Connecting With Your (Highest) Self

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about being your “highest self.” That is, going beyond the low energy of fear, and acts of controlling that fear, such as manipulation, aggression, and so forth. When we are acting from our highest selves, we ascend to more peaceful, mindful ways of thinking and behaving. To do so effectively, however, you must first become effective with the concept of working with your “inner child”—that part of you that still exists from birth through young adulthood, especially in the earliest stages of development. 

The truth is that human life is full of interactions that result in trauma and cause suffering, even in childhood—we all experience it. It is critical to heal the pain left over from the traumas we faced during our childhood years in order to become whole again and ascend to our highest level of being. We are then able to move beyond what has been holding us back—our adaptations to these traumas that we created as children.

What I want to share with you today is a meditation that you can use to work on exactly that. The instructions I will give you are from a full guided meditation that I have on Insight Timer. Within this meditation, I go over four phrases that you speak to yourself in a specific order. Let me first give you some background information that supports these phrases.

The Four Phrases

When a child is in the very impressionable stage of early development, the first thing they need is to be seen. If the child is not seen when they are very young, they don’t even know that they exist. (Think about that for a second—just how powerful it is for a child to be seen and acknowledged.) There is such a painful sense of invisibility when a child is not seen by their family that it is traumatizing, and they will either hide away within themselves or begin acting out in response to this emotional pain. 

The second thing is that they need to be heard. There is an old saying, “children are supposed to be seen and not heard.” This phrase was popular in the 50s, 60s, and even in some cases to this day, and the concept is truly damaging to children. If a child is seen, they know that they exist, but then if they are not heard, they don’t believe they have anything important to say and have a sense that they do not matter

The third important thing they need is a sense of being loved. Does the child feel loved? If not, there is a sense of loneliness and isolation, a lack of connection to the family unit. It is common to have an assumed love for one’s children, to think that they must already know that you love them. The truth is, however, we must be intentional about expressing our affection to our children and within our families, both by telling them in a sincere and loving tone and by showing them through our actions.

The fourth thing a child needs is really critical: the child needs to feel trusted and to be trusted. You might wonder, how do you trust a little kid? Well, the key is that you don’t trust a little kid to know what to do; you trust them to know who they are. Children intuitively know who they are. We only forget who we are based on socialization, family dynamics, and overall standards and pressures in society. These forces can confuse us and make us forget who we are, or teach us to think that we are someone (often less than) who we are not.

When a child feels seen, heard, loved, and trusted, they are now set to walk through anything—fear, feelings, challenges in life—because they have a sense of self-sovereignty and confidence in who they are. Truth be told, most of us do not exit childhood with all of these aspects intact. Therefore, it is very important that we nourish our inner child in these areas, at which point we can shift the energy into coming from the perspective of our higher selves. 

The Meditation

To begin with the meditation, you can be seated, in front of a mirror or with your eyes closed, and say aloud the following phrases to your inner child, stating your name after each phrase:

I see you, (state your name).

I hear you, (state your name).

I love you, (state your name).

I trust you, (state your name).

You will now say each phrase, changing the word “you” to “me”. When you use the “me” pronoun, you are speaking directly to your highest self.

I see me.

I hear me.

I love me.

I trust me.

After you’ve done that, you’ve completed the meditation.

Putting It Into Practice

Now that you’ve practiced this meditation for the first time, allow yourself to feel the loving energy you have just created. This will actually grow with each time you practice. With each repetition, the inner child becomes more whole and the highest self becomes more present in your daily life. I invite you to make this a daily practice by listening to the full version of the guided meditation each day, at the same relative time (if possible). Upon waking, before you go to bed, or even on a lunch break, for example. 

Committing to this practice can and will pay off in ways beyond what you can even imagine. As you heal the inner child and ascend to the highest self, your ways of thinking and behaving will shift, and you will become more grounded, more confident, and happier. This does not happen overnight—it takes practice and intention. With that said, it begins with the very first time you practice. I hope you felt something from this exercise, and I look forward to practicing with you more on Insight Timer.

Much Love,
Noel Neu