Our b, halfmoon manifesto
Nature is truth. It grounds, inspires, and guides us.
With each day, the rising and setting sun and moon
bring new freedom, growth, and light.
Let nature inspire you to #liveyourtruth.
Alicia is both a teacher and a student. She practices and shares the benefits of meditation and mindfulness, holistic wellness, yoga, essential oils, and conscious living through her programs, Meditation Pusher and The Deeper Wellness, and Theine Foundation. Using what she knows and what she continues to discover, Alicia invites others to cultivate their inner resources so they can connect more deeply to themselves and others.
Our founder, Andrea, connected with Alicia to share, discover, and unearth what her truth is. Read on to find out more.
ANDREA: I wanted to know if you had any thoughts on what it means to you?
ALICIA: I loved the idea of inviting people back to nature and to connect with nature. And for me, specifically, I found lately that so much healing and repair comes from following nature's rhythms, honoring the flows of the season, honoring that sometimes we plant seeds and sometimes we harvest.
ANDREA: We also are really rooted in supporting people in living their truth. And what we see is that nature doesn't lie and nature speaks its truth, which is really an inspiration behind our brand evolution. How do you feel about who you are embodying today? How do you feel you live your truth?
ALICIA: I think lately for me, living my truth feels a lot like duality. It feels like understanding that grief is a part of joy and joy is a part of grief and they serve each other. And nature is always signalling us to that idea that two things can happen at the same time. We can have a thunderstorm but we can also have a rainbow.
And I'm trying to learn the language for how I live. How do I continue to integrate the idea that there isn't necessarily a good or a bad? It's often one or the other or both.
ANDREA: b, halfmoon is rooted in supporting people along their wellness journey. What sort of wellness rituals or practices do you incorporate into your day-to-day life?
ALICIA: What I'm learning is that these rituals need to evolve and we need to, every day, ask ourselves, “What do I need today?” Just to signal it back to nature, if you're living your truth, it's not that wellness is a broad term. Wellness becomes very personal and very intimate. You are asking yourself, just a gentle self-inquiry, “What do I need today?”
And so for me, most days at a minimum I need some yoga to get my body moving, to get the rhythm and flow that I need to get through my day and to be present for the people I care about. I also need meditation just to set the tone for the day so the day doesn't come in and grab hold of me, but instead I have created a foundation for a great day. So, yoga and meditation are the things that are non-negotiable for me, and essential oils complement my practices throughout the day, and then rest. Rest, you know, is a big one.
ANDREA: We were chatting at length earlier about your passion for oils and you've imparted a lot of knowledge towards myself on that. What would be your top three oils of the moment and why?
ALICIA: The first one would be bergamot. I find that the warm citrus nature of it is really uplifting but also soothing. Bergamot is so beautiful for self-acceptance. And I think as you're going through changes or challenges in your life, you're constantly having to renegotiate how you feel about yourself. And so self-acceptance with the bergamot feels so right right now.
The second one I would say is lavender. We often think about lavender for calm, but lavender is such a beautiful oil to help us communicate better and find strength in our ability to communicate. When we are facing challenges, it is so nice to be able to voice our own needs, so I find that lavender really helps me with that.
And the third would be peppermint. I love the brightness of peppermint and how it brings buoyancy to the heart. And it just brings you right back to the present moment. It’s so easy to wander into the past or worry about the future, but peppermint has a way of just bringing you right back down.
ANDREA: It's interesting to put a spin on lavender because we've been conditioned to see lavender as a route towards calm, but that's kind of just one element of it. There's so much more dimension there towards facilitating speaking your truth.
ALICIA: But that is calm, actually. When we are voicing our needs and letting the world know who we are, and in that moment we need some space to take up space. Lavender facilitates that, and that brings calmness to us.
ANDREA: What brings you joy? What lights you up?
ALICIA: Certainly, spending time in nature. And I mean that in the most profound way because I'm finding more and more lately that I can get quiet, I can feel the rhythm of nature, feel the way it is restoring my mind, my body, and my heart, and feel the way it calls me back to alignment. And just breathing deeply in nature, taking it all in, letting it all out. It's serving us as much as we are serving it.
And having that reverence for its presence in our lives and really spending time with the trees and the sounds of the birds and the bluish nature of the sky and the green grass, all of that comes into our senses and lights us up. So spending time in nature, feeling my truth while in nature—all of those things are working for me.
ANDREA: Is there anything else that you feel compelled to share or that you had in the back of your mind that you wanted to share during this conversation?
ALICIA: Yeah, I really like the idea of Ayurveda and the idea of doshas. What I learned, what has served me is learning my doshas, and I was a very dominant Pitta for a lot of my life because I was very fiery. I had a lot of heat, and I was reactive, and I'd get anger very quickly—all of those things.
And learning and understanding that was my biochemistry, that was my Pitta, and understanding how both nature and how I nourish my body and how I care for myself really transformed. And now I'm more Kappa. And, so we're always a little bit of all of them.
ANDREA: I have a deep passion for crystals and their healing properties. They bring me so much joy, strength, wisdom. And I'm just wondering if you have a similar relationship with crystals and if there are any that speak to you more than others?
ALICIA: I'm very drawn to crystals. And what's been interesting throughout my life are the moments where certain crystals feel like they're speaking to me.
More recently, for example, I've started feeling very drawn to green type crystals. And green crystals, as you know, have a lot to do with health and wellness. So Jade has been speaking to me a lot lately. But also just Clear Quartz, the master healer as they say. Something about it has felt very grounding to me and very stabilizing. And interestingly, the other extreme, which probably speaks to my Pitta, is Black Onyx. It's a very strong stone and has a lot of power and energy. It also increases your stamina. It also transmutes negative energy. So, in a way, they all kind of line up together when you're thinking about them. Although you would never bring your Black Onyx close to your Jade.
But certainly, those three have been really calling me lately. And I always keep Rose Quartz close to me. For a very long time I kept it in my bra at all times where my heart stays. It sort of signals to come back to tenderness, to come back to compassion, and soften. The world is always telling you, you need to be harder, you need to be stronger, you need to be more resilient. And we forget that the root of resilience is actually compassion. So if you can cultivate that way of being, you become more resilient. You can't break something that's soft.
ANDREA: I always have a rose quartz with me basically at all times. It's like the foundation. It's like rose oil too.
ALICIA: Rose oil is so transformative, you know, and I put it in my heart space, but people always forget to put it in their back where the other part of their heart is.
At night, I always tell people when you're going through emotional things, you can't quite figure out just what it is, you can do a nice ritual. I put rose on the soles of my feet. I wake up just feeling a little bit softer, a little bit less on edge.
ANDREA: You don’t need a bourbon, you need rose oil! Is there one word you carry with you at this moment that is driving you forward?
ALICIA: Lately, it's been “open.” Stay open, no matter what, just stay open. Whenever we're faced with anything in our lives, the instinct is to close up or to shrink. Or to feel like you're moving through a bottleneck. You want to collapse.
And I have to remind myself again and again to just stay open to what's happening. Stay open to the moment, stay open to what you're hearing and feeling. I find that it often feels like a compass, you know? Just be open.It leads me back to that North Star of compassion.
ANDREA: Thank you for all that you've shared. You're an inspiration and a bright light. And there are so many nuggets that you've shared with our community and with us on this beautiful retreat. You're wonderful and we're so happy to have you in this community.
Alicia continues to be a student of life, love, peace, and potential. Follow her journey as she stays true to her authentic self @the.deeper.wellness. Be inspired embark on your own path to #liveyourtruth
