Our higher self is the essence of who we are before all the life happens to us. Our purest self is a beautiful thing, and we are all still our best when we are tuned in to this self state. In Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, we call this our wise mind, also known as one’s intuition, best self or higher self. First things first, when we are feeling at our lowest, the most disconnected versions of ourselves we must remember we have a higher self, a wise mind, and it is with us, always.
Everyone has a wise mind, we are all born with our higher self, although for many of us, life may rough them up a bit.
Over time, we cover up, bury, avoid, and lose touch with our higher selves. Here are four hacks for practicing accessing our higher selves and getting reacquainted with our better halves.
- Stop and Observe: When you notice you are feeling reactive or impulsive, and you’re about to “do” something, quick don’t! Take a second to pause and notice what’s going on inside, are you feeling threatened, afraid, judgmental, insecure? Are you feeling shame and therefore about to double down on protecting yourself and hardening?
- Get Quiet and Wait: Tune in, focus all your senses inward. Listen, pay attention to your intuition, your gut. Pro tip: It is helpful to think what you might suggest a friend or a little sister might do in your situation. Ask yourself: What do I want to happen here? What is my objective? Tune in again, and listen. Then wait, you will know what to do when you know what to do.
- Consider: If you are really disconnected from your wise mind and aren’t even sure where they are or if they’d still show up if you called on them, imagine them. Imagine your wise mind is one of poise and grace (it is) and consider, what would I do if I was in wise mind? What would wise mind say? Remember this is the best, most enlightened, highest version of yourself. If your wise mind says call your friend and tell them they are an asshole, that isn’t your wise mind. You get it.
- Risk: We are stubborn beings, we need to have exposure to experiencing ourselves in wise mind and seeing how differently we experience ourselves and our circumstances. The more practice we have tuning in and accessing our wise mind, the more effective and at peace we are. Can you imagine feeling absolutely sure about your decision making most of the time; sure you made the right decision? That is wise mind.
Learning to trust ourselves is a practice, learning discernment and prioritizing takes a lot of trial and error, and then waiting. A common phrase in my life is, “I don’t know, I will get back to you when I feel more wise minded about it.” The wise mind test question is “can it wait?” if the answer is “No, I have to do this thing right right right now,” then it is not your wise mind. Sometimes the ability to do nothing, is everything.
Originally published at www.meghanbreen.com