My general rule for moving forward on your most important projects, soul callings and life goals with ease and spiritual alignment is this:

Stretch, not struggle.

Start living your intentions by creating goals that feel delicious to you — like a gift you’re giving yourself  — and also feel like they would stretch you to new levels, sparking joyful growth and learning.

Here’s the deal: Your eternal soul came here, into this meat-covered skeleton of yours, specifically for three things. 

Growth and joy are two of the three.

Stretching yourself to do the callings you’re not yet ready to do facilitates growth and joy. (And, as quiet as it’s kept, the only way you can become ready to do your callings is to actually start doing them.)

But the lie of our culture says you’re unworthy of living a wonderful life — with meaningful work you love, beautiful surroundings, financial wealth, a thriving family, and a delectable love life — unless you prove your worthiness via hard hustle or grind. The kind that creates burnout.

And the lie of our culture says even if you do work your heart out to do what you love, you have to continue keeping all those plates in the air in a perfectionistic way or the other shoe will may drop.

So you’d better not take a break.

Better not sit still too long.

Better not enjoy yourself too much. Or celebrate your life too much. Or even allow yourself to spend a little money without fretting and worrying about it.

And you’d certainly better not act too happy without placing exceptions, limitations and caveats all over your own joy.

When all is well with you, you’d better take pains to make sure everyone knows that you know how hard life is for other people or how hard it used to be for you, how far you come, how hard you’re still working or how difficult your life still is.

Celebrating your life without caveats seems like tempting fate, when you are still under the influence of this trance.

Catch this principle: All of that is all a lie of culture. 

Even though everyone you know might believe it: all lies.

That’s why we call it a trance… most people you know believe it because it seems that’s the way the world works.

But here’s the truth: You are worthy of wonderful things, now, with no further ado.

No further delay.

No further conditions.

No further performing.

No more struggle.

No more prerequisites.

You can relax now.

Relax into this truth: You were born to be joyful, loved, and to breathe life into your beautiful ideas… and you’re not just worthy of feeling wonderful when you check the boxes of your Big Goals off of that bucket list in the sky.

You’re worthy of a wonderful life now… and all along the way. 

But until you wake up from the cultural lie – the trance of unworthiness – it feels normal and even virtuous to set your vision and goals in ways that flip your struggle switch straight to ‘on’.

Sometimes, struggle-switch goals are goals you don’t even care that much about, at soul-level. You just set them because you think you should or you are supposed to.

And sometimes, struggle-switch goals are goals you do actually have some innate soul-level desire to do, but you set your action plans for realizing them in such a restrictive, harsh way that just thinking about them sucks all the life force right out of what was originally a beautiful, inspired idea.

So YES. Growth and joy are your objectives, as a being of soul and spirit in this electrical, chemical, beautiful physical body.

But there’s one more spiritual strategy objective of the human experience, and it’s really important: Freedom. 

When you set struggle-switch goals for yourself, you basically exercise your freedom in the direction of creating more bondage for yourself.

You fail to honor your own Inner Guidance.

You divorce your own sweet self when you fail to honor the reality of your own feelings: the voice of the Divine that speaks to you and within you.

You also set yourself up for failure when you set struggle-switch goals because, catch this principle: Whatever you force or restrict, you fixate on.

(Want to know what happens when you decide to eat no carbs? Not only do you want to eat all the carbs, you think about all the carbs all the time.)

On the other hand, when you meet your own inner experience with 100% openness, warmth, approval, hospitality and compassion…

When you say “YES, ok Self, that’s real, I hear you”, when the struggle switch flips on, and you dial back all that forcing so you can focus on inspiration instead…

When you practice radical self-acceptance, radical self-compassion, radical self-care, and radical self-love, even as you take steps toward building your transformational business empire, writing your book, co-creating an elevated family, or creating a platform of personal financial wellbeing…

Then, you can expect two things to happen:

First: Your goals will quickly start to seem beside the point. Because you’ll have already started living in freedom, growth and joy.

You’ll realize you’re already living in a paradise of your own creation.With no further delay.

No further ado.

No further hard hustle.

No further conditions.

No further prerequisites.

And, second: Your goals start happening.

Fast.

Your daydreams and childhood dreams start to become your actual real life, by grace and in perfectly wonderful, surprising and delightful ways. 

Your whole world starts to change because when you practice radical acceptance and self love you are getting into agreement with your Source, who lovesyou.

As you team up with the creative power that forms all worlds, everything in your Being that is not consistent, compatible or aligned with your soul’s desires either get fully on board with your desires or shed like a snake’s molten skin.

You are worthy of the very best in life.

You’ll begin to receive it the moment you release resistance to your own magnificence… the moment you stop believing in your own unworthiness.

You are worthy of the very best in life. 

And that life it begins now.

Head up + heart out,

A Quick Note from Tara: 

It’s August, so I’m in Monk Mode. Working on my book, remodeling my business and … letting some new places woo me. 

I’ll fill you in on that later….

While I’m gone, I’m re-sharing some all time favorites from the Transformation Tuesday archive. Enjoy! 

Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq.
The Inner Critic Coach™️
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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