, but not least, the most important, I think luxurious thing you
can do for yourself is maintaining your wellness and practicing self care. And here's
the thing. Self care does not have to be massages and aromatherapy and all
of what we just spoke about right now, that's all a part of it,
yes, because you know you want to treat yourself. You want to
treat yourself well, however, how you feel on the inside, right,
your level of joy, your level of happiness, your level of contentment.
That is the luxury, Right, that's the major key, as DJ Khaled
would say. And that's the thing I think because of social media, there's
this idea that luxury is always material, right, But it's really not,
not all the time. Right. We do love the fanciness, don't get
me wrong. We do love the fancy things and the luxurious hotels and the
luxurious ball and all of that. But something we can't enjoy those things if
we don't feel good inside. Right. If I don't feel good inside,
but I'm at a five star resort getting a three hundred dollars massage. Once
that sixty minute is over and I have to change, I'm back to dealing
with whatever I was dealing with before. Right, So luxury goes beyond material
possessions, right, that's the message. It encompasses a lot of other things.
Self care and prioritizing our well being, right, the utmost important thing.
So by taking care of ourselves, we can then cultivate a sense of
inner luxury that radiates throughout our everyday lives. Right. So, for example,
different workplaces nowadays are implementing wellness activities for their employees, right. So
that could mean they allow their employees to exercise during the day, could mean
they bring yoga instructors into a corporate setting. Or maybe it's just a meditation
coach. Or maybe it's somebody like Rochelle who we had on the podcast a
couple months back. That's a happiness coach, you know, that talks about
ways to cultivate happiness a lot of companies. She does a lot of corporate
talks because a lot of companies are realizing that if their employees are not well
mentally, right, if they're not practicing wellness, they're not going to get
the output that they need for their company to be successful. Right, So
it's an investment in their employees and a very good one. Another thing is
to emphasize the importance of incorporating self care practices into our routines. Right.
So maybe practicing mindfulness starting out once a week, and if you can get
there every day, you know, five ten minutes in the morning out of
your twenty four hour day is not a lot, right, you gift yourself
I remember I once dated somebody who told me that their uncle taught them when
it comes to being paid, you always pay yourself first. So they would
have an account where a couple hundred dollars would just go straight to that account.
They would never see it. So in their mind they only made this
amount of money, right, they would never see that amount until they needed
to go in their savings. And the idea was they took their check and
they paid themselves first before they paid the light bill, this bill to that
bill, you know. And so I say that with self care, with
mindfulness, with your well being, that's most important you start your day.
You pay yourself first. Also dedicating time for hobbies and passions. Right,
so let's say you love to play an instrument, but you just don't have
the time because you have all these things on your schedule. Maybe clear your
schedule so that you have an hour, you know, once a week to
just do what you love, you know, whether that's stringing a guitar or
sorry I said stringing, whether that's strumming a guitar or you know, playing
the piano, or you know, going for a walk. Pay yourself first.
In addition to that, their benefits to integrating wellness activities like I mentioned
earlier, like yoga or meditation, and not only are they good to relax
you, you know, but it kind of gives you a sense sense of
luxury from within. Right, So I want to know what your most luxurious
experience has been, right, And it can be you know, going somewhere,
It can be a spa, or it could just be like I said,
having no kids in your host if you have a lot of kids,
or you know, maybe you have a couple of kids but they make a
lot of noise, or you know, people are always in your house.
Your house is just that house that everybody comes to, and while you love
it, you just feel like you never have a moment to yourself like what
is the most luxurious thing that you've done? And I also want to know
what is something that you find to be luxurious but that somebody else might think
is just a you know, regular thing. So definitely send me your messages,
send me your emails and let me know. So for me, I
would say the most luxurious place I've ever stayed Okay, the most luxurious hotel
I've ever stayed in was in the Maldives. But I'm running a blank on
the name right now, running a blank on the name, but it was
definitely in the Maldives, the overwater Bungalow. I love water, so just
being over the ocean and hearing the ocean at night, that's like a dream
me. So that was definitely the most luxurious and to be honest, that
was actually the most luxurious spa experienced too, because the spa was also over
water and so like when you had your head down like you typically do to
get a massage, you could literally see if you opened your eyes, you
could literally see the fish swimming in the water below. And they washed your
feet and everything, like you could feel the breeze. Oh, it was
amazing. Second runner up has to be round Hill Hotel in Spa. Oh
my gosh. I got a Blue Mountain coffee scrub. Oh that was just
amazing. Honestly ten out of ten would recommend all of my friends so good.
And then I got the most amazing massage outside in the gazebo. I
mean it was yeah, I will say that is so okay, let me
Weiland come again. So environment wise, the spa in the Maldives, the
hotel I cannot recall right now. Environment wise, nothing can beat that,
right, Nothing can beat that. Nothing has beaten that thus far in my
life. However, as far as the actual massage, Round Hill Hotel and
Spa, you're you're not gonna get a better massage than that. The environment
is great too, right, but the actual massage, oh, oh my
gosh, and the body scrub, my skin was glowing. My skin just
glow like pepperlite. Yeah, my skin was glowing for days. Okay,
oh talking about that right now. I would love to be at Round Hill
soon, No, soon soon. Remember, luxury is not limited to special
occasions or vacations. Right. By redefining what luxury means to us, to
you, and incorporating small changes into our daily lives, we can all experience
a sense of opulence and luxury in every moment. Well maybe not every moment,
but you know that's eventually. That's the goal. So I encourage you
to identify just simple luxuries that you can incorporate into your routines, from you
know, enjoying a gourmet meal to treating yourself to a spa like experience like
we spoke about, you know, and just to remember that, in addition
to that, luxury is also a mindset, and that you deserve to experience
moments of self indulgence and opulence throughout your daily life. Right we all are,
We all have things going on, you know, sometimes we don't have
time to treat ourselves. But you have to make time. Just like you
make time for your job, you make time for your family, you make
time to you know, take your car to the shop. You have to
make time for yourself because none of those things that I just named, nothing
around you, nothing that you do can run if you're not okay, right,
So you have to make that time. You have to pay yourself,
like I said, and guest in yourself, and trust me, you will
thank me later. You will thank you later more importantly. So anyway,
guys, thank you again so much for joining me this week. And remember,
luxury is not a destination, It is a state of mind.