Some days, I ask Londyn the question parents love to ask toddlers: Do you know how much I love you?

And some days, she just says: YEP. And goes on about her toddler business.

But other days, she gives me the answer I taught her: YOU LOVE ME MAXIMUM.

I stole that from something my friend Artie taught me about parenting. He says parents need to sit their kids down, repeatedly throughout childhood, and tell them 3 things: 

• I love you maximum.
• There’s nothing you can do to get more love from me.
• There’s nothing you can do to lose my love, either.

These three things stop parenting from being a 20-year task with the goal of spitting out performing, conforming, productive cogs in the wheel. 

And I assure you: In the next season of humanity on Planet Earth, the last thing you’ll want the next generation of children to be is performing, conforming producers. (More on that later.)

What you will want them to be is self-sovereign. 

You’ll want them to know themselves and their unique genius.

You’ll want them to feel skillful in navigating their lives and a world that changes at warp-speed.

You will want them to possess mastery-level skills over their own minds, bodies, emotions, thoughts and actions.

You will want them to feel free. To feel whole. To feel deeply connected to All That Is. To feel deep joy, spiritual well-being and spiritual maturity.

But here’s the deal: You can’t really bring somebody an experience you’re not having. 

So before you can help the next generation experience maximum love, your first job is to reparent yourself by giving yourself maximum love. 

Love that cannot be lost.

Love that cannot be earned through performance, because… it’s already maximum.

Step one is to let your parents — however wondrous or terrible they were  — off the hook. 

Grieve what you’ve gotta grieve and mourn what you’ve gotta mourn for Little You.

Then Big You can take the wheel and become what my teacher Dave Richo calls your own “inner nurturant parent.”

Start loving yourself maximum.

Learn what unconditional love really means.

Stop forcing yourself to perform, conform or produce.

**Take a beat here. Read the last sentence again.**

Now read it one more time:

Stop forcing yourself to perform, conform or produce.

Begin the transformation of your Inner Critic via the application of radical self-cherishing.

Can you notice the times when you’re equating your work, productivity or output with your self-worth? The clue is that when you’re not able to be uber-focused because life or your kids get in the way, you start to panic, feel untethered or fear that something catastrophic will happen. Then look in the mirror, smile at that old habit you’ve outgrown and shift spiritual gears. 

Can you create a discipline that anytime things get hard, scary or grindy, the first thing you do is drink a glass of water and take a sacred pause? 

This happened to me yesterday. It was my son’s 20th day in the hospital. I’d been working on adoption paperwork and reviewing nanny profiles and handling medical stuff since 4 am, with just a little break to meditate, work out and get Londyn to daycare. I needed to be in thirteen places at once. I was bone tired… maybe the tiredest I’d ever been. And I found myself texting my bff that I was sure some really bad things would happen if I took a 30 minute nap. 

That was my signal.

I stepped away from the phone.

I closed my eyes and got a glass of water. 

I laid out a packet of bone broth, a packet of Vitamin C, an enormous glass of water and a cup of tea. 

I took a deep breath and said to myself: “Tara, my love. You are pure power. But you’re not THAT powerful.” 

The world will not crumble if you take a half hour nap and take some time for yourself.

I made one phone call to just triple-check that the world really wouldn’t crumble.

And then I set all my nourishing elixirs on the lip of my bathtub, ran a bath, put a meditation on in my headphones and took a bath as I drank first the water, then the broth, then the vitamins, then the tea.

And then I took a nap.

At 11:30 am. 

When I had thirteen places I needed to be, and a hundred things I needed to be doing. 

By 11:40, I was already feeling immense appreciation for 11:30 Tara.

A day later, I’m still feeling Maximum Love from 11:30 yesterday Tara. 

Because 11:30 Tara — who decided to get into the bath and stop playing the superhero game  —  was the new version of the (beloved) old me.  And 11:30 Tara demonstrated the progress we’ve made by recognizing the superhero myth I was telling myself.

And by opting out of that old savior/martyr/depletion story.

And by taking a bath. And getting nourished. And taking a nap. And resourcing myself to be fully present and powered ON for the rest of the day.

So, I just tell you this story as a sort of invitation to get curious about how you can contribute to human evolution by reparenting yourself on a platform of Maximum Love. 

And the next time you get scared, frustrated, overwhelmed or just tired, take a sacred pause, meet your own eyes in the mirror and say these 4 words:

I love you maximum.

Head up + heart out,

The Inner Critic Coach™

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

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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