Your higher self is the version of you that already knows. It does not carry the doubt, the fear, or the ego. Connecting with it is less about acquiring new information than about learning to recognize which of the voices in your head is not driven by fear.
The most powerful person that has changed my life was not a coach, was not a book, was not a mentor. It was my higher self.
Most of us talk about the higher self, but we do not actually know how to connect with it. I see this constantly in one to one readings. People can define the term and have no working relationship with the thing.
What it actually is
Your higher self is the version of you that already knows.
It does not have the doubt. It does not have the fear. It does not have the ego.
That is the whole definition, and it is more useful than it looks, because it gives you a test. You are not trying to identify a mystical presence. You are trying to notice which of the voices currently running is not being driven by fear.
This is also why it feels so unremarkable when it happens. People expect the higher self to arrive as something grand and other. It usually turns up as the calmest, most obvious thought in the room, the one you would have had immediately if you were not frightened.
What changed when I started listening
When I tapped into the wisdom of my higher self, that is when everything changed.
That is when I stepped into my gifts as a medium. That is when I left my corporate job. And that is when I learned and trusted that all of the answers I was looking for were always sitting inside of me.
I want to be careful with that last sentence, because it is the kind of line that sounds like a platitude. What I mean by it is quite specific. I was not short of information when I was deciding whether to leave. I had plenty. What I was short of was a way to tell which of my own thoughts to trust.
That is what the connection actually gives you. Not new answers. A way to sort the ones you already have.
How to start
Ask a real question, and notice which answer arrives first.
The first response is usually the higher self. What follows immediately after, the qualifications, the reasons it will not work, the reasons you are not the person to do it, is the fear. Most people discard the first one because it came too easily and treat the second as the mature assessment.
It helps to ask in a form that fear cannot easily answer. What would my intuition say right now? What is the one thing I need to do today to move toward that? Both are narrow enough that catastrophising has nowhere to go.
And notice the physical difference. Higher self tends to feel settled, even when what it says is inconvenient. Fear tends to feel urgent and slightly tight. Your body sorts these faster than your mind does.
Why it matters for making a decision
Every single one of us has the ability to connect with our higher self.
If you want the courage to take the risk and do the thing you are afraid to do right now, the answer is sitting within your higher self. Not somewhere you have to go and get. Somewhere you have to get quiet enough to hear.
This is the part that connects to everything else I write about. When you are in the middle of an identity shift, the loudest voices are almost always the frightened ones, because the frightened ones have the most to lose from the change.
Learning to tell them apart is not a spiritual nicety at that point. It is the difference between making a decision and being made by one.
Jennifer Spencer is a spiritual medium and intuitive coach. She spent years as a VP inside Fortune 500 companies before leaving to do this work, and now guides people through the identity shift from Sedona, Arizona.
Questions people ask
- What is your higher self?
- The version of you that already knows, without the doubt, the fear, or the ego. It is not a separate entity so much as the part of your own knowing that is not being driven by fear.
- How do I know if it is my higher self or my ego talking?
- Higher self tends to arrive first, feel settled, and stay consistent even when what it says is inconvenient. Fear and ego tend to arrive immediately after, feel urgent and tight, and come with a list of qualifications. The body usually registers the difference before the mind does.
- How do I connect with my higher self for the first time?
- Ask a real question and notice which answer comes first, before the qualifications start. Narrow questions help, because catastrophising has nowhere to go. Most people already receive the answer and discard it for arriving too easily.
- Does connecting with your higher self give you new information?
- Usually not. It gives you a way to sort information you already have. Most people facing a big decision are not short of data, they are short of a way to tell which of their own thoughts to trust.
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A 1:1 session is where this stops being abstract. Jennifer reads what is underneath the situation, then works it through with you, so you leave with a next step rather than only clarity.
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