What Would Your Highest Self Do?

How do you know the difference between fear and intuition? Between your highest self and your anxiety? In this session, I discuss the process by which I determine if my decisions are in alignment with my highest self, or if they are the voice of my shadow or a part of myself that is speaking from a place of restriction. If you struggle to trust your inner voice, this session will guide you.

Transcript

How can I tell the difference between my intuition and my fear?

How can I know if what my senses,

What my body,

What I'm picking up,

What I've decided is the right thing for me?

How do I know if I'm moving towards or away from my highest calling,

What my highest self would suggest I should be doing?

I get a question like this quite regularly,

Either as a classroom response or in a review of a track.

So I decided to address it directly.

The basic premise is this.

The track or the course asked you to check into your highest self or to trust your intuition or to do what is aligned with your highest calling.

And inevitably the response comes back saying that they don't know how to tell the difference.

They don't know what they should trust.

There's multiple inner voices.

How can I know?

And given the subjective internal nature of the problem,

There is no way that an outsider can quote unquote know.

It has to be an internal felt feeling.

And because of the confusion,

That means that this internally felt feeling requires a little bit of attunement,

Requires a little bit of practice,

And you're not always going to be right.

But there's a few ways that I develop my intuition,

My inner guide,

So to speak.

There's a few ways that I know if what I'm thinking or considering doing is the right option,

Or if I'm already down a decision pathway,

If I should switch or change.

And the simplest answer is to learn from experience,

Feel before and after,

And then look at the results and sort of backwards apply that into your life.

But that's a long,

Slow,

And potentially challenging process that you may get wrong.

So what I suggest you do is that,

But also feel in your body as you're making a decision.

Are you present in this moment of decision making?

Or are you somewhere else?

Are you grounded in the physical sensations in the body,

In the here and now?

Are you mindful?

I keep returning back to this present state feeling,

Because it's,

There's a lot of iterations on this concept that will help you decide.

When I'm not aligned,

When I'm not in my highest decision making capacity,

When I'm doing something that I shouldn't be doing,

I'm often not that present,

I'm a bit dissociated,

Or I'm stuck in anxiety or rumination.

Or if I look deeper,

I feel like I've embodied or allowed a part of me to speak.

This could be a earlier part of me,

Or part of my shadow.

Or if you're familiar with internal family systems,

Perhaps in exile,

Or a firefighter or a manager,

Whatever sort of phrasing you want to put on it,

You're not in your power,

You're not in yourself.

There's a different,

Perhaps earlier,

Perhaps younger part of you speaking.

And you can recognize this earlier or younger part of you that's sort of present,

Because you will feel it.

Now once again,

This is a practiced skill,

It's a learnt response.

But it certainly is one that you can develop.

I'm finding more and more that when I'm not making decisions that are aligned,

That I'm sort of embodying an earlier version of myself.

And one of the ways that I discover this is by asking myself the question,

How old am I?

More specifically,

How old do I feel right now?

Because oftentimes I feel younger.

My mannerisms,

My thoughts,

My moods,

The way I'm interacting with people is a version of myself that is not the current version.

Now if this sounds a little bit esoteric or trippy or confusing,

That's okay.

Because I'm trying to put to words a inner feeling to help you identify when you are not aligned with your highest self.

It will come across differently.

All I can offer you are examples and analogies that are akin to the finger pointing to the moon.

You have to take that journey yourself.

But some of the things that I've noticed is that I feel different.

And a very,

Very good way to work out if I'm aligned with my current,

Present and highest self is to simply look into a mirror as I'm thinking about what I'm deciding to do.

And I find that sometimes I'm a little bit shocked to see the reflection back.

Because in my mind,

In my body,

I have this lived experience that I'm younger.

But when I look in the mirror,

I see my current age.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Yeah,

That's right.

I'm me.

I'm here now.

I'm this person with these lived experiences living this life.

One of the things I try and do is with myself,

And with my courses and with people that I work with is to help them and help myself to process the past,

Accept the present and embrace the future,

Positivity and purpose.

If I'm discovering that I'm sort of embodied in a past version of myself,

Then I need to take some steps to rectify that,

To ground myself in the present moment.

So if I identify these earlier versions,

Feelings,

Or if I look in the mirror and feel like I'm older than I feel like I should be,

If I feel disaligned,

If I feel out of it,

If I feel internally in a panicked or anxious or sort of,

I've got to fix the problem sort of phase,

That is my cue to take a breath.

It's my cue to feel my body.

It's my cue to come back to and check into the present moment.

It's my cue to fall into this state of presence and then decide.

Because here's the thing,

If a decision is aligned with your highest self,

It's not going to be a rushed,

Quick decision.

And it's also going to be sticky.

It will feel right now and it will feel right when you've slept on it.

It's not going to go away.

But feelings of fear and anxiety and overwhelm and any other sort of transient emotion that could be caused by a different part of you appearing and sort of taking the reins for a bit,

Or perhaps a bit of your shadow peeking out or whatever sort of analogy like we said you like to use,

That's transient,

That changes,

That's shifts.

And you can simply sit and sort of witness it.

After this session,

I invite you to just sit and just watch your moods and emotions and memories and physical sensations coming and going.

Observe them without judgment,

Without filter and without desire to act.

And notice that you will get an impulse to do something and it will feel very important.

You'll be called to get off the mat and go.

But the reality is,

Is that if you just wait and watch,

And just allow it to speak,

Allow it to express,

That feeling's probably going to pass.

And if it does,

You know that that feeling,

That desire,

That motivation,

That call to action wasn't your highest self.

It was a different part of you.

It wasn't aligned fully.

It'll come and go,

It'll come and go.

But the things that stick,

The things that you keep coming back to,

The things that turn up again and again,

They're the ones you need to listen to.

So I encourage you,

When you aren't sure,

To do the few things that we've covered in this session.

Reflect back on what you know is true for you,

And even potentially take a journal.

I made this decision based on these feelings and these sort of signs,

And it turned out well.

Do that more.

Nope,

Turned out badly.

Do that less.

Take note of how you're feeling as you're making the decision.

Do you feel embodied in the present moment?

Or do you feel like a part of your shadow,

A part of your past,

Or a different part of you is speaking from a place of anxiety,

Or fear,

Or regret,

Or any other emotion that isn't presence,

And mindfulness,

And self?

Remember to take a pause,

Take a break,

To relax,

And allow yourself to just observe what comes and goes.

If it comes and goes,

It's probably not aligned,

And that's okay.

Allow yourself to let that go.

And finally,

I encourage you to sit with and practice connecting to your highest self.

And this is the practice that I want to leave you with.

Your highest self has a few characteristics,

And you can invoke them.

The prime characteristics that I like to sit with is,

Or the one that I find leads me to the place of the self the most,

Is one of curiosity,

Compassion,

And confidence,

And calmness.

Curiosity,

Compassion,

Confidence,

And calmness.

But mainly the curiosity.

If I'm not sure,

I get curious.

I'm like,

Okay,

Tell me more.

I'm curious.

What am I feeling?

I just keep inquiring,

And inquiring,

And inquiring.

Then that compassion,

That confidence,

That calmness comes.

There's clarity,

And it sort of feels like a warm heart space opening up.

One that is not contaminated with fear,

Or anxiety,

Or tension.

It's clear.

It's calm.

It's compassionate.

It's confident.

It's connected.

It's creative.

It's free.

And the way that I find that space is to practice curiosity.

What am I feeling right now?

Tell me more.

Tell me more.

Tell me more.

Be curious.

Why is this arising?

What am I feeling?

And if you pull that thread long enough,

You'll start to see the cause and the deep sense of what's actually going on.

If it's aligned,

You will feel it.

But if it leads to a path of blockages,

Or a response to a past event,

Or basically anything that isn't this feeling in the present moment,

Heart space felt,

To become apparent.

Like I said,

If it feels like you need to make a decision right now,

And you feel rushed and pushed,

That's not aligned.

Take a breath,

Get curious,

And allow it to unfold,

And eventually you'll discover your highest self,

And what your highest self wants you to do in this moment.

I wish you luck,

And encourage you to practice this now.

Namaste.

Reviews

Invaluable guidance! 💫 Love the IFS work... SO helpful 💛 Thank you 🙏