Which "You" Is Running The Show?
Discerning between your higher and lower self.
You’re either being run by your Lower Self or creating reality from your Higher Self.
Discerning which part of you is running the show is crucial for consciously creating your own reality.
Your Lower Self is driven by fear, desire, worry, the need for approval, or the need to perform.
The Higher Self is driven by rationality, confidence, courage, stillness, and love.
You will know when you are speaking, thinking, and living from the Higher Self by observing the center point of awareness within your own being.
The Higher Self speaks from a deeper place of the mind and soul than the Lower Self.
When the Higher Self is in the driver's seat, your center point of awareness moves away from the front of your face — and into the space just above your head and right in the center of your heart.
In this state of consciousness, or this higher perspective, you move from the doer to the watcher or the witness.
From this place, the Higher Self guides your Lower Self (which we will also define as your inner child) through the twists and turns of life, consults him through emotional hardships and difficult circumstances, and allows him to feel the joy, playfulness, and ecstasy of the human experience.
When you are tapped into the subtleties of where your awareness resides, and you know which part of you is running the show, you can choose to operate from the calmer, more calculated, and more centered part of yourself and guide your inner child through the obstacle course of existence we call life.
This is the key to creating your desired reality.
The Inner Child & The Wise Parent Within You
How you talk, negotiate, and contemplate with yourself reveals whether your inner child (Lower Self) or wise parent (Higher Self) is in the driver’s seat at each moment.
The difference is subtle, but once you become aware of it, it will change how you walk through life.
When you speak to yourself, notice this:
Are you speaking upwards energetically, with subtle insecurity? Similar to how you would ask your mother or father for advice.
Or, are you speaking downwards energetically, with downward conviction and tonality? Similar to how you would advise a small child with absolute confidence and certainty.
Speaking upwards from insecurity = the inner child, the old self, or the Lower Self. This is the part of you who asks your mother or father what to do, if that thing is okay to eat, or how much longer you have on the car ride. He is scared, emotional, impulsive, and lacks agency and autonomy.
Speaking downwards from confidence = the Higher Self, the father self, or the mother self. The Higher Self speaks from the energy you would use when giving advice to a younger friend or to a young child who is scared, worried, or confused. This is the part of you who is self-assured, wise, bold, calculated, and knows the way forward.
It is our practice to mindfully speak to ourselves and navigate life from the energy and perspective of the Higher Self — as often as we can consciously remember.
Both the Higher and Lower Self Live Within Us.
No matter how far we mature psychologically and spiritually, there is still a child within us.
As Carl Jung reflected in is his Red Book,
“I had forgotten that I am also a child, who is born again and again.”
That childlike aspect of us is inherent to our nature.
Those who lose connection to it become cold-hearted intellectuals incapable of experiencing love, beauty, and connection.
Those who stay connected to their inner child and are reborn in adulthood with the child’s spirit, without letting it pull them in destructive directions, are, as Jesus said, “Not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.”
The inner child can be problematic at times, run by emotions, impulsive, and immature, but it is also key to our spiritual purity and connection to the Divine.
The spirit of the child within is our access to purity, love, awe, innocence, wonder, joy, possibility, playfulness, and Eden.
It is why Jesus said in Matthew 18:3:
“Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
But, while childlike consciousness is our key to returning to “heaven,” that same child is also easily scared, hurt, worried, lost, and confused.
It is up to our Higher Selves to guide and parent our inner child through the obstacle course we call life.
A card from Tarot, The “Six of Swords,” depicts this well.
