Podcast Episode 38 - How to Connect to Your Highest Self

This post has been a concept that I have been playing with for a while, and I had a moment a little while ago where I was able to share this concept with somebody who is one of just the most incredible and beautiful souls that I've ever met. Her name is Marian. I met her in Costa Rica, and she was part of the team that really guided us and held space for us as we went on our team retreat, and it was amazing. I was able to pass on this concept to her, and she brought it back up again when I was on a call with her recently and just shared how powerful this one concept is for completely changing her perspective, completely shifting her energy. I figured obviously I have to share it with the rest of the world as well because it's a really fun concept.

If you have been following me at all over the past few years, you’ll notice that I have talked about doing a lot of inner healing. 2021 and 2022 were really deep personal growth years. These two were exceptionally intense years for me on my spiritual journey and my healing. I have done so much shadow work and work with my inner child in the last two years, and that's been a really big shift for me. I've done a lot of work with embodiment, higher self, and connecting to your purpose and the embodiment of full alignment; all of the big, high vibrational, highest self things that we talk about. 

I've worked with that, but I have also connected with this inner child that has been so profound for me. I believe I was in a meditation when this first came through for me as a concept, and at this point, I feel like I can say this with a very deep sense of knowing: I know that our inner child is actually our highest self. That is such a profound concept for me because so much of the shadow work that I did was coming from this perspective of having this wounded inner child that is traumatized, that has been through things, and me as my adult self, me as my higher self, me as my grown current, the embodiment of everything that I have ever been up until this point, is making actions and taking steps to protect this inner child. That was really helpful for me to recognize that my fears and anxieties or my traumas were just that: they were this wounded child that had been hurt and that didn't understand the consequences of the actions, or just didn't quite understand that there was a different story available to her. 

I've done a lot of work this year around trying to protect her and trying to make her proud, but what I've realized is actually when I give control to my inner child, I step into flow like I've never been before. The reason that I believe our inner child is our higher self is probably the combination of gates that I have defined in my G center, which is all about identity. I have gates 25 and 46. In gate 46, we have the shadow of seriousness that moves into the gift of delight, and then we have constriction that moves into the gift of acceptance in 25. When you have defined gates in undefined centers, what this means is there's going to be a consistent way in which you experience the inconsistency within that center. 

When I am in the spiral of not knowing who I am, when I'm in the void of feeling like I don't know what love is and feeling unconnected to other people, and like I don't know where I'm going in life, I come back to two things. I'm probably taking it too seriously, and this is a huge lesson that I have learned from my inner child, is that things are not that serious. We are on a spinning rock in the middle of nowhere. The chances of us existing are like literally almost zero, but yet we're here. On top of that, humanity is such a small blip in the overall experience of the universe. If you look at the whole timeline of the universe, humans are only here for such a tiny, tiny, tiny part of that, so why am I taking it so seriously? Why am I feeling like everything is such a big deal? Why am I overthinking things?

With the inner child, or really that highest self energy, they're not going to take things seriously. They are delighted to have any new experience, and so it's not fearful. There's this playful energy. There's this curiosity that comes through, and what I've really been working on is when you're a child, life is full of new experiences, and especially as a manifesting generator something I've realized is that new experiences are very exciting. However, things that I've done over and over and over and over and over again sometimes aren't as exciting. 

I've really learned how to recognize that one, nothing is special. Absolutely nothing in this world is special. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is magical, unless you create the magic inside of it. It's not the actual thing that is magic, it's the energy, the intention, the container and the space around the thing. 

Let's use spiritual tools as an example. Journaling is amazing, but you can be in a space where you are journaling and it is not a magical experience. Like, "Okay, I'm sitting here. I'm writing things down. I'm supposed to feel a certain way. Why do I not feel different? Everyone says that journaling is incredible." The same applies to meditation, where you find yourself sitting there and you're like, "Okay, I'm supposed to be seeing things. I'm supposed to be opening my third eye. I am supposed to be connecting to my breath. I'm bored, and it's been five minutes." 

It's not the tool itself that's magical, but it's the intention behind it. It's creating a container for it that creates the sacredness. This is a very gate 34 lesson where we bring the magic. We create sacred experiences with the energy that we pour into the experience. When I show up to journal, I am showing up with the intention of making that a sacred ritual. I am showing up with the intention of holding space for that to be magical. I'm also bringing the magic myself, and that's very much me connecting to my energy and my sacral power and that delight that I was talking about. 

If I take things too seriously, I am scared, and I will hesitate to take action. I will hesitate to bring my magic to the world. That's not where we want to be. I will hold back that sacral response out of wondering what people will think about me. But that inner child is not hesitant. They are delighted to have any new experience, and so if they have a sacral response, they're going to jump on that sacral response because they don't have that voice that's holding them back.

I've really been working with the two gates in my G center to play with this topic of our highest self being our inner child. I've been trying to just play and see what happens when I am just delighted to be in my experience, and what happens is things start to feel magical again. Things start to feel special. Things start to feel exciting, because I am bringing the excitement. I'm setting the standard that I live a delightful experience, and when that's the standard, I'm able to receive that delight regardless of whatever it is that I'm experiencing. 

This goes hand in hand with the energy of acceptance that we find in gate 25, because there's the shadow of constriction. If I'm constricting, if I am blocked off from new experiences because it's unfamiliar, I'm in the shadow. I am not allowing myself to be fully expressed. I'm not accepting myself. Instead of judging it, instead of restricting, instead of resisting a new identity, a new layer, a new conversation, a new experience, I get to look at the energy of acceptance.

To me, acceptance is the space of not really feeling ready, but it's here, which tells me I am ready. I'm at least ready to give it a shot. I'm at least ready to try. I'm at least ready to accept that this is an opportunity that's happening right now, and if it's happening right now, it means there's something here for me. Whether that means that this is going to be absolutely incredible and I'm going to nail it the first time and I'm going to hit all of the steps perfectly and it's going to be a beautiful unfolding, or if it's really messy, but I just learned so much in the process. I was ready to learn. I was ready to experience it for the first time and gather that data, so that I can make the steps forward, so that I can improve and become the version of me who is ready for handling that thing, for creating that thing, for having that kind of success. 

The next main area that I have been playing with is bringing in this energy of celebration to everything. When you are a child, your birthday is so exciting. I was always so excited to be a year older, and I specifically remember my 10th birthday and how I was so excited to step into double digits. I was so excited to start a new decade of my life. I was so excited to have two numbers in my age. There was something that was so magical for me because I was anticipating and playing with it, celebrating this growth, this aging that I was experiencing.

I've noticed that as we get older, birthdays become less special. They're not always as big of a deal. Instead of anticipating and getting excited for the new decade, we tend to push it off, and we tend to resist it. We tend to be resisting the new age that we are turning, and it's resisting this new stage. 

One of the conversations when I was talking to Marian, we were able to discuss how as we get older, it's sometimes difficult to keep that playful, excited, vibrant, energy alive. She was just really in awe of the team and just this vibrancy and delight that we are able to bring to everything. We were so excited about everything that we were able to do on that trip, and she was just in awe of that. 

I got the opportunity to remind her that every single day is a brand new day. Every single age is a brand new age. You've never turned that age before. I just turned 26. I've never been 26 before. I'm a brand new 26 year old, and that is really exciting. That's a new stage. It was also my golden birthday, because my birthday was on the 26th. This was something I really wanted to celebrate and something that I wanted to play with instead of feeling like I’m just one step closer to 30 and that my Saturn return is coming. Instead of the dread of whatever these planets have in store for me, I'm just delighted over the fact that I've made it 26 years. I have successfully lived 26 years, and I have successfully survived all of the new experiences that every single day has brought my way. That's exciting, and that means that I'm just getting started, and I am getting on a roll. 

There are still so many firsts left in my life. There are still so many new experiences out there, and my job is to continue to bring the delight, continue to bring the energy, continue to bring the excitement, because as I get older, I want my life to become more playful. I want my life to become more fun. I want my life to be more delightful than it's ever been before. It gets to get better and better and better, and my goal is to become more joyful and more vibrant and more playful and more energetic as I grow. 

As I grow, I am letting go of my conditioning. I am letting go of my stories. I'm letting go of the resistance, and every single day is a new day for me to surrender to my inner child, for me to play even more, for me to connect without energy of delight and bring that to the world. That is so powerful, and I think that we can all come back to this intentionality around our energy, and recognize that the things outside of you have no power to make you feel any sort of way. They do not have the power to affect you unless you give it to them. 

I had a birthday a couple of years ago where I was throwing a party. I was really excited about it, and on the day of the party, everyone but one person canceled. I was very disappointed because I'd put all of this energy into this whole experience. I remember even though it was supposed to be a really fun celebration, I was sad, and that celebration was really difficult for me to enjoy because of the internal experience and the emotionality that I was having inside. The party did not have the ability to create that joy for me until I decided that I had my husband and a friend with me, and we were still going to have a great time.

There's this moment where you recognize that you are in control of the emotions that you have. If you are in control of the emotions that you have, if the world is telling you that you're not taking it seriously enough and you have to work harder and you need more strategy, and you have to do things the gritty, difficult way, if your inner child is saying that they don’t want to, then why don't you explore that? Why don't you see what would happen if you gave your inner child that permission slip to be rebellious? A permission slip to explore, to get curious, to mess it up and break the rules and try something new. If they learn something, awesome. The consequences will be there. Natural consequences will be the lessons for the actions that are taken, but you don't have to take things so seriously. 

I think that as we get older, and especially as women in business, we take things very seriously. Creativity is playful. Imagination is playful. Those are very childlike energies that we are connecting with and we are trying to bring through into the world. I feel like when we're creating a sacral response that sacral energy is life force energy. It's creativity. It's fire. It is childlike energy that we are bringing into the world and sharing this delight, this satisfaction, this pleasure, this delicious energy with the world, and that's a very childlike thing to do. Like, “Look, I made a painting. Look, I created something. Look, I'm so proud of pouring this energy and pouring my creativity and my imagination out onto a page.” That's manifesting. You're seeing something in your head, in your imagination, and drawing it on the page. That's so fascinating. As a child, I remember just being so excited about getting better at that, about getting better at creating more details, creating more in-depth artwork, and just playing at a deeper level.

As we grow, we only grow in our experience. We only grow in our wisdom, but we don't have to grow up. We don't have to be more serious. We don't have to follow the rules. We don't have to feel like every single decision we make is a life or death decision. We don't have to be in this survival mode all of the time. You have the power to create a life that's delightful, a life that is playful, and I genuinely believe that when we surrender to our inner child, when we stop parenting or instead of commenting and conditioning ourselves the way that our parents did, switching that narrative so that your current self, your adult self, is still guiding and still protecting that inner child, but it's more of, "Yeah, you've got this. I trust you. You don't need me to keep you safe. You don't need me to protect you. You go. You'll figure it out, and if you need me, I'm here for you." 

That's what my role is right now as the conscious individual who has been here for 26 years. I am taking care of my human, and my human is still a child to me. She's still young at heart. She's still playful. I think that this is self-trust. It’s recognizing that the child version of yourself is safe. They will live. They will survive. They will manage whatever it is that they need to manage, and they don't need you keeping them safe. They don't need you protecting them. That's the trauma response. 

The trauma response has the story in your head that says, "I can't just do it. I have to do something first. I have to set it up. I have to do it differently. I have to do it the right way." That's the conditioning. My job as the conscious individual is to take the leash off and take the boundaries off of my inner child, because she knows what she's doing. She's lived many lifetimes before. She's incredibly wise. She's incredibly playful, and she is responding to the universe. She's a powerful, creative individual, and her in her delight, in her magic, without taking it seriously, without worrying about the details, without all of the things that I've been conditioned to believe I had to do, I get to reparent myself by saying instead of "I have to protect myself," or "I have to take it seriously," or "This is a big deal. I can't do it this way," 

I’m giving myself permission to go for it, to mess it up, to play with it, and almost creating this parent-child relationship with yourself where you trust that playful side of you and where you trust this inner child. You are handing over the life that you are creating to the child version of you, and you are saying, "You've got this. I'm here if you need me. I'll bring in my life experience. I will bring in my perspectives. I will offer my wisdom when necessary, but you've got this. You're far more capable than you believe you are. You make better decisions than I do. You are fearless. You are reckless. You trust yourself. You're creative. You're imaginative." 

That's the life that I want to live, where I have so much self-trust that I believe that the child version of me could be successful in this adult world, in this business world, in this creative world, in this financial world. That's the reality that I want to live in, so that's the reality that I'm creating. 

I really hope that you play with this concept, and I really hope that this shifts your perspective around inner work, around inner child, around taking things too seriously, around connecting with your highest energy and your highest self because it's true. Your inner child is so capable, because it is your highest self. It is your uninhibited, unconditioned, fully expressed self, and the judgements that you have towards it, the stories that you have around having to take this seriously, or having to be worried about hurting other people's feelings, those are the rules that you are here to rewrite. 

You have the opportunity to say that you don't want to continue parenting your inner child this way. You would like them to have more freedom. You would like them to have more independence. You would like them to trust herself more. You would like them to have more confidence, and whatever traits you are ready to give to your inner child, whatever rules you're ready to rewrite, whatever boundaries you are ready to set, to protect her, to put her into a position where they are able to just play with the world, and it's the energy, then the intention behind it. 

If you show up to business, if you show up to work and you say, "I'm just going to play, and it's going to make money," it's so much more fun. You are way bolder with your actions. You're way more creative with the things that you come up with, and when you're not trying to follow the business rules, you become a business innovator. Innovation is new energy, and new energy often comes from not just the people who've been in it for a while, but the fresh perspectives, the new perspectives, the ones who haven't been trained to do it the same way as everyone else; they see it differently. They have a different perspective. They have a different opinion, and if you have that courage and that childlike energy and that six line optimism of anticipating that it's going to turn out well, chances are it's going to turn out well. But if it doesn't, then you still get to tell yourself the story. You still get to create the reality. You still get to look for proof of why it actually did go well, even though it didn't go the way that you expected it to.

So, let go of expectations. Let your inner child play. Play in life. Play in business. Give them permission to play in the things that you take most seriously, the things that you are really careful around, the things that you are trying really hard to do correctly or perfectly or you're really hesitant to take action, or maybe you're frozen completely and you just can't take action. That's your sign that your adult self has these trauma responses and parenting is telling your inner child no. Whatever the stories are, your job is to see those, to acknowledge those, and to get excited about the fact that you are aware of those, because if you're excited about the fact that they're coming into your awareness, you're like, "Ooh, look, a boundary. This is a rule. This is a story that I have given power to. I'm going to make decisions according to your truth. I am going to let you, this story, shape my reality and shape what I decide I can and cannot do," and then in that moment, whenever that story pops up, I’m going to think about that if my body thinks that's too much to handle, I'll check. I'll ride my emotional wave. I'll see, but if I have the audacity to try, it's very possible I have the energy to do it all. I may as well try and see if I have the energy to do it all, because just because somebody else doesn't have the energy to do it all doesn't mean I don't. 

If I'm really excited about it, if it's lighting me up, I'm going to make the energy for it. I'm going to make the time for it. I'm going to make the space to have that experience because it's important to me. That's available to me. Why would I let this story of it's not going to make sense or you don't have enough energy, shape my reality and tell me that I can't do the thing that I want to do? That's deconditioning. That is working with your inner child, and that is working with your highest self. 

I hope that you learned something from this. If you try this out, please share the activity that you played with. Share the activity that you literally let your inner child run free with and make a mess with, and just like go all out in whatever they want to do. Follow all of their urges, follow all of their creativity, follow whatever their hearts desires are in that moment. Just let them play. Try an inner child day, and if you have any reflections, if you have any notes, if you have any breakthrough moments, please share them with me on Instagram.

Check out Marian's Instagram here: @joy_of_life_costarica

If you are interested in learning more about how to design with your sacral and with your soul involved, you can find more information about this 2+ hour masterclass replay: Soul Signed – Stop settling for mediocrity and start creating things you are proud to Sign with Your Soul

If you are interested in an experiment exclusively for generators and manifesting generators to decondition and follow that big sacral energy that you are here to follow, Big Sacral Energy is the course for you! Learn more here: Big Sacral Energy