It’s Monday! By the time you read this I will be wrapping up a 4 day silent meditation at Joshua Tree. Yes, that is right I am currently at a 4 day silent meditation! I can’t believe it either!

Something shifted in the fall of 2016. Around that time, I realized I would be okay if I never got married or had kids. Up to that point, I looked for women or a woman who are living example of contentment in single hood. Women who dreamt of a life outside of marriage and child raring. It was important for me to know someone in my life, not someone in the public eye. I could not find such a woman or women that was the example of what I felt wanted to emerge within me.

Once I accepted a different future than many of my female friends and women that I encounter, I decided to stop looking for an example. Instead I accepted a new truth.

“I will be the role model that I have been looking for,” I told myself.

When I studied improv we talked about endowing ourselves or our fellow improv team as characters like a servant, king or mother. We could also endow ourselves with character traits like a raspy voice, a hunch back or silly laugh. How I carried myself on stage could also be a way I endowed myself as a character. The idea of endowment, when applied to my own life, lit my life on fire.

It not only changed me, but changed how I pursue life.

I no longer needed permission to live an extraordinary life. This was the moment I blazed a new trail for myself and walked with my head held high towards a new life that my old way of being and thinking could not fathom.

My life has now become about spending money on once in a life time experiences that I would never think to do because I never allowed myself to spend too much money on me. Since then, I took a weekend trip to Orange County to see one of my favorite bands in September, bought an expensive birthday gift for a milestone birthday this year, went to a yoga retreat that I have wanted to go to for years, but was afraid of the cost. And now this meditation retreat I signed up for a week after it came into my in box.

The fire within me, is igniting a fire around me and it’s beautiful. Rather than look around you for what you need, perhaps you need to accept that you already have what you need and are what you need. Embrace it or nudge it, I promise that it is inside you. See what shifts in you and share your findings in the comments.

Today, on this Monday consider being your own role model to live the extraordinary life that awaits you.

Love – Stephanie XO