Hello friend,
I have a question.
Are you the leading lady in your own life, or the supporting character?
Don't answer that too fast.
I know everybody's birthday. Everybody's appointments. Where everything in the house is. Ask me what I actually like and I need a minute.
Every year around my birthday I give myself a challenge. I turn 58 on Monday, and this is this year's.
Twenty one days to stop being a supporting character in your own life.
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WHERE THIS CAME FROM
I have been sending women off on their own for thirty years. Long before I had any language for it, before there was a word for the work, before anyone was paying me for it. Women would sit in my chair and somewhere in the conversation I would find the thing they had not done for themselves in a decade, and I would send them out to do it. That has never changed. It is the one thing I have always known how to do.
I learned it the least romantic way possible. I was a live in nanny at eighteen in a brand new city, and the only way to stop being a nanny for an evening was to physically leave the house, because otherwise the child was in my room wanting to play. So I went out alone. I ate alone, went to films alone, sat in cafés alone.
I hated it. I used to light a cigarette purely to have something to do with my hands, because it made the aloneness feel less loud.
It took years to stop being uncomfortable and more years after that to become something I would choose. So when I tell you the first week feels strange, I am not guessing. That discomfort is not a sign you are doing it wrong.
Somewhere in there I read The Artist's Way and started writing morning pages, and three pages a day turned into a lifelong habit. Most of what follows is built on those two things.
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WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS
Every morning from Monday you get one question and one quest.
The question you just carry around. Don't chase it. It'll find you on the quest, or in the bath three days later, or in the middle of a conversation you weren't expecting. These questions do not need solving. They're seeds. You may want to journal about them but just don’t hold them too tight.
The quest is the real thing. Go somewhere. Try something. Say the thing you'd normally swallow. It takes your body somewhere, which is the only reliable way to get that busy brilliant mind of yours to be quiet for ten minutes.
Nothing dramatic. Nobody has to leave anyone. Twenty one small deliberate choices in a life that already exists.
And we are not leaving the bags. This sits right on top of them. Twenty one days is the tool. Unpack the Performance bag and the Ghost bag, repack the Yes bag and the Love bag. Same four bags, same house. You're just moving things back to where they belong.
Twenty one days from now you'll have proof, in your own handwriting and in your own calendar, that you're still capable of choosing. A working list of what you actually like. The ability to say no in one word, having practised it on something small. One belief you've carried for decades, named out loud and put down.
A word about the guilt. Some women will feel this is selfish. You might feel it yourself, as a low hum every time you do something purely for you.
Name it when it turns up. That guilt is not evidence you're doing something wrong. It's evidence you've spent a very long time putting yourself last and your nervous system has mistaken that for virtue. Keep going anyway.
And to be clear about something. This is not about becoming a woman who doesn't need anyone. We need our people. We need our friends and our families and the women who know our real laugh. That isn't changing. What changes is the quality of the woman who turns up to them. This is an inside job so that everything outside of it can be better.
Go out alone. Explore you. Write life down.
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HOW IT RUNS
This letter arrives every morning from Monday 10 August through to the end of the month, then goes back to Mondays.
They're short. A minute to read, most days less. A question, a quest, and then I leave you alone to go and do it.
Every one of them will be labelled by day, so they're easy to find later. That's deliberate. If this isn't your three weeks, if August is a write off and the timing is wrong, let them stack up in your inbox and come back to them when twenty one better days come around.
Although I should tell you now.
There is never a better day than today.
· · ·
Do all 21 and it's a transformation. Do the four that grab you and that's still four more than last month. Both completely fine.
The rhythm underneath it. A few small things every day. This isn't another list of tasks, it's an exchange, and mostly it's an exchange of time you were handing to your phone anyway.
Ten minutes of quiet before you touch your phone. Just be there, or ask yourself one question. What do I need from me today.
Three pages of whatever falls out of your head. It doesn't have to be profound. Maybe just a grocery list. Nobody is reading this but you.
Ten minutes of moving in a way you actually like. Walk, dance, stretch. Outside is better. This is not a fitness challenge.
Ten minutes of quiet again at night. Phone down half an hour before bed.
Less news and less social media for three weeks. A full fast is an option, a little less is enough.
We lived local once. We knew what was happening on our own street, and that was the scale we were built for. When we take in this much noise we go numb, and in all of it we can no longer hear our own soul calling.
One thing before Monday. Buy something to write in, and buy the one that makes your heart lift. It can absolutely be from the dollar store. Just buy it on purpose. Intention is the word that runs through all twenty one days.
Everything about these twenty one days is simple. That is not the same as easy.
I'm doing every single one of them with you. You'll see where I go and what happens, and I want to see yours. Take the picture, tag me, and use #LeadingLady21 so we can all find each other.
I'm 58 on Monday. This is my challenge for myself this year and I hope you will join me.
You built this life. Which means you're the only one who can build something different.
In love, light and laughter,
Karen
P.S. Day 1 lands in your inbox on Monday morning. Bring the notebook.