“Last night I dreamt I was looking for my higher self. Or was I searching for a backpack? My higher self might be in the backpack!” from the poem, The Search —Excerpt from Abundant Heart: Thoughts on Healing, Loving, and Living Free
As I continue to expand this experience of being a soul with a body that does all kinds of stuff, I observe a mind that has become much less noisy. Often my mind becomes quiet enough for me to hear the early hiss before the loud whistle of the teakettle, the rain pelting the roof, the gentle pat, pat as my ring finger dabs makeup on my face. I notice the air feels cool when it enters my nostrils and warm when exiting. I know my higher self is the experiencer of my experiences.
During more than a thousand moments, my higher self, witness self, or Inner Quiet Charlotte occurs like a silent camera with a wide aperture recording scenes of different body postures, facial movements, internal sensations of hunger, thirst, spoken words with the tone, cadence vibrating from my voice box, and other people’s facial expressions, body movements, voices, behaviors. IQC (Inner Quiet Charlotte) notices thoughts flow through one at a time, glop up like gook, or show up in a whirlwind of whoosh. Fingers feel a cold steel facet, a liquid soap dollop, sudsy tingling friction, flowing warm water of another bio break hand bath.
I realize it’s IQC who records all these many scenes of my life. Then my brain retrieves long-lost files of these scenes from long ago and yesterday. For whatever reason, I have this uncanny capacity for vivid recall, especially when someone speaks a familiar phrase, references a song I love in a conversation or the tantalizing aroma of hazelnut coffee wafts into the room. Biting into a piece of milk chocolate, I can venture on a time travel excursion to a childhood moment of nibbling tenderly the ear of a previously foil-wrapped chocolate Easter bunny that had been tucked inside a candy filled wicker basket wrapped in pink cellophane.
The practice of becoming self-aware might come in glimpses for you. Maybe, like me, you developed this ability to be acutely observant of everything you could see, sense, and feel at a very early age. Sometimes, for survival, hypervigilance can come quickly on board when a child feels threatened and the witness self begins recording the dangerous happenings for future recall and staying alive navigation. And what had been a psyche’s coping strategy can become a meaningful pathway as the retrieval of difficult memories opens the door to deep healing in adulthood.
To realize one’s higher self has always been with you throughout your life can be such a relief, a joy, and freedom. For this part of you has been your champion all along as this witness self sees your body, thoughts, heart through all the many caves, deserts, and forests of life experiences, patiently waiting for deeper connections, introspection, and wisdom to emerge.
The shedding of limiting beliefs takes place from the vantage point of the higher self. The feeling of unfelt feelings in the body-as this part of you observes your body sensations-can take place here, too. Deep healing and inner transformations can happen from the expansiveness, the holding space of the witness self.
Do you know you are not your thoughts, but the thinker of your thoughts? Do you know you are not your body? If you were your body, then why doesn’t your body look like it did when you were 16 years old? Do you know you are not your feelings? You can feel your emotions as energy sensations in your body. Do you know you are not your cravings or aversions?
Do you know you are not your clothes, hairstyle, or belongings accumulated all around you? Do you know you are not your job, titles, awards, or academic degrees? Do you know you are not your top five CliftonStengths Finders, Enneagram number, or Meyers Briggs four letters?
Do you know your higher self might be your direct connection to the Divine, the Universe, God, to expansive compassion? What could you create with your higher self as your champion, silent witness?
Sometimes life might seem like your higher self has hidden in a backpack, yet if you get quiet enough, and still enough, like sunshine forever glowing within, your higher self can shine brightly out into the world, a light illuminating the world with warmth and love.
The founder of Cherish Your World, Laura Staley passionately supports people thriving by guiding them to a holistic transformation of space, heart, and life. Laura is the published author of four books including Live Inspired which reveals the brave and deep work of self-discovery and her new book of short writings and poetry Abundant Heart: Thoughts on Healing, Loving, and Living Free where with her characteristic grace and candor, Laura shares thoughtful-sometimes comical reflections on healing, loving and living free as inspirational pathways for experiencing a soul-centered, fulfilled life.
