These last few years, as US politics have gone totally bonkers, I’ve found a number of my seeming quirks to be pretty helpful for my own mental health and spiritual sovereignty. 

So I thought I’d share a few of them, in case you want to borrow a little of my personal weird as tools to get through the next week.

It’s been helpful to have had the Old Testament history lessons I received as a child.

Because, if you’ve studied the Old Testament, you know: World rulers have always been bananas. King Herod, anyone??? In a bizarre show of toxic, malignant narcissism, King Herod — a real person in history  —  issued a government order to massacre all baby boys in the land under two years old because he heard that the next big king had already been born. 

And he wasn’t the only world leader with a disturbing lack of scruples. King David wanted to sleep with Bathsheba so he had her husband sent to war and killed. Yeeeeeah. 

King Solomon was the wisest man on Earth, they say, but one of his court orders went like this: There’s a dispute about which woman this baby belongs to? Okay, saw the baby in half and give one side to each of the women who claims she’s the Mom. 

Sure, he was trusting that the real Mom would protest the verdict. But, like, what??? That is not a good court order.

Yet somehow, despite the stunning inhumanity of some of our world leaders, humanity always finds its way back. We lose the thread. But we always find it again. 

It’s been a blessing, this past few years, to have this default worldview, which is a cosmic point of view. 

The point of view that knows that what we can see with our physical eyes, is just the tip of the iceberg. 

It’s been helpful to take the zoomed-out, eternal point of view. 

In a time of spiritual crisis, it’s a helpful thing to be wired as a spiritual contrarian.

And it’s been helpful to know the laws of the Universe, including the one that says all expansion is preceded by contraction. That just means that shit gets really real sometimes, before it gets better, and the upheaval is part of the process of things getting better.

It’s been helpful that I used to be a lawyer back in the day. So I have an understanding of how this country came to be and how the laws and culture here have evolved, and how they are evolving right now, right before our eyes. 

It’s helpful to have the point of view that sometimes it is the total and utter breakdown of a legal or cultural institution that must take place for the next season of evolution to begin. 

It’s also helpful to be reading Animalium with Londyn right now, with its lovely Tree of Life. It’s helpful to remember how the evolution of species works, how the sponges grew new body parts when they needed to do more than whatever it is that sponges do. 

And how it took hundreds of generations for the frontal lobe to become a thing. 

It’s helpful to think about how we don’t judge the sponge for not being quick enough to evolve, which is helpful reminder to refrain from judging or criticizing humanity for the process of evolution that we are in the middle of right exactly now. 

On Facebook the other day, a client expressed her deep fear and anxiety about the coming election, here in the US. 

“What will happen?” she wondered.

My answer is this: 

Humanity will continue.

Divinity will continue. 

Evolution will continue. 

Regardless of who’s elected.

Will the more beautiful world we all know is possible take longer to become real? Will the bumpiness of that road differ based on who’s elected? 

Maybe… maybe not.

But you don’t get to be the boss of that.

And neither do it.

What we do get to be the boss of is our own business.

And your own business is your mind, your body, your affairs.

Your thoughts, your actions and your emotions. 

The most powerful asset you wield is the power of your attention and your focus.

Will you spend it wailing and wringing hands, fretting about possible events beyond your control? 

Or will you reclaim your sovereignty, reclaim your energy and reclaim your focus so that you may tap into that repository of energy that is at the very center of you, and uncork it, allowing it to flow to and beyond you?

It’s totally possible to do a little bit of both, by the way. You can major in sovereignty and minor in wailing, if you need to.

Honestly, you may even need to major in wailing for a minute. Just don’t pitch your tent there, okay? The rest of us need you. 

If you decide to major in sovereignty, know that that’s the one where you get to hear what you are being called to do in this season and have the energy to act upon it.

The choice is up to you, and I trust that you’ll make it in Divine Timing.

Head up + heart out,

P.S.: Read this. 

P.P.S.: Just to make sure I’m not being opaque, I voted weeks ago. For Joe Biden.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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The Adlerian psychologists have a few wise things to say about so-called “defiant” children.

They say all misbehaving children feel misunderstood. 

Facts.

And they say all children — behaving or misbehaving — have two buckets they need filled every day: an attention bucket and a power bucket.

Fail to fill either bucket and acting out occurs. 

More facts.

And this usually becomes an unholy, unruly cycle of defiance, whereby: 

1. Kid doesn’t get attention.
2. Kid acts out.
3. Kid gets attention, even if it’s negative attention.
4. Kid learns that the way to get attention is to act out.

It’s almost ridiculously simple.

Most of the people I work with have identified that they have a problem with self-motivation in that they struggle to stay focused, to be all in and to stay on course when it comes to the things that matter the most to them. They get chronically blocked by conscious fear and self-doubt, and unconscious forms of fear and doubt that usually manifest as distraction. 

Most of the people I work with are also high-achieving, which means they have a pretty incredible track record of actually doing things, just not the things that matter to them. They have a great track record of doing things that get them validation, status, money and approval in the eyes of other people.

Sometimes it’s helpful to think of this kind of self-motivation impasse — this inner resistance —  as kind of like having a defiant inner child that acts out when you ask it to help you do something that matters to you.

When you’re in a season of trying to get into action on your own callings, dreams, self-improvement aspirations and creative projects, and you hit that wall of Inner Resistance, ask yourself these three questions:

1. What within me feels misunderstood right now? Extend an open, warm, listening opportunity to your own emotions and thoughts. 

Write them out freely without censorship and without self-criticism. Delay and suspend your own judgement of your own self. 

Don’t try to reframe anything or talk yourself into feeling something you don’t feel. To do so is to divorce and abandon yourself. Just listen to yourself. If you feel sad, feel sad. If you feel afraid, feel afraid.

Feel your feelings, and let them do their work within you, and they’ll leave you alone before too long. 

2. What within me needs attention right now? I mean this on every level. Do your feet feel cold? Put socks on. Need to pee? Go do that, not in 15 minutes. Now. Are you hungry. Stressed. Anxious? Angry? 

Do you need more sleep? Do you need better nutrition? More physical activity? 

Do you need to stop pushing parts of yourself away? Do you need to stop hiding your own light? Do you need to start grieving or mourning something? 

Do you need to get some help?

3. What within me needs to be empowered right now? You have so much more power than you’re likely exercising. We all do. So make it your practice of regularly empowering your inner child – the playful, innocent, eternally hopeful core of your own inner being — to have some power and call at least some of the shots of your life.

You can do this by devoting more time to playing with dogs and babies. By devoting more time to playing, period. By dressing up when you have nothing but Zoom calls on the calendar. By being lighthearted and playful. By giving someone or giving yourself the (unearned) benefit of the doubt, just because. Or by taking a chance on some endeavor that the hardened, cynical part of you would think is foolish.

You empower your inner child by creating a life that doesn’t make you dread getting up in the morning. You do this by taking things off your plate that you hate to do. By reducing the number of things you hate to do that you have to do on a recurring basis, as part of your everyday life.

If you fill your inner child’s buckets with “credits” for attention, power and understanding today, you can cash those credits in weeks or months in the future. So if you make a habit of filling your inner child’s attention bucket and power bucket a little (or a lot) every day, you will hit less resistance and less defiance when you try to self-motivate. 

Back in the 1900s (lol), they used to call “defiant” children “spirited”. I hate that phrase, because it sets up this idea that the parent is the opponent of the child’s spirit, and the goal should be to surgically extract the spirit from the child. And that’s exactly how so many adults you know had all their brilliant, spirited edges filed off, dulled down and locked up when they were young.

So if you have what feels like a defiant inner child, change the way you think of it. There’s not something within you that’s defiant. You have a  “spirited” inner child. And your goal is not to take the spirit out. You don’t want a spirit-less inner child. You want to unlock that spirit. You want to team up with that spirit. You want to get to know it and let its brilliance infuse everything you ever do. You want to give the reins of your life to that spirit.

And you do that by giving your spirited inner child some understanding, your attention and the power to control a little bit of your everyday life.

Try it and let me know how it goes.

Head up + heart out, 

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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I’m well-known in my circle for being very comfortable with awkward social pauses.

This happens most often when someone is venting or complaining about something, and I simply refrain from joining in.

Listen, whatever you do or so is okay, but your words contain great power. You are a spell-caster, whether you know it or not. And can create whole worlds with the words you speak, for better or for worse.

So if you desire to operate in the most powerful possible way, think twice before you engage in the habit of chronically complaining or venting.

Now, before you tell me venting is just a healthy form of self-expression, let me ask you a few questions:

When you vent, are you expressing yourself, or are you expressing your fear? 

When you vent, are you expressing yourself, or are you expressing your doubts? 

When you vent, are you expressing yourself, or are you expressing some catastrophic story of “the other shoe is about to drop” that you’ve been under the influence of, maybe for a lifetime? 

When you vent, are you expressing yourself, or are you expressing your desire to control someone else, your outrage that they’re not doing what you think they should be doing?

Yourself is a fractal of the Divine. You are the offspring of the Infinite Intelligence, the Limitless Love and the Creative Power that formed all worlds.

So I ask to tune into who you really are, and consider this question again: Are you actually, effectively, expressing yourself, when you’re venting? 

I see all of us as spiritual strategists.

So if the conversations you’re having chronically are not leading you in the direction of freedom, growth and joy… wholeness and liberation… intelligence, love and power, then your conversational strategy ain’t an effective strategy. 

Venting is effective at a bunch of things.

Venting will get you laughs from your friends.

Venting will get you the dopamine hit of bonding with others over struggle and pain… that feeling of belonging to the tribe.

Venting can give you that feeling of moral superiority over those you deem wrongdoers.

Venting can even get you the temporary soothing of staying within your comfort zone as you rehash the stories and scripts that keep you believing inner peace and a more fulfilled life aren’t really possible for you. 

But chronically venting also keeps the energy of struggle alive in your spirit and in your life. 

If you want an effective escape route from the struggle zone, try the Spiritual Strategy I call: Third Time’s a Wrap, inspired by something my friend Kathi Joy once told me.

You get to vent or tell your bad-feeling story three times.

And after the third time, you either stop telling the story or you have to tell a more empowered version of the story. 

This always works to shift the energy of a subject or issue in your life.

And I know this from personal experience. 

I have vented a lot in the past few weeks.

I’ve vented about freeway noise. 

I’ve vented about voting stickers, outraged that our culture gives adults stickers for what I judge to be expected, responsible behavior. 

And I’ve vented about poop, because: potty training.

So let’s talk about poop. 

The other day, I decided to take my own advice, and let the third time I told the struggle story about potty training be a wrap. 

And my entire experience of potty training shifted. 

When I stopped telling the story, I was able to set the struggle down.

I reminded myself this is just a developmental milestone. 

Nothing more, nothing less.

Nothing emotional.

Nothing to get agitated or upset about, even when there’s poop ON THE BOTTOM OF HER FEET.

Yes, y’all. On the bottom of her feet.

I sat Londyn down.

I talked with Londyn about how much I love and respect her.

She nodded, solemnly.

I talked with her about dignity, and about how I won’t be rushing her to the potty or pressing her about it anymore. 

She didn’t understand these words with precision. 

But she did understand the energy.

At the end of the conversation, she said: “My Mama is my best friend.” 

You shift the energy. 

You affect the atmosphere.

Don’t tune yourself to the channel of angst and outrage, complaint and grievance, agitation and struggle… and then expect to hear the sweet sounds of liberation, joy, success, happiness and abundance.

That ain’t how it works.

And if you’ve been a chronic complainer, there’s no need to judge yourself for that now.

That was just part of your process of becoming who you’re becoming. 

Choose to see it as a treasure that you’ve discovered this new thing to release, in the words of Louise Hay.

Right now, I invite you to reclaim your sovereignty over how you feel and over the results you get in your life, starting right now.

Stop letting your Inner Critic be the boss of how you see and narrate the world. 

Wield the power of your words lovingly, wisely and with intention. Notice when your conversations get a little performative, when you might be saying to get a laugh or to stay “on brand.” Choose to be quiet and turn your attention inward, even 2% more than you normally would.

Speak life over yourself and your dreams. Use your words to pour respect into others. Talk about high-minded things, beautiful things. You be the creator of the energy you keep active in your life on every subject by the stories you choose to tell. 

Build your life into the empire of your soul, and start doing it today with the power of your words.

Head up + heart out,

P.S.:  I had a totally different newsletter planned for today, but this lesson came as a divine download while I was walking my dogs this morning. I observed how the billions of blackberries that were on the bushes at the park two months ago have now been totally plucked clean by kids and people and birds and raccoons.

I thought about all these beings savoring the berries, juice running down their chins.

I thought about you, too.

And I said a little prayer that you might experience one moment today (or 1,000 moments) that you savor and delight in as much as all those beings savored and delighted in all those berries.

So let it be.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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My current hometown of Oakland California, has a legacy of supernaturally fit old guys. Jack Lalanne came from here, and there are many local guys who are doing their best to fill his shoes. I’ve been a gym rat in Oakland for about 22 years, and I’m endlessly charmed by the old dudes that were getting it in decades before I arrived, who are still on the gym scene.

There’s this one guy who I estimated to be about 100 years old back when I first met him, in 1998. He might be one of the fittest people I’ve ever met. I still see him running all over town, around and around the Lake, even during the pandemic.

A few years back, I ran the first Oakland half marathon. Thirteen miles. And I’ll never forget this same super-fit old guy running past me. He ran to the finish line, turned around and then ran back to cheer on the rest of us. 

As he ran back from the finish to the start, he would lovingly accost individual runners to encourage them.

I must have looked really tired on my mile 12, because he ran right over to me and bellowed: “You’ve got this!!!  You can do this!!!”

“YOUR BODY IS LYING TO YOOOOU!!”

I thought: “You know what? My aching feet are lying to me. I’m almost there. Turbo time.” 

*Tara: zoom*

As I sat down to write this morning, that gentleman came to mind. 

In some ways, with that one sentence, he became my role model for my life’s work.

If you think you have a problem with perfectionism, procrastination or self-sabotage…

If you have a savage Inner Critic who has ever stopped you from doing something you truly wanted to do…

If you feel like you spend more time with your fears, self-doubts and struggle stories than you do expanding your capacity to live the life you dream about..

Or if you just have some kind of struggle switch inside that flips on every time you have a dream or desire to level up…

I’m here to tell you that I’ve run that race, Brilliant One.

And my life’s work is to run back from that finish line.

I’m running back, calling out to you just like that guy called out to me, but with a tiny twist.

I’m yelling: “Your Inner Critic is lying to you!!!!”

Your fear is lying to you.

Your programming is lying to you.

Because your fear — the old, played-out programmed habits of thought that speak in the voice of your Inner Critic  —  your fear is saying things like: 

Who do you think you are to even dream that dream?

That’s not really possible… for you.

You’re smart, but you’re not THAT smart.

Nobody cares about your story. 

You made your bed, now lie in it. 

No one you know has ever done something like that, successfully.

You never finish what you start. There must be a little bit of something wrong with you, deep down. 

That’s what your Inner Critic is saying. 

But I’m here today, just like that super-fit old guy was on my half marathon course. 

And I’m running back to tell you that your Inner Critic is lying to you.

Because here’s the honest-to-goodness truth, [First Name]:

You are offspring of the Divine. Your birthright is freedom, wholeness and joy.

You ARE allowed to want whatever you want. 

And it IS possible for you.

You ARE that smart.

People DO want to read what you have to write and buy what you have to sell.

You DO get to outgrow things, and patterns and ways of being.

You might BE the first person you ever know to do that. You get to be that. 

There’s nothing wrong with you, because you’ve had great ideas before and not finished them.

The truth is that all of that was part of your journey, your process, your becoming who you came here to become. 

That means you’re doing it right.

All along the way you’ve been groomed, you’ve been prepared, your skin has been thickened, your heart has been softened. 

You’re coming into a time when you’re really ready.

Catch this principle today, my friend: Your Inner Critic is lying to you.

Head up + heart out,

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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You might recall that I just spent six weeks at Farm on the Beach 2020. What you might not know is that we had a bat in the house for the better part of a week. 

But it was a farm, and when you’re on a farm, you share your space with all sorts of living things.

When we got back home to Oakland, Londyn started mentioning “my raccoon”, and pulling my hand so I could come meet it. Sure enough, I went out to the back deck and saw a large number of little creepily humanlike paw prints all over the brand new white Pottery Barn slipcovers I’d put on the deck furniture right before we left. 

Then, just yesterday my little black pug Sumiko walked in the house barking like a madwoman at some little rodent-like thing that came right on in the house with her. 

After building a barricade to keep it in the room and calling every exterminator and friend I could think of, I pulled on a unitard and some combat boots, grabbed a broomstick, took a deep breath and thought: “Oh, who am I fooling? I’m not going in there.”

So I ran down all 40 of my stairs, thinking I’d knock on my next door neighbor Perry’s house. But before I even got to the curb, I saw a gleaming UPS truck turn onto my street… and I waved both arms wildly. He stopped, I ran over and asked him to come up to my house and help me evict this little creature. 

The driver, who was not heading to my house, by the way, kindly pulled over, got out, came all the way up my 40 stairs, let me brief him on the whereabouts of this thing and hand him the broom, walked through my room, out the slider, over to the still-open back door, moved the couch and discovered… a baby possum, playing dead. I’m pretty sure it was paralyzed with fear from Sumiko’s barking which, I assure you, is not a fearsome sight. Because: pug.

So he gently swept this thing out and cautioned me not to open those doors again for a while, as the little guy was still hanging around close to the house. I thanked him and he left to go deliver his route.

Somewhat bizarrely, this is the SECOND time I’ve had a possum in the house, two decades, cities and houses apart. 

I’ve just told you about a number of moments that I’ve branded, in my mind: “encounters con animales”. I’m not sure why; Spanglish just seems like the right language for this. 

In interpreting them or taking meaning from them, I tend to follow the advice of the author Laura Day, who suggests that we make everything be good luck. So I like to look up the ancient cultural and spiritual meanings of the various animals who make themselves very, very known to me, and sit for a moment with whether my Inner Intelligence wants to take anything away from the encounter that is particularly relevant to me in that moment. 

I have fun with it, and I don’t take it too seriously. So when a few friends suggested I inquire within as to whether there’s anything in my life or in my constitution that is currently “playing possum” (playing dead), I sat with that and journaled about it. I asked myself as I often do: “What wonderful thing is trying to come to me or through me by virtue of this experience?” And I actually did find some subjects and issues on which I’d like to be more proactive and assertive.

But that’s not actually what I came here to say. 

I came here to share that I was texting with a friend as this whole thing played out in real time, and when the UPS guy came through she texted back “I love you. That’s the most Tara resolution EVER.” 

And I sat with that for a minute. I reveled in it for a minute.

Because she’s right. And because that was not always true about me.

I’ve learned, over the years, that help is always on the way.

I’ve learned that assisting forces surround me.

I want you to learn, starting now, if you don’t already know it, that assisting forces surround you.

They’re all around you, but you can only see them through the lens of your worldview, your paradigm, your beliefs, your expectations.

Many, many people in this world desire to be good to you. Many circumstances in your life are lining up to help you, but if you don’t expect or ask for that help and goodness, you cannot receive it. And you can’t see it.

I used to see the world as a scary and scarce place, where you have to work your heart out to earn or to deserve or to be worthy of a good life. 

I used to second-guess whether I deserved help and I’m still working on knowing the full breadth of help that is available to me.

But the floodgates of universal assistance opened and started raining down on me when a few things happened.

I began to shift from being stingy with myself to being lavish with myself.

I shed the lies of my Inner Critic and started affirming this truth daily: that “I was born to be loved, cherished and adored.”

I started to study what love actually is — openness, warmth, appreciation, attention, affection, allowing — and started overruling the stinginess of my Inner Critic and extending all of these things to myself. 

I came to know the law of this Universe I teach my students, which we call pronoia: that everything in this Universe conspires to bless you. 

And, right at the same time as I began to travel the world extensively, I started declaring that “I am in love with everyone and everyone is in love with me.”

I started to see all the help that has come my way, past and present, and started wiring in my awareness of that, focusing my attention on that, reminding myself constantly that I’m not alone, and that the highest forces in this Universe are constantly trying to assist me. 

And this has been my experience of life, ever since then, everywhere I go in this world. 

People just give me things. They just do lovely things for me and say beautiful things to me. They’re wonderful to me. They show up for me. They show out in ways that benefit me. 

And I do the same. I don’t care if I know them. I delight in having little beautiful moments of sweetness with people I will never see again. 

And Londyn’s even better at all this than I am. She can walk into the post office and you can almost see visible sparks of electricity shoot out from her to connect with the other people in line. 

She knows no strangers, as my friend Rebecca says. 

But this way of being, where you can magnetize the UPS guy up to help you with a thing he has literally zero obligation to do… it does take these mindset shifts. That you are loved. That the world longs to be good to you. That people desire to help you. 

And that you need only walk around, BE your brilliant self, look and ask for what you need. 

That you need never, ever, ever worry about what someone might think or how they might look at you if you do ask for what you need. That if someone says no, that’s perfect: you just got closer to the help you need coming from someone else, from above, or from within. 

You can’t lose, Brilliant One.

I’ve come to think of these shifts as no more than spiritual, developmental milestones that you can learn and practice and reach over time, like learning how to walk or potty training. Might take longer than you want, but who cares? 

The depth psychologists — the ones who study the unconscious —  say that we all fall under the influence of family and cultural programming that doesn’t feel so good. So if that’s you, you’re doing human-ing juuuuuust right.

And the depth psychologists say that if you begin to see that this programming is just programming, and if you begin to break the stranglehold of your inner repressive parent by around middle age, you’re doing it juuuust right.

And the depth psychologists also say that if you spend the next 40 years re-membering your own glories and the glories of this Universe, then you’re really doing life juuuuuust right. 

So today, just wake up to this: That you were born to be loved, cherished and adored.

That there are assisting forces all around you.

That it’s your job to let them line up and light up before you.

And that it’s also your job to expect help to be on the way, and ask for that help and to receive it with grace when it shows up. 

Head up + heart out,

P.S.: I was taught that if you pray for rain, you bring an umbrella. When it comes to receiving help, if you don’t expect it, you will miss a lot of the help that’s all around you trying to get to you, on whatever subjects matter to you.

This is important, because if what you want to create is important or big, you can’t do it all on your own. 

So whatever you’re dreaming of or working on, whatever you desire to call into your life in this season, make sure you envision the help you need to. And ask for it. And expect to receive it. Bring an umbrella.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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I want to tell you a quick story about something that happened while I was in Monk Mode the last six weeks.

The time was intended to be my querencia. This is a concept from bullfighting that I teach all the time. The querencia is a place in the ring of a bullfight. It is a geographic place and a  place in his mind where, even among the madness and the fear and the rage, he can find a temporary refuge. 

If a bull finds this place, he takes a sacred pause, stops reacting to incoming stimulus and taps back into his natural strength and power. And when that happens, a wise bullfighter knows what to do: Get out of the way. Because a bull who finds his querencia becomes unstoppable, and will run through anything in his path.

Farm on the Beach 2020, was my querencia. 

A sacred place to take a sacred pause. To reset and recalibrate. To tap back into my natural strength and power. 

And I treated it as sacred.

I got still.  I took a physical journey, and created a sacred space once I was there. I cleared my calendar. I cleared my headspace. 

I cleared my heartspace. 

I listened. And what I heard was a Divine Download of clear answers, but also (as always) those answers beget some fresh, new questions on the subject of what I will do with the next season of my wild and precious human life*.

In my process of inviting the answers in, I talked with a few of my own guides and advisors, one of whom has a particular gift for seeing energies that can’t be translated by your physical eyes… yet. 

I’m blessed with great discernment and boundaries, so I obeyed my Inner Intelligence and made the call. 

One of the first things he said to me was this, a sentence I will never forget. He said: “Tara, till your dying breath you will never need to worry about money.” And then we went on to discuss what I’d called him to discuss. 

But I want to focus on the first thing he said. See, I hadn’t asked him about money. And I don’t identify as someone who worries a lot about money. Money flows to me with ease and abundance at this stage in my life, though I’m always inviting more, and I give thanks for that flow and tune into that flow every single day. I have for years. 

But baby, when I heard those words through Zoom that day — “Tara, till your dying breath you will never need to worry about money” — let me tell you about the space that opened up inside my chest. The breath-holding that ceased. It wasn’t at all like you’d think. I wasn’t all “woo hooo let’s go to the beach! Passive income, it’s my birthday.” 

Noooo, it was more like this wild final frontier of freedom and possibility opened up, where I could just purely do what I was called to do without worrying about, well, anything. I could trust that everything is always working out, like I’ve been practicing for years, and I could settle into that knowing. 

I remember thinking to myself in the very next moment after he uttered those words: “I don’t care if he is a total crackpot (which he is definitely not), I RECEIVE THIS AS TRUE with no conditions.”

Wheeeeeeeew.

That’s the benefit of a blessing. The benefit of someone you respect and trust speaking an anointing or a blessing over you. It shatters an inner glass ceiling, immediately. It invites you to a leap in your way of being: into a new paradigm beyond your old imprinting, your old conditioned and practiced beliefs.

See, paradigm shifting takes time, and it usually plays out in tiny, incremental shifts. That’s because all transformation takes place outside of your comfort zone, and your old identity and beliefs will fight to stay inside your comfort zone. So every time you seek to, argue with or silence your old beliefs, for example, they will find evidence from marketing messages or culture to argue for your own limitations. 

But there are really two ways to get out of your current, limited paradigm of reality on any subject. You can gradually shift, and this is a good capacity to build and practice, because this is how 90% of deep, lasting change happens. 

But on occasion, you can make a leap — you can actually JUMP into a new paradigm, usually when someone or something helps you see, in a moment, an opportunity or possibility that you just couldn’t see before now. 

In honesty, paradigm jumps are really just moments of clarity that were actually in the making long before they happened. You laid the groundwork and planted the seeds of them in a million different ways, all along your journey. And the moment you get into alignment? A whole new world opens up.

Here’s a silly little example. 

I invite you to jump with me into a new paradigm where: 

• You are absolutely beloved and worthy of all wonderful things. 
• And you never have to earn it: it’s just your inheritance by virtue of existing as a human being on this planet.
• You have everything you need, exactly when you need it
• You can not fail, because Divine Order is using every experience you ever have to line up the ingredients of your highest good
• Every resource in this Universe is available to you, and you access it by consenting to access it (not hard work or perfect performance)

Can you suspend your disbelief? Can you just take my word for it, even for a moment? How does that moment feel? 

If it feels good, or like space opening up in your chest, get curious about whether these things might actually be true, and your Inner Intelligence knows it? 

But this lesson is called ‘Have you ever felt cursed?’. So let me get to that part. 

The day after I talked with the real estate clairvoyant, I went to the apothecary shop in the tiny town near the farm. I spent a few minutes shopping for loose leaf teas and talking with the woman shopkeeper, who looked to be in her sixties. As we talked, for some reason I ended up sharing the story of my advisor telling me I’d never need to worry about money. Never in life.

Her eye’s opened wide, then her expression quickly changed to something like: crestfallen.

She said: “Someone said the exact opposite thing to me.”

I said: “Wait. What?”

She goes: “When I was in my twenties, there was an astrologer just up the street from here. She told me I would never have any money and I would always struggle financially. And that’s been true.”

Then the phone rang, and she answered it and started taking an order, while I sat with what she’d just shared. 

A few minutes later, she hung up and rang up my purchase. I paid, then started to leave the store, but my Inner Guidance got the better of me. 

I turned to her and said: “Sheila?”

She smiled and looked at me, expectantly.

I said, “You don’t know me, but I think I was led here to break that curse off of you today.”

“I know that woman told you you would never have anything. 

But I’m here to tell you that that ends now.

Avalanches of abundance now begin to flow through you, over calm seas, under grace.

You now become a magnet for wonderful things and they will flow to you in wonderful ways.

And you won’t have to work hard for it. 

You’ll be surprised and delighted at the perfect ways your needs will now be met.”

She stood there, so still. She exhaled. 

Then she said: “Thank you so much for saying that to me. That just made my day. I feel so relieved for some reason. Who are you?”

I smiled and said: “I’m just doing my job.”

Her next question cracked me up. “WHAT IS YOUR JOB??!!”

I replied, “I come from a lineage of blessers. My grandmother taught me how to bless people just by laying my eyes on them. My job is to see the very highest and best possibilities for someone’s life and to call it forth,” I said, making the ‘come here’ movement with my index finger, indicating calling her blessings forth.

She said, “Wow.”

On my way out the door, I replied, “Yeah, it’s a pretty cool job. I hope to see you around!”  and waved as I left the shop.

What do I want you to takeaway from this story? 

That your words have power. 

That you can be a blesser. 

That you can shift paradigms. And you can jump them, too.

That you can break curses. You are that powerful. 

But nobody outside of you can curse you, unless you believe they can.

You can activate life, wellbeing and prosperity in others. And in yourself.

You can unlock your own floodgates.

And that you can do it with the power of your belief. 

Avalanches of wonderful things are now flowing to you, too, [First Name]. Over calm seas. Under grace. In surprising, delightful, wonderful ways.

So let it be.

Head up + heart out,

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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The other day, Londyn crinkled her forehead and squalled the squall of Righteous Toddler Indignation. 

I turned around from doing the dishes and asked her what was wrong.

She replied: “I WANT MY GREY BLANKEEEEEET!!!!!!!” Volubly.

My eyes scanned the room and quickly lasered in on it, lying right under her bum.

I went over and drew her attention to it. 

And I said: “Mi amor, you never have to cry for what you already have.”

When I said that, I made a note to circle back this Transformation Tuesday and tell you something: That you don’t have to cry for what you already have, either. 
 
As quiet as it’s been kept, you already possess every ingredient you’ll ever need to fulfill your sacred callings, dreams and desires, small and large. 

The success formula already flows through you. 

You came here with the gifts, talents and unique spirit and personality to do what your heart is calling you to do.

But you can only see the opportunities and resources to actualize your True Self through the lens on life, on yourself and on the world that you’re wearing right now.

Most of us are wearing the lens of our Inner Critic:

• the voice of fear, scarcity, self-doubt and unworthiness that runs on a loop in our minds
• rooted in early childhood patterns and cultural programming 
• that has been solidified and internalized through no fault of your own, through nothing more than a lifetime of practice. 

Your Inner Critic doesn’t want you to understand the true depths and contours of your own glory, your own magnificence. Because knowing that would free you from the seeming safety of shrinking yourself down, hiding and holding on to old, self-limiting ways.

But I promise you this: On the other end of the Inner Critic stick lies your own, sacred Inner Intelligence. 
And it’s trying to speak to you and through you all the time. 

It’s getting louder all the time. 

In fact, the louder your Inner Critic gets, the more likely it is simply trying to obscure the increasing volume of your Inner Intelligence, which speaks to you in Divine Downloads, inspired ideas, dreams, desires, callings, hunches, nudges, impulses, resonance, the feeling of shackles off and those perfect place/perfect time moments, the moments that feel like you’re psychic, and what my friend Artie calls golden threads of inspiration. 

So. We are going to work together to transform your Inner Critic into the clear signal of Inner Intelligence over the coming months, years and maybe even decades, [First Name].

But today, I just want you to be still.

To stand down.

To stop searching for direction or stability or security OUT THERE.

To refuse to give into the Inner Critic lie that says you need more credentials, a better body or more money before you’ll be ready for your life to take off.

I’ll never forget what our Uncle Rumi said when he said: “You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck!”

Catch this principle today, [First Name]: The diamond necklace is already around your neck.

You’re not going to find it out there.

It’s already on you.

You already have what you need, including the radiance and magnetism to attract in the other components and collaborators of your dreams. 

Our work together will be to stop dimming that radiance and magnetism. To stop blocking it. 

You already have what you need, including the ingredients of your own coming clarity.

You already have the Inner Intelligence that will help you discern whether you desire to do a course of education for the enrichment of who you are and for the joy of your own learning, growth and development or to assuage the anxiety of putting yourself and your talents out in the world.

You already have the seeds of the desires that will call forth your own growth and greatness so that you might fully participate in your own destiny, even though your Inner Critic might be constantly in your ear asking you who you think you are to even want what you want, so you’re chronically shrinking your dreams down to make them more palatable.

You already have what you need.

But. And. You will have to get out of the way of the creative infinity — the infinite ocean of creative power that is within you. You will need to transform your Inner Critic, unless you want to white-knuckle the rest of your life and end up still living short of your true capacity for creation and for joy. 

You will need to radically accept that all of this life is a process, and that there’s nothing wrong with you because your destiny is taking time to brew and ripen and gestate and bear fruit and take off.

I promise you that the day is coming when you’ll find yourself able to start doing what the author Tara Mohr calls “playing big”: investing more of your time and energy into your dreams than into your fears. 

I promise.

Head up + heart out,

P.S.: I had a super strong reaction to the flurry of “oh shit nooooo” texts I got upon the announcement of the passing of RBG, may her memory be a blessing for generations.

I shared my reaction on the social thingies, occasional profanity and all. (Consider yourself warned.)

Since then, about 700 people have shared that it was just the perspective shift they needed at this time.

Read it here: 

Worried about RBG? [Facebook]

Worried about RBG? [Instagram]

P.P.S.: I got a few dozen incredibly insightful replies to my question last week’s Transformation Tuesday newsletter: What does your Inner Critic say to you?

As I mentioned then, I’m working on a book all about the Inner Critic and how to transform it, and your input is taking this project to a whole new level, so thank you.

This week, feel free to hit reply and let me know this: 

What has your Inner Critic stopped you from doing, in your life? 

I’ll be teaching some free master classes on this body of work for Transformation Tuesday readers in a few weeks, and I’m putting the people who answer these questions on the priority invite list.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

Sign up to receive Transformation Tuesday in your inbox, here.

I was on the phone with a friend the other day, sharing the changes I’m making to my business and my life.

She said: Wow. You are so unbelievably free.

Then she asked: Is your business in a place where you can do that? 

A client said a similar thing: Wait. Can you just do that?

Me: Waiting for things to be in place to make the moves I’m being called to make is kind of like waiting for the “perfect” time to have a baby. 

The time will never be perfect.

So anytime Spirit moves is the perfect time. Everything is always working out for me. For you, too. Can you see that? 

If you’ve ever seen someone doing something you’d like to do and wondered: “Can you just do that?”  or asked “Are you in a place where you can do that?”, you can flip these statements around and you’ll hear the scripts of your own Inner Critic.

“Can you just do that?” becomes “You can’t just do that.”

“Are you in a place where you can do that?” becomes “You’re not in a place where you can do that.”

These are scripts of your Inner Critic’s “false prerequisite” story.

This story is false because it actually works in reverse. 

See, here’s how this actually worked, sequentially, in my life.

I got crystal clear on:

• Who I really am
• Why I’m really here
• What I want my life to look like
• What I want my business to feel like
• What I want my family to look like

And then started to get into alignment with that.

I didn’t wait for them to be that way before I started making moves. 

I just decided what I want and surrendered to the alignment that needed to then take place. 

And then the downloads started to flow in about what moves to make, who to partner up with, who to work with and what relationships to maintain, where to be and when, what to stop doing what messages to deliver, what projects to work on, even what hours to work and how much to charge. 

So, please catch these principles, [First Name]:

Don’t wait until things are “in place” before you honor your inner impulses.

Honoring your inner intelligence and moving when Spirit says move is HOW you get things in the place you want them to be. 

That’s because when Spirit says move and you move, whether it’s the “right time” or not, everything in this Universe lines up to help you. 

Sometimes, that single step you take on faith is what opens up the avalanches of abundance that have been trying to flow to you.

Don’t wait until you’re ready to follow your Inner Guidance. 

Follow it and, by doing so, you’ll come into alignment with the desires of your heart and the callings of your soul.

Doors open.

Mountains move.

Obstacles are removed for you, not by you.

Assistance chases you down.

Fear falls.

Self-doubt dissolves.

And it feels like pronoia: that Greek word that translates to “everything is always working out for you.”

It feels like being alive.

It feels like magic.

Just a couple of days ago, on Saturday morning, I woke up with “should I stay or should I go” in my mind. I peered out the window at the smoke. I checked the Air Quality Index where I am, at my Farm on the Beach: 97. I checked it at my home in Oakland, 275.

My time in Monk Mode on the farm was rapidly coming to an end. The houses I’m renting were already booked by another group right after I was set to depart. I’d been having conversations with my friends about heading to Hawaii or Mexico or Puerto Rico to continue bypassing the smoke-and-fire season that has had my hometown shut indoors for about 25 days. 

I was a little stressed about having to move multiple times. I was a little stressed about keeping the flow and momentum and clarity I’d begun to generate in my business and on my writing. 

And finding a setup for LIttle Londyn that’s as good as her blissful arrangement here.

So I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath. And I said Infinite Spirit, show me the way. Where should I go next? 

I opened my eyes and wrote SHOW ME THE WAY at the top of my journal. Then I began to do my Daily Recalibration Ritual: sitting to slow my thoughts, then began to do my daily writing.

And then someone knocked at the door.

It was the farmer who owns this place. 

She said: You know, the funniest thing just happened. The people who were supposed to come after you just decided to postpone their trip until November. So you’re welcome to stay another couple of weeks.

I thought to myself: Wow. I asked for the way. And I got my answer. 

Fast.

Because when you surrender to whatever higher powers or forces you find resonant? 

Doors open.

Mountains move.

Obstacles are removed for you, not by you.

Assistance chases you down.

And it feels like magic. 

It feels like playing the game of life, and winning. 

It feels like being unbelievably free.

And the opposite is true, too.

When Spirit says MOVE and you:

• Ask your low-vibe friends what they think
• Google all the things that could possibly go wrong and add the whole world’s spiritual static on top of your clear message
• Tell yourself you’re being unreasonable or extra
• Tell yourself you can’t do X until your kids are “right”
• Tell yourself you have to lose 10 pounds first or get a PhD first, or
• Tell yourself you can’t do X because you need to make a living, even though you objectively have plenty of funds to live on.

It feels really, really, bad.

It feels like you overruling your own Inner Guidance and trading it for the comfort of inertia, the comfort of chronic fear, the comfort of telling yourself that you can pull the levers of losing weight or “fixing your kids” to feel worthy, when those are all just the unworthiness lies of the Inner Critic and this demoralized culture.

Because the truth is that you are a fractal of the Divine and this life — this Universe  — are your playground, NOW. Not just after COVID. Not someday. TODAY.

So stop disrespecting your own Divinity.

Stop fighting the feeling, okay?

When Spirit says MOVE — and you’ll know it, you’ll feel it — do whatever you gotta do to get into alignment with that and make the moves that feel like shackles off TO YOU.

That’s how you get unbelievably free. 

You MOVE when Spirit says move. 

Head up and heart out,

P.S.: Keep in mind that the Divine never speaks in the form of fear, panic or anxiety. Infinite Intelligence, which is the same as your Inner Intelligence, tells you what to move toward, not what to run from. 

P.P.S: The #1 reason high-achieving women don’t move when Spirit says MOVE — the #1 obstacle between human beings and their freedom, sovereignty and joy — is the paralyzing, crippling, shaming voice of their Inner Critic.

Your Inner Critic always says: someday.

Your Inner Critic says: it’ll be so hard.

Your Inner Critic says: you’re not ready for that.

Your Inner Critic says: you might fail, and you’ll be so ashamed. 

Your Inner Critic says: you’ll lose everything…stay small to stay safe.

If you relate to this, please hit reply and let me know what your Inner Critic says to hold you back. 

I’m writing a book about this, and would love your help. 

I’ll also be teaching some free live classes next month about deactivating your Inner Critic, just for Transformation Tuesday readers.

Stay tuned.

P.P.P.S.: As of today, our Air Quality at the Farm on the Beach is down to 50, back in the good zone. It’s nearly back to normal at home, too.

After a week of smoke-filled skies, we could see the stars last night and the ocean this morning. 

Everything is always working out for us.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

Sign up to receive Transformation Tuesday in your inbox, here.

It might have been years since you went through the drive-through window at a fast food restaurant. 

But no matter how long it’s been, you still know how that conversation goes:

1. You order food.
2. You pull up to the window.
3. They repeat your order back to you.
4. Then they take payment, give you your order and complete the transaction. 

The Fast Food Rule is a rule the pediatrician and author Harvey Karp created for how to address a toddler who’s hungry, angry, tired, crying, afraid or otherwise in distress.

I want to share it with you because it also works for dealing with adults who are hungry, angry, tired, crying, afraid or otherwise in distress.

(You know, like much of the human race on any given Tuesday in 2020.)

And it even works if the distressed person you’re dealing with happens to be yourself.

Here’s how it goes: 

1. Whoever is “hungriest for attention” gets to speak first. It’s almost always the toddler who has the most pressing need, but in moments of danger, it might be the parent. This means that the hungriest person gets to yell their yell, cry their cry or otherwise express themselves first and fully. Karp writes: “We calm fastest and feel most loved (children and adults) when our upsets are acknowledged with understanding and respect.”

2. Then and only then, the parent repeats back what the toddler expressed in their language. Even highly verbal toddlers resort to Baby Neanderthal-speak when distressed. So the parents’ job is to repeat back to them exactly what they said, in their words, so they know they’ve been heard. 

    “No wanna?”

    “Londyn very very sad?”

    Like that. 

And part of the repeating back includes making sure your facial expression and tone of voice also mirrors their emotion, without escalating it. Karp says to repeat the message back with your “words, face and heart.”

If you do it right, Step Two soothes the savage toddler. The crying dissipates. The tantrum subsides. And more importantly, they FEEL loved. Reconnected. 

Their attention bucket fills up a bit. Their power bucket, too, as they grok that their emotions and expressions had the power to cause you to stop, listen and understand.

This is what happens when people feel like they’ve been seen, heard and understood, no matter how old they are.

3. After the distress subsides, you complete the transaction. Maybe all you do is console them, then move forward with giving them a bath anyway. Or maybe you offer a new solution to the issue as you now understand it, having listened to them. The specific outcome you offer is much less important than the fact that the upset person feel heard, seen and understood. Until that happens, the tantrum continues. And once that happens, almost any outcome has a chance of working out.

These steps work in any conversation with upset humans of any age, which describes a lot of the people in the world right now.

Fear, anger, sadness, exhaustion and the adrenalized dread of chronic uncertainty are pervasive.

These steps also work in conversations with your own Inner Child. 

It works to let yourself be heard by yourself, fully and without judgment, shushing or bypassing your own emotions. Write out what you’re feeling. Don’t keep the swirl in your head. Don’t try to medicate it away. Overeat it away. Overdrink it away. Overwork it away.

Don’t start with the “love and light” stuff, and don’t start trying to reframe or argue yourself out of feeling how you feel — not before your feelings have completed “their career within you”, as Dave Richo would say.

It is an essential thing, to intentionally decide this will be your approach when dealing with an Upset Other or an Upset Self. 

The reason this is essential, is that it’s not the normal way we deal with upset people in our culture.

Have you ever noticed a child get sad, angry or afraid, or start repeatedly demanding something? 

In our culture, it’s very “normal” for the adults around to say things like: 

• “You’re okay.”
• “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
• “You’re fine. Everything’s fine.”

X It’s “normal” for parents to try to convince their kids they don’t feel what they really do feel.

X It’s “normal” for parents, in their discomfort or embarrassment at a public outburst, to even chuckle or laugh at their child’s distress.

You might have been discouraged or even punished for crying or expressing your upset as a young child. 

Maybe your parents made you act like everything was okay, when it really wasn’t. 

Maybe your boundaries were violated or abused, and you were sent to your room for crying. Maybe you even heard: “I’ll give you something to cry about!”. 

Or maybe you just watched your Mom or Dad model a stiff upper lip, or watched them withdraw attention or approval from you if you acted sad, angry or upset.

Many people in our culture receive these kinds of messages as children. And kids interpret all of these things as signals that it’s not okay to feel what they feel. 

And because this behavior is “normal” in our culture, a huge portion of the adult population hasn’t learned how to mindfully, soulfully and effectively address an upset person, even when you are that person.

Over a lifetime of these messages, we develop an inner repressive parent to shut our own distress cries down, before we even make a peep.

This does two things. First, it creates this ever-growing, seething, oozing corner of unexpressed emotion that rattles around within us. And that creates a template of repression that feels just like home, so we re-create it over and over again by choosing mates and jobs where we can never quite fully be who we are, speak up for ourselves, say what we mean or ask for what we need. 

Jung said “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate. And that’s what he meant. Whatever elements of your inner world are disowned will be the most active in creating your life, without you even knowing that’s what’s happening, until you reclaim them.

The other thing this inner repressive parent does is continue to pack down your emotional gunpowder until it does explode one day. It deprives you of all the information and illumination those emotions are trying to bring you, and it sets you up for breakdowns, break-ups, burnout and heart disease. 

Fortunately, your inner repressive parent also puts you on the journey to radical liberation, wholeness and success on your own terms, if you decide your own happiness is worth the work it takes to reverse your own repression. 

Now, I’m not saying you should complain and vent your irritations, annoyances, struggles and disappointments all the time. That tends to keep you entangled with that unwanted energy, and you might find your relationships built on a platform of angst that you’ll want to get away from someday. 

But I am asking you to see when you have a tendency to repress your own emotions, and start letting yourself feel them instead. 

I am asking you to give your emotions the time and space to run their course and to do their job. That’s one reason why free-writing and journaling work. It’s one reason why therapy works. It’s one reason why I teach the Spiritual Strategy I call “three time’s a wrap”: Tell your tale of woe thrice if you need to, but rewrite the story or just stop telling it before the fourth time.

See, about half the time when I use the Fast Food Rule with Londyn, during Step One I realize that there is legitimately something that is causing her upset. Something I can fix or change, like there’s a tag in her dress that’s poking her. Or she’s hungry. Or needs a nap, not another outing. 

And it’s the same with you. All of your “distress” emotions contain information and energy you can use to make changes that will benefit you, if you are willing and able to listen to yourself and to get out of your own way.

So use the Fast Food Rule with your kids, your colleagues, your mate and your own Inner Child. 

Listen to the upset FIRST. Let those emotions do their work, without trying to shush or reframe them. 

See what needs seeing. Hear what needs hearing. 

Try it right now. 

As I send this, it’s 6:00 pm on the West Coast of North America.

Stop doing stuff for 30 seconds. Tune in. How are you feeling? 

Really? 

Are you hungry? Angry? Disconnected? 

Stressed? Tired? 

What do you need? 

Do you need to go to bed early? 

Do you need to sign off social media? Do you need to watch something beautiful tonight?

Do you need to free-write all the fears and thoughts and grievances and ruminations of the day so they can be out of your head before bed? 

Do you need a super-delicious, super-nourishing meal… or conversation? 

Is there any unmet need that you can fill for yourself this evening? 

When you listen to your own emotions, what do you hear? 

Do you need to clean up your side of a relationship? 

Do you need a change of scene? 

Do you need to stop looking for approval in all the wrong places and start giving it to yourself?

Do you need to stop saying “someday” to your unlived life and start taking a little tiny step toward it?

Do you just need a bath? 

And one more thing: Can you resist the urge to tell yourself how impossible it is to give yourself what you want or need right now? 

Can you resist the temptation to criticize yourself for needing what you need and wanting what you want?

Part of awakening and self-actualization is radically embracing every part of your inner experience, including the feelings you don’t want to feel. 

You don’t have to dwell in them.

But open your arms wide to them. Listen to the inner intelligence that speaks to you, within you, in the form of your own emotions. 

And allow yourself to be informed and energized by whatever it is you hear.

Head up + heart out,

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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The other day I saw an internet meme that said

It sparked a thought process I wanted to share from Monk Mode/Farm on the Beach.

A process of inquiry and exploration, really.

It *might* even have shifted the focus of the book I’m working on.

Yeah. It was deep.

I just shot a LIVE on Facebook and Instagram, sharing the questions I’ve started to ask myself about LEGACY, PURPOSE, WHAT I’M CREATING and for whom.

I talk about what I think might be the most insidious repressive system in humanity right now, why I feel called to dismantle it and what that might look like.

If you have ever been stopped in your tracks by your inner critic or wondered what your purpose is, this one’s for you.

Use the links below to watch, comment and share:

>> IGTV here.

>> Facebook here.

Head up + heart out,

P.S.: I’m particularly inspired these days by the following excerpt from the Howard University Commencement Speech given a couple of years back by Chadwick Boseman, may his memory and his life’s work be a blessing for generations.

Here’s that quote, and the full speech. It’s worth a watch.

“This day, when you have reached the hilltop and you are deciding on next jobs, next steps, careers, further education, you would rather find purpose than a job or career. 

Purpose crosses disciplines. Purpose is an essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill. Whatever you choose for a career path, remember, the struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose. When I dared to challenge the system that would relegate us to victims and stereotypes with no clear historical backgrounds, no hopes or talents, when I questioned that method of portrayal, a different path opened up for me, the path to my destiny.

When God has something for you, it doesn’t matter who stands against it. God will move someone that’s holding you back away from the door and put someone there who will open it for you if it’s meant for you. I don’t know what your future is, but if you are willing to take the harder way, the more complicated one, the one with more failures at first than successes, the one that has ultimately proven to have more meaning, more victory, more glory then you will not regret it.

Now, this is your time. The light of new realizations shines on you today.”

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, MA, Esq.
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

Sign up to receive Transformation Tuesday in your inbox, here.