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

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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

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

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.

Here are the first two things I learned during Farm-on-the-Beach 2020: 

1. Surrender is a low-regret decision. 
2. Resisting reality is exhausting. 

So far, very few of my best laid plans for this Farm-on-the-Beach extravaganza have played out as planned.

In a major plot twist, we had 11,000 lightning strikes in California the weekend before I moved to the farm for my month of monk mode. And see, California and lightning don’t really play well together. That particular weekend of lightning sparked over 300 wildfires, massive evacuation orders and put life into suspended animation for about 40 million people. 

In a major stroke of grace, I got to the farm roughly 2 hours before the main highway into the area was closed. We arrived one day before smoke and ashes began to rain down at home. Without knowing it, we’d managed to plan our month-long retreat in a spot north of the fires where the wind blows southeast, so we’ve only had a whiff or two of smoke all week. 

At the same time, the fires and road closures stopped my childcare plans from coming to fruition. Our off-the-grid farm turned out to have neither good wifi nor cell service, so I spent my first few days here getting the internet upgraded. These sorts of snafus kicked off a domino effect of what felt like blockades between me and my uninterrupted writing time. 

For the most part, I’ve been able to stay open-hearted and out of feeling stymied by sitting with the question: “What wonderful thing could be coming through this?” 

I hold that in my mind as I watch Londyn frolic in our little apple orchard, not with the nanny I’d originally hired, but with a lovely local woman, her infant and her 3-year-old, Rosalyn, who come over to play with Londyn every day so I can write. 

Every time they pull up in the driveway, Londyn squeals “MY FRIENDS ARE HEEEEEERE!!!!!!” 

This never gets old.  

For the most part, I’ve been able to maintain paciencia and stay in flow mode, even on days when I have almost no time to write, by reminding myself of what I learned from Jon Kabat-Zinn. He said: “You can’t fight the waves. But you can learn to surf.”

I hold his words in my mind as I drive down the hill from the farm in the morning, about a quarter-mile, to the totally unspoiled coastline of the Pacific Ocean. This little commute and its vast oceanic vista cleanses the grievance from my spirit and reminds me of just how consistently we’re winning by being alive, especially when we practice surfing the waves instead of complaining about them.

I’ve been learning to reset myself, when aggravated, with the reminder that resisting what IS is a losing game. 

I’ve been reminding myself of what Byron Katie says. She says that wishing things were other than they are is a bit like trying to get a cat to bark. It’s frustrating, foolhardy and a waste of your precious life force.

I’ve also been reminding myself of what I teach my own writing students, which is that sometimes when you begin to write a book about a thing, life begins to serve you up opportunities to master the very lessons that want to come to your readers, through your book. 

So I’ve been staying loose, in part, by looking for those lessons and documenting them, all along the way.

And mostly, when I feel the temptation to list my obstacles in the interest of getting someone to please understand meeeeeeee… I’m reminded that you can’t create a liberating journey for someone else from the energy of struggle and angst. 

And that’s what I’m here to do. On Planet Earth and on this farm, right here and now. I’m here to write my fourth book, which is shaping up to be a playbook for radical liberation, wholeness and reclamation. I’m here to metabolize the last year of my life and to reset SoulTour around a vision and roadmap that has expanded and focused, somehow, at the same time, over the past season.

One of my clarities that has fully downloaded over the last year is knowing what I call my “signature symptom” The high-level human problem I exist to solve is the problem of repression: all the ways that we silence, hold back, abandon, divorce, reject, shush, hide and sabotage ourselves. 

Repression is a massive cause of human suffering. 

We learn to repress ourselves early in life. The adventure of an awakening life is to unlearn these habits, over time, so that we might rediscover our whole, True Self and start bringing 100% of our True Selves out. First to ourselves. Then, to the world. 

This is important because reclaiming your True Self feels like inner peace. Self-respect. Alignment. No more inner critic. No more imposter syndrome. No more hiding. No more touchy subjects. No more blocks.

This is also important because when women repress themselves, all of humanity suffers. Our unlived lives burden our children and block the world from receiving our gifts.

And the opposite is true: When women begin embracing both their inner powers and their inner chaos monsters, radical alignment ensues.

The ideas, books, movements and businesses they create from that place will power the next season of human evolution. 

Your un-repression is my personal mission. And that’s why I’m here.

Last night I had a long talk with one of my quaranteam homegirls who is here with me, and the conversation meandered to the story of when she bought her home, 18 years ago. She talked about how extreme the market dynamics were in favor of the seller, how glitchy and grindy the negotiations were, and how it just got to a point where it seemed highly unlikely things would work out.

She said she called her husband and just told him she was ready to let the house go.

He agreed. So she called their real estate agent and said: “Let it go.”

She let it go. 

She let go of her attachment to the home. 

She let go of the attachment to the vision she’d been playing in her mind for how her family might look and live and grow in that house.

She just let it go. 

And the next call she got was from the agent, excitedly telling her how a bunch of different little circumstances had rapidly lined up so that the deal was back on, if she wanted it to be, on her terms.

Hearing her say this was what my friend Monisha would call the right medicine at the right time.

It was my reminder to let it go.

Let go of the struggle.

Let go of the recitation of the struggle.

Let go of my preconceived attachment to things playing out my way. 

Let go of my action plan. Let go of my calendar. Let go of my “lists”.

Let go of my attachment to a given, specific outcome.

And as I felt myself more fully let go last night, the energy from my struggle with reality began to flow right back to me. 

And almost without any involvement from me, that energy kind of electrified the mission – lighting up the big picture in my mind and my spirit again.

I was reminded that I’m not here to check a bunch of stuff off a list. 

I’m here for un-repression. Liberation. Reclamation. Wholeness. For the joy of creation. Mine and yours. 

Letting go was my reminder to stay focused on the vision and flexible on how it comes to pass. 

To watch for the wonderful things. 

To inhabit this moment fully. Which you can’t do when you’re wishing this moment was playing out any other way than the way it is actually paying out. 

And let me tell you something: This level of surrender is always a very low-regret decision. 

It always feels like shackles off. 

Always feels like an opening, like space being created, like reclaiming all the sprays of life force that were feeling so pulled in some many directions, bringing them back inside, back home. 

In the week to come, I invite you to recognize those moments when you’re feeling pulled in a million different directions because things aren’t going the way you’d planned, and to press the sacred pause button. 

Take a sacred pause. Create a little momentary refuge. 

Take a moment to stop reacting. 

Recalibrate your nervous system and your connection to Source. Watch the ocean. Hug your dog. Pull up a photo of someone who fast-forwards your heart to “unconditional love” and list 10 things you love about them, even just in your mind. 

Remind yourself just how miraculous it is that this planet and your body are constantly conspiring for you to live. 

Give thanks.

Take a deep, grounding, 360-degree inhale that oxygenates your entire torso: front to back, side to side.

Then empty your lungs, creating fresh new space for the next 20,000 breaths you’ll take today.

And as you do, use the power of your focus to reclaim your sovereignty over your own thoughts, actions and emotions. 

Then, surrender more deeply to what is. Surrender to Divine Timing. Surrender to the truth that your delays are always beneficial to you. Surrender to your own Inner Guidance. Surrender to the assistance that is always trying to get to you.

Surrender to the truth that life ain’t going to play out as planned almost ever. And surrender to the truth that some of the most wonderful people, places, things and moments in your life are trying to get to you through the very circumstances that seem like crises, losses, curve balls and plot twists.

This is the paradox that will give you your joy back: sovereignty and surrender. 

It will stop you from the depletion and inner strife of resisting what is. 

If you can hold these polar opposites in one heart at the same time, you will get your power back.

Inhale sovereignty. 

Exhale surrender.

Head up + heart out,

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.

Today begins my month of Monk Mode (aka Farm-on-the-Beach 2020).

On my way out the door, I stopped to shoot a quick live mini master class all about Monk Mode.

I covered:

• What Monk Mode is
• The 3 rules of Monk Mode (a la Fight Club, but way less violent)
• The Spiritual Strategies and principles behind why Monk Mode works, and
• What you can expect during the first 25% of your own personal Monk Mode deep dive, whether you go in for a day, a week or a month.

Watch the Monk Mode Master Class on: 

>> IGTV here.

>> Facebook here.

Comment, share and let me know what lands for you, [First Name]. 

Head up + heart out,

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.

Let it be easy. 

Let it be easy. 

Let it be easy.

Whatever it is. 

Try that on in your spirit. 

Get curious about it. 

If the idea that it could be easy feels like a spark of relief, immediately followed by a spark of argument (Easy is not real! That’s not how the world works! You don’t know my life!) then… you’re on the right track. 

If the mere phrase “let it be easy” sparks within you the temptation to pull out your struggle portfolio and start litigating the case for how real your struggle is… good. Let’s go there. 

If the idea that some stuff you’ve been doing the very hard way could actually be way easier sparks a frisson of terror in your heart, like it still occasionally does in mine, you might be on the trail of a radically liberating insight.

Here’s that insight: Very early in life, you might have learned that to get love, attention or affection, to avoid catastrophe or to be seen as valuable, worthy or a card-carrying member of your family, you have to be any of the following things: 

• Extraordinary
• Perfect
• Longsuffering
• Martyr of the Month
• The Director of the Universe*, spinning all the plates, all the time and smiling all along the way
• Busy
• Better than others
• Over-achieving
• Valiantly plugging away, doing hard things in every area of your life (even, in your relationships and hobbies)
• Never quitting or imposing boundaries on how hard you’ll go
• Never all the way “off” 
• Constantly putting forth super heroic effort.

If you had to be heroic to get your needs met as a child, your toxic penchant for struggle might be rooted in those very early life family patterns. This is what the author and psychologist Alice Miller deems the Drama of the Gifted Child. The “gifted” part describes how good the little You was at repressing your True Self to get what you needed. 

If the struggle “feels like home”, you will re-create it, over and over again as you go through life.  You will re-create that repression of your True Self, over and over again as you go through life. and you’ll even find that struggle just feels more comfortable, available and “right” than ease does. You might not even like people who seem to live on Easy Street, and you might reject, ignore or blow up opportunities for your own easeful, spacious life, over and over again.

But let me tell you something. Your True Self and your true life are not all about the struggle. I mean, have you ever met a toddler who was a martyr? 

Didn’t think so. 

So anything you were taught that says you must struggle to be worthy of love or to thrive is what I call a “lie”. These are the lies of well-meaning family members, and the lies of culture. 

But over a lifetime, these lies get wired into your worldview. They become internalized into the voice of your own inner critic. Your own imposter syndrome. Your own self-judgment and self-criticism. Your own harsh standards for yourself and the false prerequisites you place on your own joy. Your own harsh worldview and negative mental narratives about what kind of life is possible for you and how hard it has to be.

If your thoughts say that all of life is struggle, not struggling doesn’t even occur to you. Doing things the very hardest way feels like it might even endanger your existence. When things feel easy, you feel lazy. Like you’re courting catastrophe if you go all the way on vacation without checking a single email for a single week. 

A spacious, easeful lifestyle without constantly living on the clock might spark existential dread in your soul.

If struggle feels like home, you’ll create hard, to feel alive. You’ll take on difficult relationships or make easy ones difficult, because that just feels more “right”. That feels like home. 

The struggle lies, the unworthiness lies, are the lies that stop you from taking a nap. From taking a break. From getting the help you need. From taking things slow. 

These are the lies that stop you from saying no when everything within you wants to say no. 

These are the lies that cause you to overrule your own inner guidance, to push through that feeling of “shackles on” that would keep you out of depleting, joyless relationships, jobs and patterns if you only listened to it. 

These are the lies that cause you to take on more and more new obligations, without first ending old ones or getting help.

Please be aware that I’m using the harsh word “lies” with great intentionality here. 

That you must produce to have value is an absolute, bald-faced lie.

Because you need never prove your value.

You need never perform to have value.

You need never conform to have value.

You need never achieve anything – be it a certain weight, a certain income or a certain level of status or “success” – to have value. 

You might want to do those things and you might even be destined to do them, but that’s not how you “earn” your place on this planet. 

You need never produce superhuman output to have value.

That’s the lie of the oppressor, in the guise of productivity culture. 

You didn’t come here to check a bunch of tasks off some never-ending, ever-growing to do list in the sky.

You came here for joy.

You came here for ever-increasing wholeness, as you start reclaiming all the parts of yourself you had to shut away, repress and disown just to make it through life, when you were young. 

You came here for radical liberation from inner conflict, from a life of struggle, from the repressive lies of culture and of your own inner critic, imposter syndrome, and self-sabotaging, negative thoughts.

You don’t prove or earn your value by achieving, even though that’s what culture wants you to think. 

That might feel real, like it’s how the world works.

The struggle way feels real. I know it does, y’all. But it’s not true, [First Name].

What’s true is that you are valuable, valued, cherished and beloved of All That Is, not because of what you do, but because you exist. 

You can’t earn your worth, because it’s not earnable. And you can’t lose it, because it’s not lose-able.

Your value is absolute. Your worthiness is, too. You deserve a wonderful, blessed life not because you work your heart out, but because you exist. 

Theeee end. Actually, no… I’m not done.

You are not an asset to be tracked, measured and “valued” like a commodity. 

You are a radiant, magnetic soul and spirit. 

You are made of stardust and mystical, scientific miracles.

You are offspring of the limitless love, the infinite intelligence and the creative power that formed all worlds.

You are a droplet of that.

And you weren’t made for constant, chronic struggle. 

So. 

What are you willing to let be easy today? 

And if the idea of “easy” comes hard to you, ask yourself this breakthrough question all throughout the day/week/month/year/decade, anytime your struggle switch flips on: 

“How easy can I let this be?”

And just watch what lights up. 

Let me flag something for you: You can expect your inner critic to talk you out of the opportunities for things to be spacious and easeful that will start lighting up when you start asking yourself “How easy can I let this be?”

Your inner critic will chime in. Your imposter syndrome will flare up. 

I dare you to gracefully do things differently than you ever have before, and let it be easy anyway.

Head up + heart out,

P.S.: I’ll share more about the struggle switch within you soon.

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

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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Thank you for meeting me here, in this meeting place between Heaven and Earth where we gather together..

Thank you for meeting yourself and your Source here, too.

Today, gather your things and yourself together and let’s meet up at your favorite nest of a spot in which to sit.

Arrange all of your beautiful, blessed body parts in their most comfortable configuration, for the moment.

And let every bit of you, every piece of you, every cell of you drop into this moment, fully.

Today, let’s devote our practice to this moment, and to being in it fully.

Be in this breath fully.

Inhale fully.

Exhale fully.

Take a few more deep breaths like this, then let your natural breathing engine, your lungs and your brain and all of the collaborative cells and muscles in your body take over and do this life-giving cycle they were created to do.

So you can just be in this moment, and inhabit it fully. Receive it fully.

When you begin to inhabit your moments fully, you begin to inhabit your life fully. And all those voices of Inner Critic, Inner Editor, Inner Judge, Inner Censor, their voices drop in volume, turning down until all you can do is see and hear them through the eyes and ears of compassion for your earlier self, because those voices?

What they say has nothing to do with now.

What they say really doesn’t even have much to do with you, and certainly not with who you are now.

Because in this moment, you are safe, even when you reach out to do uncomfortable or new things.

In this moment you are loved and you are love.

In this moment, you are in the Circle, so you have access to all the resources of this Universe.

In this moment you have access to all love, all energy, all time, all Spirit, everything you’ll ever want or need.

In this moment, you have access to clarity, to good timing, and to inspiration.

In this moment you know 100% that you cannot lose. You cannot fail. You cannot be depleted.

Everything you touch your hands to do prospers and succeeds. And sometimes, when things look happen that you don’t want or like they’re going sideways, you know that are getting Guidance and clarity and blessings and things are lining up and working out to get you ready for the wonders ahead.

Because in this moment, you are one with the Limitlessness that created you and everything else in this Universe.

You are one with Limitless Love.

You are one with Infinite Intelligence.

You are one with Creative Power.

And you are eternal.

So today, just let your eternal self, your loving self, your beloved self, your intelligent self, your creative self unfurl and open up to fully inhabit your body and your space.

Let any tense spots or tight spots or constricted spots within your cells or your organs or your bones or your muscles or your skin, let them unfurl and open up, too.

Receive more breath. Receive more love. Receive the inspiration that is coming your way.

And for these 20 minutes, just focus on allowing yourself to unfold and unfurl and inhabit this breath fully. This moment fully. This body fully. This life fully.

Head up + heart out,

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

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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You have more influence over your thoughts than most people will ever know or even try to exercise.

This is a wonderful thing, because your thoughts matter.

They attract more thoughts like them.

They spark the emotions that create your felt and lived experience.

The thoughts you think over and over again become your beliefs.

And maybe most importantly, your thoughts turn into your tangible reality.

This is true whether you are thinking about things you want or thinking, obsessing, fearing and fixating on things you don’t want.

Bottom line: Think about beautiful, sweet, expansive, joyous things as often as you can.

Think about the things you desire as often as you can.

And when your thoughts are unwanted or negative or just focused on what you don’t currently have, don’t try to force them the other way, because that basically never works.

Let them rise and let them pass. Let them do the inner alchemy of turning your unpleasant thoughts into the gold of your clarity.

Change the subject or take a nap. Take a break from thinking about the subject entirely and find a topic you can always turn to for surefire good-feeling thought momentum.

Even if that topic is pugs. Or a blissful memory. Or something that seems small or irrelevant to Your Life’s Big Callings.

And should your unwanted thoughts persist and confound you, investigate them with kindness. Grieve, as needed. And watch your Inner Guidance bring you back to your inborn setpoint for joy.

It’s been there all the time. And it always will be.

The master key is being intentional, not accidental, about your thinking and taking sovereignty of it into your own hands.

Our dear Florence Scovel Shinn wrote:

“Man should make an art of thinking. The Master Thinker is an artist and is careful to paint only the divine designs upon the canvas of his mind; and he paints these pictures with masterly strokes of power and decision…

All power is given man to bring his heaven upon his earth (through right thinking), and this is the goal of the Game of Life….

Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

And in the Science of Being Great, Wallace Wattles takes this thought transformation subject even further, and tied it in with our concept of Spiritual Independence.

“There are many ideas in your mind that you have outgrown and which, from force of habit, you still permit to dictate the actions of your life. Cease all this; abandon everything you have outgrown. There are many ignoble customs, social and other, which you still follow, although you know they tend to dwarf and belittle you and keep you acting in a small way.

You still indulge in distrustful fears that things will go wrong, or that people will betray you, or mistreat you; get above all of them.

Rise above all this. Be free.”

Gather your things and yourself together and curl up into your sitting nest with the intention of letting yourself enjoy every moment and use every moment of this Inner Retreat to expand in freedom.

Feel your legs, your pelvis, your belly, your chest slowly, gently release all tension and sink heavily, bit by bit, into your seat.

Allow your weight to fall evenly, heavily, onto the support beneath it.

And let your breath, your heart, your thoughts all slow down, gently and naturally, at their own pace.

Allow the visual of the Circle to come into your mind.

Golden, flourishing, vibrant, pulsating, glowing light and life, spinning alive before your mind’s eye.

While you’re in the Circle today, take some time to breathe in what you need, and breathe out anything you don’t need, any thing, any thoughts, any fears, that no longer serves you.

Inhale FAITH.

Open fully to receive whatever you want or need or are just starting to think and believe and know that you’re able to receive.

And on your exhales, as you relax to allow your Pipeline to open wider and wider, you can let go of some stuff, too.

Try releasing judgment and condemnation, for yourself or for anyone else.

Release old pain.

Release your bondage to thoughts that don’t work for you anymore.

And most of all, exhale FEAR.

With every inhale receive fuel and clarity for your journey ahead.

With every exhale release the need to be right and open wider to receive what life has in store for you.

Inhale: Receive the fuel and light and love of Source. Receive enlarged expectations for the wonders ahead.

Exhale: Release the shoulds and judgment and straining. It no longer applies to you.

Release doubt.

And sit in this way for 10 more minutes, just receiving and releasing.

Inhaling FAITH.

Exhaling FEAR.

Inhaling FAITH.

Exhaling FEAR.

Head up + heart out,

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

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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One of the most common sources of anger in our culture is feeling like someone is holding up our progress or slowing us down, whether it be on the road, in line at the grocery store or in our lives.

I’ve never been much of a road rager myself, but I’ve definitely found myself in relationships where I felt like someone was slowing me down.

I’ve even come up with a poetic way of describing relationships that felt like this: My foot was on the gas and his was on the brakes.

But if you believe in Divine Timing, then you know better.

You might oughta even send thanks and blessing rays to whoever is in your way, because you know that delay is benefitting you.

Take those moments that used to feel like moments of obstruction and use them to find something – anything – to delight or revel in instead.

Oh, geesh… just one last thing. When you really know that like attracts like, you might even take a moment when you’re feeling obstructed or delayed by someone in your life and investigate with kindness and self-compassion, whether there’s anything within you – any belief or expectation – that might be calling this kind of behavior forth from that person, or calling this kind of person into your life.

So in those moments when you feel like you’re being obstructed or delayed in a big way or even in the smallest way, use your word as your magic wand.

Say: I give thanks for this perfect day. I look with wonder at that which is before me.

Say: I have all the time in the world.

Say: Divine Timing is real and it’s always in my favor.

Say: Every person is a golden link in the chain of my good.

And then, well actually, just repeat this after me to start on your Inner Retreat today:

“Today is the day I pronounce as my day of greatest appreciation.

Today is the day I pronounce as my day of greatest awareness.

Today is the day I pronounce as my day of greatest emotional awareness and emotional response to my awareness.

Today I am pronouncing myself a liver of unconditional love:

Unconditional clarity, unconditional alignment, unconditional attunement.

Today I am tuned in, tapped in, turned on to who I really am.

Today I intend, to the best of my ability, to fulfill myself as I am meant to be fulfilled: in my Zone of Genius.

Today I will look for reasons to feel good, and I will find them.

And if I stumble upon something that doesn’t feel so good I will revel in the perfection of my guidance system.

And I will make the adjustment today.”

– Abraham Hicks

So today, go ahead and get into your favorite spot to sit.

Get your body into your favorite position.

Shoulders back and down, head up, back supported. Feeling all the points of contact between your back and your thighs and your feet, and whatever is beneath them.

Take a few deep grounding breaths in your own time right here, feeling the juice of your inner wellbeing coat the inside of your nose and throat and lungs as it comes into your body.

And for the rest of your time here today I just want you to focus on this moment.

This day.

On your inhales focus on the word JUST.

On your exhales focus on THIS.

Maybe at some point you’ll want to shift things around, with your inhales focus on ALL and with your exhales focus on WELL.

All is well.

Allowing for all to be well in just this moment with you, with your life, with your world, and with your universe.

All is well.

Just this.

Head up + heart out,

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

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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I really want you to catch this principle from Wallace Wattles’ book from way back in 1910, The Science of Being Great:

“There are many ideas in your mind that you have outgrown and which, from force of habit, you still permit to dictate the actions of your life. 

Cease all this; abandon everything you have outgrown.”

This might be one of the biggest treasures hidden underneath the lies of our culture. The truth is that you get to outgrow things.

See, when you were little, you acquired a bunch of self-limiting thoughts and mindset programming bugs that were actually all part of your process of conditioning, being socialized, being domesticated and ALSO: becoming who you are becoming. 

And if you do it right, right around middle age, you start reclaiming your sovereignty to think different thoughts. To be who you are. To stop holding yourself back, like you were taught to do when you were young in order to gain love, approval and what culture defines as success. 

If you’re doing it right, right around 35, 40, 50 or even 60 years old, you start learning to let yourself be who you are, more and more fully everyday. If you’re younger than that and you’re doing this work, you’re advanced. 

But I say this to make sure the 35, 40, 50 and 60 year olds know that YOU ARE NOT BEHIND. You are RIGHT ON TIME. You’re just doing it right. 

Now. Most people who start intentionally walking this journey of radical self-un-repression think they have to quit their job, get divorced, blow up their lives and run away to join the circus, the farm or the ashram. 

And hey, if your Inner Guidance tells you to do any  or all of the above? Get it. Do that. 

But making the shifts in your inner landscape to shed your inner repressive parent (part of how the normal, human psyche develops) and become your own inner nurturant parent doesn’t have to be that dramatic. 

The key to making it non-dramatic is to honor the fundamental truth that you get to outgrow things. 

Real talk: You already have outgrown a bunch of things. 

Can you feel the absolute freedom in this? 

Freedom from self-judgment. 

Freedom from hesitation when you know good-and-damn well what you need to do because it feels resonant to your soul. 

Freedom from the urge to retreat on the brink of your breakthroughs.

Freedom from the spiritual static of other people’s opinions that will cloud and obscure your own Inner Wisdom, if you let them. 

Freedom from outdated obligations that no longer really serve anyone well, and freedom from outdated ways of being that definitely no longer serve you.

Freedom from the patterns of seeking approval that keep you cramped into shackles of perfectionism, conforming and performing. 

Freedom from the lie of culture that says you are ever anything but worthy.

It’s shackles off time, y’all.

Radical liberation is available to you. 

But you must claim it. Proactively. And personally.

And the mental model you need to claim it is this: You’ve simply outgrown some things.

You’ve outgrown old patterns.

You’ve gotten everything you can out of your painful patterns and dysfunctional magnets, and now they’re ready to be released. 

The next step is to go against culture and decide that it’s totally and completely okay to let go of what you’ve outgrown. 

In fact, it’s the only way. 

Holding onto your old, outgrown ways of holding yourself back, shrinking yourself down and staying distracted or addicted to crisis when your Inner Being has already moved on? That’s like if my Londyn kept wearing her size 4 toddler jeans even she really needs a size 5: those old jeans are too small now. 

It’s uncomfortable. The old, small ways chafe and burst at the seams, until you just get some bigger jeans. 

Get some bigger ways of being.

Wallace Wattles lists some categories of thoughts and ideas worth examining to see whether they’re ready for your “outgrown” pile, among them:

• Social customs that keep you acting small
• Narrow restrictions that “bind the majority of men” (and women)
• “Obsolete institutions, religious and otherwise”
• “Creeds you no longer believe”
• Unhealthy habits of mind and body
• Distrustful fears of catastrophe, mistreatment or betrayal.

So, today just sit with these questions. 

(Extra credit if you write your personal answers out in your personal journal.) 

Q: What old thoughts, beliefs or behaviors have you outgrown?

Q: What relationship scripts or templates? 

Q: What expectations are you ready to take off and set down (like those jeans) so you can think and live some more expansive thoughts? 

Q: What new, expansive belief are you ready to replace that old, small, chafing, limiting one with? 

Q: What will be possible for you, once you set down what you’ve outgrown? 

Q: And how will that feel? 

Head up + heart out,

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

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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