"It gave me language, tools, and perspective that helped me stay present through change I couldn’t control"
The 7 Sacred States Challenge

"It gave me language, tools, and perspective that helped me stay present through change I couldn’t control"

When I Said “I’m Ready”
I didn’t grow up with much stability.
I was an only child raised by a mother with serious mental illness. Home was unpredictable. I learned early how to read the room, how to stay small, how to leave when things weren’t safe. I left home at sixteen. Later, I set a firm boundary and stepped away from my relationship with my mother.
Years after that, she died by suicide.
That loss changed how I see life. It stripped away any illusion that things are guaranteed. It also started a quiet search in me — not for success, but for a way to live that could hold grief without becoming hard. That search eventually led me to Mindvalley.
Knowingness
Even before everything fell apart, I knew my inner world needed attention.
I attended the same in-person retreat focused on embracing pain three times, because something in me knew that insight alone wasn’t enough. Be Extraordinary gave me a simple but powerful framework: that growth often involves letting something fall away before something new can take shape.
Faith
I built a business without a clear plan for where it would end.
I showed up consistently. I cared deeply about the people I worked with. Over time, it grew into a seven-figure company with award-winning projects. From the outside, it looked successful.
Underneath, I was carrying debt I didn’t want to face. I kept believing things would stabilize if I worked harder.
Faith, for me, looked like continuing forward without certainty — sometimes wisely, sometimes not.
Love
Over time, I also began to see that my marriage had become unbalanced. It was familiar and functional, but the connection had changed. When we chose to end it, I turned to the Conscious Uncoupling Quest to do that as cleanly and respectfully as possible.
Love, in that season, meant honesty.
Stillness
As financial pressure increased, I slowed down rather than pushing harder.
I meditated more. I listened more. Through the Silva practices, I learned how to stay present with fear instead of reacting to it. Stillness didn’t solve anything immediately — it just helped me stay grounded enough to keep making the next right choice.
Devotion
Eventually, the pressure exposed cracks everywhere.
Business partners I trusted made decisions behind closed doors. I was pushed out of the team I had built. Projects, clients, and income disappeared quickly.
I sold my home to try to avoid bankruptcy. It wasn’t enough.
Around that time, I quietly said to the Universe, “I’m ready.”
 Not for success — just for whatever would help me live more truthfully.
What followed was hard. There’s no other way to say it.
Nonattachment (Where I Am Now)
What I see clearly now is how attached I was to who I thought I needed to be.
Nonattachment isn’t something I’ve achieved. It’s something I practice — especially while I’m still rebuilding financially. For me, it looks like continuing to create and contribute without needing immediate results to prove my worth.
Receiving (Where I Am Now)
Receiving is the state I’m learning most slowly.
I’ve always known how to give. Even now, with limited resources, I give what I can to people who have less — because that keeps me connected to my values.
Receiving means letting support come without embarrassment. Letting life help without insisting I earn it first. This is ongoing work for me.
Why I’m Here
I’m not sharing this from the other side of the journey.
I’m still in it.
What Mindvalley — especially Be Extraordinary and Silva — gave me wasn’t a promise of outcomes. It gave me language, tools, and perspective that helped me stay present through change I couldn’t control.
Vishen — for me, being extraordinary hasn’t meant rising above difficulty.
 It’s meant staying open, honest, and human while moving through it.

Cheri Stringer

Life Coach

Longmont, United States

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