Journey To The Soul

Living Beyond Limits: Discovering Your Expanders

• Jacenda Villa

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Are you feeling stuck, unsure of how to take the next step in your journey? The latest episode of the Journey to the Soul is designed for you! Join me, as we explore the transformative power of expanders—the mentors and role models that can profoundly influence our paths. In this compelling episode, we dive deep into the reasons why having expanders is crucial for pushing the boundaries of our comfort zones and creating lives aligned with our true desires. 

With rich insights and heartwarming anecdotes, I illustrate how expanders serve as mirrors that reflect possibilities we may not see within ourselves. Whether it's someone you know personally, a public figure, or even someone from history, mentors can inspire you to dream bigger and take action toward your aspirations. Learn practical tips for identifying your unique expanders and cultivating supportive relationships that keep you on track toward your goals. 

This episode is not just about seeking guidance; it's a call to action to also act as an expander for others. As you uncover your own path, remember that you have the power to inspire and uplift those around you. So, if you're ready to redefine what’s possible, tune in, and let's embark on this journey together! Don’t forget to subscribe, share with your friends, and join the conversation on Instagram.

Instagram: @jacendamarie


Speaker 1:

Hi, loves, welcome to the Journey to the Soul podcast. I am your host, jacinda Villa, a spiritual life coach and holistic health coach. Every week, we will be diving deep into all things purpose, wellness, spirituality and creating the life that you dream of. This space is meant to be safe and transformative for you to dive into the deepest parts of yourself. I will share what I have learned from my journey along this path years of research and mentors along the way. Having spent many years living life out of alignment and afraid to go after my dreams, I know firsthand what it means to take the first step down, living a life authentic to you. We are on this road of self-discovery together. It is time for you to live the life you imagined. Hello, my loves, welcome to another week here at Journey to the Soul, another podcast. I hope you are all having a beautiful day, wherever it is you are tuning in from.

Speaker 1:

This week's episode is actually going to be tying in to the episode that I uploaded two weeks ago, which was about getting out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to just go live that life that you want for yourself, that you intend to have for yourself, and we talked about how to go about doing that, and this kind of supports that a little bit, because once we have clarity over what it is that we want and we have the conviction and the devotion to go and start creating that life for ourselves, it could require some change in our life, right Us choosing to make different decisions that are more aligned with the life that we envision for ourselves. More aligned with the life that we envision for ourselves. And it could also be super supportive to have people in your life who also expand you and are living a similar life to the life that you want. And that's what we're going to be talking about today is having expanders in your life. Talking about today is having expanders in your life, mentors of some kind, people that can help you as you stay devoted to your path. And there's two reasons that we could want to have mentors, and one of them is just having someone who is living that life that you want to live, who has that lifestyle that you want to have. The relationships that they have is something that you aspire to have. Maybe they're making a certain amount of money or they have a certain kind of family.

Speaker 1:

Expanders are there to show you what is possible. It's people that are being a mirror for you to show you the many opportunities and options that are available to you in your life, because the life that you are living now is not the only option that you have, and that's what we talked about in the last episode, right. So having expanders in your life is so important because, especially when you start pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, you might not have anyone in your day-to-day life that actually is doing what it is you want to do, or having the life that you desire to have, or making the amount of money that you aspire to have. And this is where mentors, expanders, mirrors, are going to be super key to your journey. And it's about knowing that, whatever it is that you are striving for, that clarity that you gained when we talked about it in the last episode, right, of pushing yourself to go create that life that you want for yourself, knowing that that is possible for you, because it is. That's the truth. That is black and white. Each one of us comes with choices in our life, and we have a choice to go create that extraordinary life for ourselves in our life. And we have a choice to go create that extraordinary life for ourselves and sometimes we just need support, we need inspiration, we need, you know, just some kind of hug as we go through this journey in life, and that's where these mentors come in.

Speaker 1:

And mentors could be people you know in person. It could be a friend, it could be an acquaintance, a friend of a friend, someone that you know that has a similar business to what you want to have. Maybe they have a photography business and you've been wanting to start your own photography business, or they have their own company selling candles and you want to do something similar. It could also be people that you don't know at all, because it's very much possible that the people in your life you know, your circle, the people that you know in your day to day, it's very possible that they may not be people that you aspire to be or you aspire to have a certain life to them. So you know, it could be Steve Jobs, can be one of the people that expand you, it can be Elon Musk, it could be Oprah Winfrey, anyone that really just inspires you, that really just inspires you, that just shatters your ceiling and your roof of what is possible in the realm, of what it is you want to do or the life that you want to lead. These are going to be your expanders.

Speaker 1:

So I invite you, after this episode, to kind of take some time and think about who in your life that you may know, or someone in your life may know could be someone that is an expander for you, or it could be just someone that you already aspire to be like in our more mainstream culture. Like I mentioned, it could be an entrepreneur, it could be a philanthropist, it could be anyone the president of the United States, I mean whoever you want, whoever inspires you. It could also be people that might not be alive, and this is also how what we're talking about. It doesn't need to be someone that you know in person. Your expander could also be someone who has passed. It could be Pablo Picasso, it could be Audrey Hepburn, it could be Coco Chanel, whoever it is that just piques your interest, that gives you that visceral yes of some kind. That is probably going to be your answer.

Speaker 1:

So, after this episode, take some time and just write about it, think about it, ponder about who in your life is someone that could be just so expansive for where you are in your life and where you want to go. The next step of that. So it's just a great little thing to know, because these people are going to really help you get to the next step of your life. The other reason we want to have mentors or expanders or mirrors is that it allows you to stay focused on what it is you are really working toward in your life. We've already established clarity on what those things are. We've already established that in order for you to have that life, you need to get out of your comfort zone, and having mentors expanders they're going to continue to help you get out of that comfort zone and continue to take aligned action that is supportive of the life that you have.

Speaker 1:

But the other thing is that this path, when you start walking a different path, living a different life that is very different than the people all around you, it can be quite lonely. It could be helpful to have people who are value similar things and are working towards a similar change in their life, but that might not be possible for everyone. So these mentors also allow you to stay focused on what it is you are working on. It keeps the end in mind for you. It allows your eye to stay focused on the long run. Right. It's like what is the light at the end of the tunnel. What is all of this for? And again, this is so helpful, especially when, every single day, we might not have anyone in our life that is wanting to create a better life for themselves. That can be very hard. That's when it can be extra hard to remember to stay the course that we're on and devoted to our path, to our evolution, to our becoming.

Speaker 1:

Once you have a mentor identified for you, find ways that you can work with them. If this is someone that you know, someone in person, an acquaintance, if they do one-on-one coaching, if they teach any courses, retreats, any way that you can just be more intimate with them, you can meet them for coffee. You can shadow them in person for coffee. You can shadow them in person, read books that they have written. This also, of course, applies to people who you may not know in person. So you know, if again, we're using Oprah as an example here If Oprah is someone that inspires you and you want to be more aligned with that way of life and her values and the life that she leads and she is your expander, read her books, find a way to work with her and to be in her state of mind, her state of being, how she works, how she functions, more intimately. So this is going to be different for all of us, right? If you're an artist and you know your expander is again Pablo Picasso, this might look like spending more time observing his art, being more in that realm, in the energy of that piece of art, and studying it and all of those other things. And we can have mirrors, mentors for different aspects of life. It's very possible that there might be one person that comes to mind for you and it's like no, this is my expander, this is what I'm working towards, this is my inspiration for the life that I am trying to create. But it's also very possible for you to have two or three different expanders that kind of have different energy and have slightly just different values and a different lifestyle, have slightly just different values and a different lifestyle, but that embody certain things that you want to embody or have in your life in different realms. So that can be true for some of us.

Speaker 1:

I remember when I first wanted to just have a different life, when I was much younger and started my self-development journey, I really had no one in my life that I knew personally, who had the life that I envisioned, who had the kind of success that I had, who wanted the kinds of things that I wanted, who valued the same things. So when I first started my journey, I really just read about the people that really interested me. I read about whatever it is that they shared, people that inspired me. I really had to look outside of my circle, outside of just my everyday life, to have someone show me what was possible, because my realm of what was possible when I was younger and we all go through this we continuously break through our reality of what is possible, right, I've talked about that in another podcast episode, how we're constantly expanding our reality, our perspective of what is possible. And I remember when I first went through this that I can actually remember I was probably in college and I just didn't have anyone in my life that was really doing what I wanted to do or living the life that I wanted. And I know that I've also shared before that I've kind of always had a pretty strong sense of what it is that I want in life, like from the more macro sense, like in the greater sense. But those desires, those wants, have evolved over time as I have evolved, but when I first started, it was so pivotal to my growth for me to actually seek outside of my everyday life to find people that could show me what was possible in all of these different ways, and I've gone through so many evolutions of this.

Speaker 1:

Now, when I think back to it, I think about you know the different times in my life where this has happened. When I decided to start working full-time as an entrepreneur for myself five or six years ago, that was a big thing for me, leaving my 9-to-5 job and choosing to have more freedom in my life. When I also wanted to make more money by working less. This was also just a self-limiting belief that I had about having to work more and hard in order to make more money, and that is, of course, not true, but I remember that when I went into my business full-time, I didn't want to. After a few years, I wanted to work smarter, not harder, and that was another evolution where I looked for expanders. I started reading and learning about different people who had done this. When I wanted more freedom in my life, even more than when I left my job. When I wanted to travel and really have total autonomy over my life.

Speaker 1:

Again, I sought out people who could show me what was possible and how I could apply that in my life, and for me, this has looked like, of course, like I said, reading books. It's looked like taking courses. It's looked like talking to them one-on-one, picking their brain. It's looked like retreats. It's looked like so many different things, because those people are truly going to be so supportive as you go through your evolution in life, and this is going to be ever-changing, just as you are ever-changing.

Speaker 1:

But it's so important for us to know what is possible for us, especially if we have an upbringing that was maybe a little bit more sheltered or there was a lot of scarcity around certain things, and you maybe didn't have the easiest upbringing. But also just for anyone, right? Any single one of us. There is a quote by Isaac Newton and it says if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants, and essentially, this is just telling us that new ideas, new works, new inspirations are built from the people who came before us, and these are our mentors, these are our mirrors, right? It's people that have done the things that we've wanted to do, and this is how we are going to get better. Like Isaac Newton is essentially saying that he wouldn't have been as great as he would have been, because we could all attest that he was truly an outlier when it came to science and all of these other things during his time. But he would never have been able to do that if it hadn't been to the teachings and the support and the knowledge of the people who did what he was doing before him, and he was just able to take all of that in and take it even to the next level, to expand on that. And that is what this is inviting you to do, because you are so capable of creating whatever life that you want.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes it can be so hard to stay rooted in that, when there's no one in your life who is devoted to that as much as you are, is devoted to that as much as you are. But knowing that there are people who A want to support you on your life path and who love seeing other people rise, there are people who love to bring other people with them as they continuously go through this journey of life, it's about you know saying, hey, this is what I've learned so far. Maybe this will make your journey a little bit better, and that's what these mentors are here to do. That's what so many of them want to do the mirrors in your life. Some of the most inspirational people are so inspirational for a reason they want to share that knowledge. They want to share that light because by sharing it, it just expands other people and you, choosing to expand yourself and go through and do the life that's meant for you, you will also be an expander and a mirror for people in your life of what is possible. So this has a domino effect. This is so much greater than just yourself.

Speaker 1:

I hope you all enjoyed this episode. I look forward to talking to you all in my next episode. I am sending you a big hug and so much love and light until then. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode and share this message with any friends and family. I'd love to hear your takeaways, so share them with me by leaving a comment below or heading over to my instagram At jacinda marie. I am sending you all so much love.