From Little Me To Big Us: Moving From Ego Into Higher Self Consciousness

I invite you to get yourself a clean exercise book for this course, which we’ll call your 'Self Inquiry Journal,' which you can use for all your writing exercises. We start out this course by looking at the concept of the self – through some very insightful quotes from 20th century English writer and biographer, Virginia Woolf. Then, I invite you to reflect on some of the foundational influences in your early life – society (or a religion if you were brought up religious), your schooling, and your parents or guardians – and what ideas you absorbed from them.

Understanding from the previous lesson that we have imbibed ideas about ourselves from a wide range of different sources throughout our lives, in this lesson, we focus on our thoughts about who we think we are. What do we really think, when we let go of the opinions of other people or institutions of society, about ourselves and about life? I share with you the awakening story of Eckhart Tolle that he shared in his book "The Power of Now," which illustrates the difference between living from ego consciousness and from a higher self (a sense of oneness with all) consciousness. In this lesson, I ask you a series of questions that you can answer using the technique of free-writing, allowing you to investigate your current ideas about who you are and what defines you.

The ego and the higher self are two quite opposite poles of the human experience, one is generally focused on ‘me and mine,’ and the other is less self-focused, pulling more from a consciousness of what is ‘good for the whole.’ Most of us are living somewhere on the spectrum between the two poles. One end (higher self) feels more easeful, graceful and joyful, while the other end (ego) is characterized more by stress, strain, and struggle. In this lesson, I take you through the foundational psychological principles as developed by Freud in his theory of the ego, the id, and the superego and I go on to explain how Eckhart Tolle took these concepts further, developing his ‘pain body’ theory. Today's journaling exercise is to imagine two scenarios from your life; one where you were drawing on your egoic consciousness and one where you were drawing from your higher self-consciousness.

In order to be able to move into a place of drawing mostly from our higher self-consciousness, we need first to have a good and clear relationship with ourselves. We need to work on our 'inner bonding' or 'inner integration practice. It's a paradox that you can't move into a place of no-self, if you haven't got a solid and healthy level of self-love and self-worth. So this lesson is all about deepening your relationship with yourself, so that you are able to be attuned to what you need and what is good for you at all times, so that you have healthy boundaries with others and are able to say no, and so that you don't abandon yourself for other people. It's important to clear any negativity towards the self before you work on living your life primarily from a place of higher self-consciousness, because if you are not really first taking really good care of yourself, it's difficult to see the big picture and wish for the happiness of all beings equally.

This lesson is all about what it looks and feels like to live at the different extremes of this spectrum of consciousness. And of course, even in the space of one day, you may oscillate between the two ends of the spectrum. I describe to you a variety of scenarios and ask you to write down what the underlying beliefs are of the characters in the scenarios, and then what is the consciousness that they are acting from. I then give you some exercises to try out on this day to practice opening up more to your higher self’s guidance.

This lesson is all about forgiveness of self and others. If you are holding onto any guilt or regrets about the past – what you have done or said – or resentments – about what others have said or done, then it will be difficult to live guided by your higher self, because your self-judgment and judgment of others will block you energetically to opening to all the good that awaits you in your life. I explain a little about forgiveness - that it's a divine quality, which you only invite if and when it feels right for you. You cannot force forgiveness. You need to invite it and wait for it to come to you – wait for it to feel like you really are ready to forgive yourself or another person before you do the exercise below. I then guide you through the Hoʻoponopono practice; an ancient Hawaiian song ritual for forgiveness.

What if your higher self knew your soul’s blueprint and the divine plan for your life? If you are confident that your higher self has this blueprint (although it would not disclose to you the full story as that would spoil the movie of your life), would you be able to surrender your small self, your egoic story (poor little me!), and follow the guidance of your higher self (how much bliss can I experience)? I give you some exercises to help you see all the times in your life where your higher self has already been guiding you, where following its wisdom has led to wonderful things. I then ask you to journal what the keys are for you to know when you are following this guidance so that you are able to consciously tune in more often to your higher self and disconnect from the egoic radio show (of 'what’s in it for me?').

What would it feel like to not have an inner critic? What if you were able to completely transform the critic inside of you to your best friend? We look today at the practice of radical non-judgment of yourself. Are you able to let go of each and every self-judgment? What happens for you on an internal level if you are no longer fighting with yourself? I invite you today to practice radical non-judgment and observe how this changes your inner state. If we have an inner conflict going on, it’s very difficult to move into higher-self consciousness because we have too much energy that’s being diverted to dealing with this conflict. I end by giving you a few different techniques that will help you to completely let go of each and every self-judging thought that appears in your mind space.

If you are not caring for yourself on a physical, mental and emotional level, it will be hard to be aligned with your higher self on a regular basis, as you will be easily distracted by health concerns. If you have some big health issues or concerns, this will most likely block you from accessing your higher self-consciousness regularly because you will instead be focused on whatever are the symptoms of your health issue. So today, I explain the basic principles of the ancient health and life science of Ayurveda, and how using these principles can help you better understand yourself, and then, take better care of yourself on all levels of your being. Using the principles of Ayurveda, particularly their concept of energies or ‘doshas,’ I invite you to design a ‘Radical Self-Care’ plan for yourself on three levels of being: physical, mental, and emotional, using the information contained in the Ayurvedic system to plan activities or practices that balance out the negative tendencies of your dominant dosha.

In this lesson, we look at what it feels like to live from a consciousness of oneness with all that is, from a deep knowing that you are enough, that you are perfect just the way you are, and that you lack nothing. What does it feel like to be able to fully express yourself in every moment according to your true feelings and your true nature? We look at being with what is (radical acceptance), responding rather than reacting (pause, reflect, respond), and moving from victimhood to agency (I am in charge) in your life. I invite you to do a free-writing exercise where I invite you to free-write (stream of consciousness) about the approach you would take to any current life situations or challenges if you were living from a perspective of 100% self-acceptance, guided 100% by your higher self rather than your egoic self. You are now ready and equipped with a tool kit to continue practicing living from unity consciousness in your daily life, moving all the time deeper into a life governed and guided by love, characterized by a feeling of ‘all is well,’ all things come to me in divine timing at exactly the right moment, I am relaxed and trust life, and I am abundantly supported by the universe at all times.