There's a version of you that predates every should, every strategy, every shape you've learned to take to keep yourself safe.

Before the performance. Before the compromise. Before you learned to translate your knowing into language others could digest.

That version? Still here. Underneath the layers. Waiting.

Not waiting to be fixed or healed or even discovered—but remembered.

This is the work of the Original Self. Not creation. Excavation.

The world teaches us early: to be loved is to be palatable. To be safe is to be small. To be successful is to be legible.

So we learn. We adapt. We code-switch and dim and soften the edges that might cut through the noise. We practice the choreography of acceptability until we forget we're dancing.

And somewhere in that process, the Original Self—the one who knew what she wanted before she learned to want what was appropriate—gets buried.

Not gone. Never gone. Just... quiet.

Covered over by:

The Original Self doesn't care about any of that. She never did.

She knows what she knows. She wants what she wants. She moves how she moves.

And she's been trying to get your attention.

Pay attention to what makes you irrationally angry. What feels like a violation even when it's "not that deep."

Pay attention to the moments when your body says no before your mind can rationalize a yes.

Pay attention to the dreams that won't let you go—the ones that feel ridiculous, impractical, impossible, and yet refuse to die.

Pay attention to the things you loved before you learned to be embarrassed. The things you created before you worried about being good. The ways you moved through the world before you learned you were supposed to take up less space.

That's not nostalgia. That's data.

The Original Self speaks through the body, through the dream, through the quiet, unmistakable knowing that arrives before language does.

She doesn't argue. She doesn't explain. She simply is.

And she's been waiting for you to stop asking for permission to be her.

Here's what I know about the Original Self: you don't become her. You return to her.

This isn't about reinvention. It's about remembering.

Not who you've been told you are. Not who you've tried to be. But who you were before the world got its hands on you—and who you still are, underneath everything.

This is ritual work. Devotional work. The kind that requires you to:

Sit with the discomfort of your own truth.
The parts of you that don't fit the narrative. The desires that embarrass you. The rage that scares you. The softness you've armored over. The power you've learned to apologize for.

Stop performing integration.
You don't need to be "healed" to be whole. You don't need to have processed every wound to access your authority. The Original Self doesn't wait for you to be ready. She simply is. Always has been.

Practice devotion without dogma.
This isn't about following someone else's map. Not mine. Not your teacher's. Not the guru's. This is about trusting the authority that lives in your own body, your own knowing, your own direct experience of what's true.

The Original Self doesn't need a five-step plan. She needs permission. From you. To exist. Fully. Unapologetically. Now.

This week, try this:

Find a photo of yourself as a child. Before age 10 if possible. Sit with it. Don't analyze. Just look.

Ask her:
"What did you know then that I've forgotten?"

Write without thinking. Let her answer through your hand.

Then ask:
"What do you need from me now?"

Again—no editing. No rationalizing. Just truth.

Finally:
"What are you ready to stop pretending?"

This might sting. Let it. The Original Self doesn't comfort you with lies. She frees you with truth.

Do this practice daily for seven days. Watch what shifts.

If you're building something—a business, a body of work, a life that actually fits—the Original Self has to lead.

Not the version of you that knows how to market. Not the one who can code-switch through a pitch. Not the one who's perfected the performance of "having it together."

The one who knows what she wants before she can explain why.

That's the voice that builds empires. That's the frequency that magnetizes the right people, the right opportunities, the right life.

Not because it's polished. But because it's true.

And truth—messy, inconvenient, unoptimized truth—is the only thing that actually scales.

This is what we do in the Prosperity Portal. We excavate. We remember. We build from the Original Self, not from the projected self. We practice devotion to our own authority until it becomes second nature.

If you've been waiting for permission to stop performing and start being—this is it.

The Original Self doesn't need you to be perfect.
She needs you to be honest.

She doesn't need you to have it figured out.
She needs you to stop pretending you do.

She doesn't need your performance.
She needs your presence.

And she's ready when you are.

With devotion,
Naiya Taylor
Founder, Herban Mystic

P.S. — The Original Self work? It's not comfortable. But it's the only work that actually liberates. If you're ready to excavate, the Portal is open.

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