Answering your callings is not exhausting or depleting.
Refusing them — resisting them — is.
When you answer your callings, you begin to fulfill your Sacred Contract and purpose for coming to this planet, which is to learn some sacred lessons; to turn your thoughts into tangible things and to live in freedom, growth and joy, for the upliftment of everyone who watches your life unfold.
As part of that Contract, you were assured to have access to everything you’d need to do what you came here to do.
All the time.
All the energy.
All the money.
All the connections you need.
(You might not get everything you want exactly when you want it, but you will have access to everything you need to fulfill your Sacred Contract, exactly when you need it.)
The more you refuse your callings — and real talk: we all do at first — the more depleted and disconnected you feel. Because you are literally refusing to connect with and receive from Source.
But the more willingly you answer your callings to be, do, have or create whatever you came here to be, do, have or create, the more energized, charged up and inspired — fueled by Source, Spirit and All That Is — you’ll become as you go along.
This is where pronoia comes in.
You know what paranoia is, right?
The idea that everything in the world is out to get you?
Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia.
Pronoia is the principle that every person, place, thing, resource and atom in this Universe is collaborating and conspiring to bless you.
If this seems implausible to you, let me just insert one quick thing.
You are a powerful storyteller.
All humans are.
We make meaning of our lives by telling stories about what has, is and will happen to us, and why and how it’ll happen.
Through a phenomenon known as confirmation bias, we also have the power to find and even create evidence for any story we tell.
So if you choose to tell and believe and live into the story that the world is a hard, cold, scarce, harsh place and you never get what you need?
That will become your reality.
And if you choose to believe that every atom in this Universe is conspiring and collaborating for your highest good?
If you choose to tell the story that everything is always working out for you?
Then that will be your experience of life.
Up to you.
Head up + heart out,
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq. The Inner Critic Coach™️ Founder + CEO of SoulTour
I saw a meme on the Internet the other day that said:
“The calling of your soul is not a conference call.”
That’s what I like to call a spiritual mic-drop.
For years I’ve been telling my students to stop asking other people for their opinions on whether you should answer YOUR soul’s calling… because other people can’t hear your calling.
They can’t feel the bliss you feel when you get that inspired idea for a business or a book or a movement or a move around the world. They can’t feel that energy and expansion, because it’s not for them. It’s for you.
So other people ain’t even qualified to have an opinion on whether you should do your calling, because it’s not their calling. It’s not their assignment.
It’s not their sacred contract.
So they may not be aware of or have access to the same inner and outer resources that will be available to you to do what you came here to do. What you’re called to do in this season.
More importantly…other people may feel some kind of way (like: threatened, triggered, intimidated, afraid or like their relationship with you might change) about you answering your callings. And that may inform the advice they give when you ask.
Here’s the truth:
When you share your big dreams and inspired ideas with others, you may be seeking support and connection and collaboration… or your Inner Critic might be magnetizing in someone who will collaborate with your fear and tell you whatever you need to hear to retreat on the brink of your breakthrough, reverse course, stay safe and stay small.
Only you can know what you’re going for when you ask for opinions: encouragement or an excuse to stay small.
One way you can know what you’re seeking is this: You can predict what someone in your life is going to say about your idea, before you even tell them what the idea is, almost 100 percent of the time.
If you know they’ll encourage you, the impulse to ask their opinion might be coming from your Wise Inner Being.
But if you know they’ll discourage, naysay or scare you out of taking action, the impulse to seek their approval might be a self-sabotaging impulse of your very own Inner Critic.
For example, I have a number of friends and clients who call me every single time they have an out-of-the-box idea that is exhilarating, that sparks bliss for them and that they really want to give themselves permission to do… but that also feels scary.
Because they know that 100% of the time, I’ll encourage them to make the leap.
I’ll probably have some substantive thoughts about it, too, but I’ll almost always encourage people to do the things that light them up… and I’ll help them re-assess the risk, usually downward. Our neurobiology is wired to make us think our goals are much riskier to pursue than they almost ever are.
So let me give you a handy rule of thumb:
Anytime you ask someone for their opinion on your dreams or goals, their advice will be infused with whatever their greatest fear is… the thing that person most wants to avoid.
The thing I most dread in this life is that any of us die with unfulfilled potential and dreams.
So when people ask me for my opinion, it will always be encouragement to fulfill your potential, dreams, unique spirit and personality.
But if you ask someone who is afraid of running out of money…
Or you ask someone who is afraid of being criticized…
Or you ask someone who is afraid of looking foolish or making a public mistake…
Then that’s what their advice to you will be based on.
So.
Incubate your dreams for a while in your own precious heart before you expose them to the fears of others.
And when the time comes to seek support or collaboration, I urge you… be careful who you ask.
Head up + heart out,
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq. The Inner Critic Coach™️ Founder + CEO of SoulTour
In my mind, my body, my life and my relationships, it is “snap together” season. Divine Order is being established and I am aligning to it in every single area of my life, faster and faster every day.
It feels so damn good.
And… it requires a lot of me.
A lot of showing up.
A lot of being “on”.
And that is requiring me to be more flexible than normal on some of the firm boundaries I used to have around my time, so that I can go all in on the things that matter the most to me.
So I’ve been doing a lot of my own inner work lately on the subject of time scarcity and time consciousness: the way we experience and relate to TIME.
One word keeps coming to my mind as I feel for what does and does not work for me, as I experiment with new ways of relating to time:
Zerrissenheit.
Zerrissenheit is a German word Anne Morrow Lindbergh uses in her beautiful classic Gifts from the Sea, and it means “torn-to-pieces-hood”.
Zerissenheit is that fragmented feeling of being pulled in many directions and, ultimately, pulled apart.
But Lindbergh also suggests that there’s a way in which you can live a life in which you extend and radiate energy out in many ways, purposefully, and also at the same time cultivate and maintain a peaceful core, a peaceful center. She uses a wheel as an example: spokes radiating out in every direction from a still, solid, steady core.
Lindbergh says that occasional, intentional, regular solitude is the antidote to Zerrissenheit.
An interlude of alone time, an Inner Retreat, every day, every week, every month… every quarter… and maybe a longer interlude of alone time once a \year.
Solitude gives us some time to rediscover ourselves and replenish our inner resources so we can maintain that solid, still, powerful core as we extend our life and energy out in all of the directions our callings and passions require us to.
Solitude allows us to return to center. Return to ground. Recalibrate. Tap back into our natural strength and power. Reconnect to Source.
Solitude lets us naturally reset back to our own inner clock and pace.
Solitude invites our own Inner Guidance to speak and gives us the energy and quiet to listen.
Solitude reminds us why we do the things we do in the first place.
In solitude, we recoup the energy we normally are investing every which way, and in every direction and pour that into ourselves, receive that back from ourselves.
And this solitude is necessary, regularly, even for busy, successful people. Even for entrepreneurs. Even for those who teach and care for others. Even for Moms.
Especially for Moms.
But don’t get it twisted: Solitude is not a chore or a “should”. It is nourishment to your soul and spirit and nervous system.
Catch this principle: Solitude is air and food and water… not luxury.
Let no one convince you otherwise… not even yourself.
I invite you to find a way to nourish yourself with a little solitude… a little inner retreat… a little “me time” every day, every week, every quarter… and beyond.
And just as important: I invite you to stop explaining why, justifying yourself or apologizing for the solitude you need to let your true, sacred self come fully online.
Head up + heart out,
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq. The Inner Critic Coach™️ Founder + CEO of SoulTour
Marcus Aurelius said “it is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.”
Ram Dass said “during life, keep death on your shoulder and identify with your soul.”
Meaning: Engage fully in your life but never ever ever forget this thing the gospel song says:
This world is not your home.
You are eternal soul and spirit in this meat-covered skeleton for a season.
A long, lavish, luxurious season… a wild and precious season (to paraphrase the poet Mary Oliver) but just for a season nonetheless.
So, knowing just how singular, wild and precious this life is… ask yourself these questions:
What are you ready to stop participating in?
What are you ready to prune and release so fresh and new can grow and flow in?
Are you ready to see that you have the capacity to take in the fullness of life… now?
What would that full-capacity, maximum awake, maximum alive life look like in your wildest dreams, if someone was making a magical movie about your life?
DO NOT justify or explain why it’s unrealistic or could never really happen. I’m trying to train you to overrule and override your Inner Critic instead of overruling and overriding the desires of your heart.
How would it feel to be all in on your life?
What would be possible for you if you could get there?
What would it take for you to feel all in on your life?
What’s the natural next step?
Head up + heart out,
P.S.: One more question: What step would you take if you knew for sure that everything was always working out for you?
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq. The Inner Critic Coach™️ Founder + CEO of SoulTour
I’ve been having the time of my life teaching some super-short Spiritual Strategy Sessions on Instagram and TikTok lately. (TikTok is where the 1 minute versions live.)
I thought for this week’s Transformation Tuesday, I’d share some recent favorites with you.
Note that you don’t have to have an Instagram or TikTok account to watch these … just click the link below… but if you ARE on these platforms, follow me there!
We grieve, as mothers. As humans. As a collective.
We give thanks.
And we appreciate the truth — in this moment — of these words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Head up + heart out,
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq. The Inner Critic Coach™️ Founder + CEO of SoulTour
NOTE: The audio of this post has a lot in it that the text does not. You might want to listen, even if you usually read. Carry on!
1) Write very imperfect or even very shitty rough drafts with all the thoughts you think you want to convey and the thoughts that connect each thought to the next.
At this stage, your goal is not to write something good. Your goal is not even to write complete, intelligible sentences. You’re only doing it right if you get the draft out of your head very rapidly and it’s very imperfect or even bad.
(hat tip: Anne Lamott)
2) Cut the first 30% of what you wrote. Or 40%. Give people credit for being intelligent, but don’t assume they have time to (or need to) read every single thought that led you to the real meat of what you’re writing about.
3) Cut one paragraph of every 3 and one or 5 sentences from every paragraph. Give your readers credit. People are smart. And they are beings of soul and spirit. Soul and spirit seeks out resonance, so anytime you can describe the inside of their experience or provide new language for a real experience they are already having, your readers will tune in to it.
4) Read the whole thing out loud and edit for conversational tone and flow.
5) Don’t ask for feedback from people who are not either (a) paid, professional editors or (b) prolifically publishing writers.
6) Hit publish just a little bit before you think it’s perfect.
If it’s perfect you waited too long.
7) If you get an inspired idea, a Divine Download, or a golden thread… whatever you want to call it, write until you’re empty. Even if you have to stay up all night. That’s how the Divine speaks through you.
8) Cultivate a morning free-writing practice that invites inspired ideas, Divine Downloads and golden threads of inspiration.
That is all.
Okay, that’s probably not all, but it’s enough for now (see #6). (9) Oh, yeah… add a story to the top of whatever you wrote.
Ok… sooooo… say a person has a dominating Inner Critic that sparks fear and doubt every time she tries to change her life or her career for the better.
Just…hypothetically speaking.
Every time this person tries to write a book, start a business, get a better job, take better care of herself or even improve her relationships with her children or mate… something always stops her.
She has the vague, gnawing, growing sense that she might be her own worst enemy. That she might be the thing that keeps getting in her own way.
So she feels frustrated. Chronically. She knows what she wants to do, but she doesn’t feel like she can ever quite get there.
She wants to be in one place, but she always needs to be somewhere else.
She wants to be doing one thing, but she always has to be doing something else.
She wants to be a certain way, as a person, but feels obligated to act another way, maybe just out of habit.
The Germans have a word for this.
Zerissenheit.
This translates to: torn-to-pieces-hood. Feeling pulled in one direction by your Inner Guidance, your intuition, your genius, your bliss, your desires… and your so-called obligations pulling you in the opposite direction.
Zerissenheit feels like being scattered. All over the place.
It feels like stress. Frustration. Misalignment.
But it doesn’t always translate into sadness, depression or angst, like you might think.
In many smart, successful people, the misalignment between the lives they have and the lives they want creates anger.
This anger is trying to deliver a message about what’s really important to you, at soul-level.
It’s trying to deliver the information that you’re ignoring, abandoning or even silencing your true, sacred self.
That anger might also be trying to deliver you the energy to make some different choices.
This anger is painful. It doesn’t feel good. If we let it “have it’s career within us”, as Dave Richo would say, it would build and crest, like a wave, and then dissolve… and probably fuel our journey into a more aligned life along the way.
But usually, because it feels so bad, we simply dispute it. We choose not to feel it. In fact, we do all sorts of things to avoid feeling the anger of our misaligned lives… the anger of our unlived lives.
We eat more. We drink more. We scroll more. We watch more.
So it doesn’t go away, no matter what you do to repress it. It just rattles around within us, until it bursts out of the seams in one or five different forms:
Overweight
High blood pressure
Jaw clenching
Other physical illness
Bouts of angry crying
Impatience
Irrational competitiveness (even at mothering or birthday cake baking)
Binge consumption (of food, alcohol, social media, etc.)
Emotional rollercoaster at home (alternately yelling at, then indulging, the kids…).
Carl Jung even famously said once that “the greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents.”
I’ve heard so many repressed, frustrated people who are living misaligned lives, out of integrity with their true selves, say they want to learn how to be more patient, be nicer to their families or manage their stress, their weight and their time better.
But patience isn’t the problem. Just learning to be nicer or breathe more deeply… those are great things to do, but they ain’t the solution to this problem.
Until you address the root reasons you aren’t able — as a grown a$$ human — to give yourself permission to truly fulfill your potentials and your dreams, your unlived life will remain unlived…
… the split within you will continue
… your obligations will continue to spark dread and pull you to pieces, and
… your stress, your health, and the people you love the most will feel the pressure, too.
Only one question remains: What would it take for you to give yourself permission to start living your unlived life?
Head up + heart out,
P.S.: Last call to join my first group of students in the Inner Critic Cure™ program. We just opened the doors, and would love to have you join us.
I have this app called The Stoic, and every day it delivers a quote to my phone from one of the Greek Stoic philosophers. The Stoics were something like hardcore Zen practitioners of their day. Their main goal was to stay unfazed and calm of mind regardless of what was happening at any given moment. Hence: Stoic.
This weekend, the app sent me this quote from the Philosopher Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations are perhaps the best known collection of Stoic writings:
Note: You must have images turned on in your email provider to be able to see the above image.
[Image description: A plaster-appearing bust of the Greek Emperor Marcus Aurelius. His words appear at the bottom of the image, saying, “Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.”]
I found it to be pretty hilarious that this guy’s words have been pored over by seekers of wisdom and calm since the year 167, and this was what he thinks we should say when we get up in the morning?
I even posted a screenshot from the app on Facebook with a note from me that said: “Marcus Aurelius was great at a lot of things, but writing morning affirmations was apparently not on that list.”
One of my students asked: “Doesn’t this just make him a realist?”
And I replied:
“Maybe… but that’s not what affirmations are for.”
See, my beef with the old Emperor was based on how powerful our morning affirmations actually are. It might sound woo, but whether you know it or not… whether you intend it or not, you probably are affirming something to thyself in the morning.
And I say you should make the most of that powerful moment and the power of your words.
Now… you may not identify as someone who “does” affirmations. Maybe you’re doing unintentional affirmations, running over your to-do list in your mind, affirming your excitement and anticipation… or your irritation and dread, in advance.
Or maybe you’re affirming that you didn’t get enough sleep or you’d rather stay in bed than do whatever you’ve gotta do.
Maybe you’re just like old Marcus Aurelius and you’re like “ugh gotta go to work and deal with these busybodies, unsocial, arrogant, ignorant people.”
Or maybe you’re one of those who actually does affirmations with intention. You lie in bed or look in the mirror or sit on your meditation cushion and take a minute to affirm — to tune yourself to the channel of —how you want to feel, be and live that day.
And … it works.
Affirmations are a powerful Spiritual Strategy for calibrating your emotions and setting an intention for how you want your day to unfold.
Affirmations are your best, daily opportunity to place the cosmic order for exactly what you want and exactly how you want to feel. This is true whether you are affirming what you want or what you do not want.
Please catch this principle: Affirmations work whether you are affirming what you want or what you do not want.
Either way, you’re calling it in.
So with his (hilariously negative) affirmation, Marcus Aurelius was essentially placing an order for busy-bodies, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious and unsocial folk to come right on into his experience.
I prefer Louise Hay’s people order of “I only work with people I love and who love me.” or “I’m in love with everyone and everyone is in love with me.”
Realistic? Maybe not. But realism is observation. And affirmations are a tool for creation.
Catch this principle, too: Realism is observation. Affirmations are a tool for creation.
When you use them consistently and intentionally, affirmations start to rewire the automatic scarcity and negativity thinking of your Inner Critic.
If nothing else, affirmations are self-hypnosis, meaning that when you consistently affirm empowered and expansive intentions for your day, you’re simply less likely to notice, focus on or get hooked into the daily dramas, busy-bodies and unwanted experiences of life.
When I posted that Marcus Aurelius quote on the socials, one friend asked: “How would you reword it, Tara? Something about being patient & compassionate towards others?”
I replied:
I’m big on not calibrating how I feel and the day I want to have based on what others are doing. So I would rewrite the quote like this:
Begin the morning by saying to thyself: I give thanks for this perfect day and its perfect unfolding.
I give thanks that the Divine, genius plan for my Life now comes to pass.
I release all Resistance to any element or stage of that plan.
I open my arms wide to receive everything this universe has for me, including avalanches of abundance, which now flow to me under grace, over calm seas and in perfect, surprising and delightful ways.
Every person is a golden link in the chain of my highest good.
P.P.S.: The truth is, I have gleaned great wisdom and inspiration for equanimity in the face of life’s waves from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius over the years.
Last time I opened them up, I saw this and made a mental note to find an excuse to share it with you:
“Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains; and you, too, are wont to desire such things very much. But…it is in your power whenever you choose to retire into yourself. For there is no retreat that is quieter or freer from trouble than a man’s own soul, especially when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”
Give to yourself a retreat. Constantly. And be renewed.
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq. Founder + CEO of SoulTour
If you choose INTUITION, here’s all you need to know:
Every time you obey your Inner Guidance, you take a little airtime from your Inner Critic and give it to your Wise Inner Being.
This is true whether you’re obeying a little nudge to take the long way to work… or you’re listening to a resounding NO in your Spirit when everyone around you is urging you to say yes.
That is all.
Head up + heart out,
P.S.: It is my aspiration never to say YES when I really mean no. Every time you say YES when you mean no, you divorce yourself a tiny little bit.
The practice of aligning my inner and outer YESes and NOs works out in my favor 100% of the time.
Try it.
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq., The Inner Critic Coach™, is a Master Coach, author and the Founder of SoulTour’s School of Spiritual Strategy.
Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq. Founder + CEO of SoulTour
