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Freedom from outdated obligations that no longer really serve anyone well, and freedom from outdated ways of being that definitely no longer serve you.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