Choosing Your Higher Self: Returning to the Wise, Steady Truth Within
There is a version of you that is spacious, grounded, compassionate, deeply intuitive, and wholly unapologetic about being who you are. A version of you that remembers why you’re here. That trusts your timing. That doesn’t rush, prove, or perform. A version of you that knows when to soften and when to rise. A version of you that meets life with presence rather than reaction, with depth rather than defence, with love rather than fear.
This version of you already exists.
We often call this part of ourselves the Higher Self — not because it is better than the rest of us, but because it sees from a wider view. It is the part of you that is rooted in your inner wholeness, not your wound. It knows your path not because it has been intellectually calculated, but because it is remembered.
Choosing your Higher Self is not about transcending being human. It’s about learning to meet your human experience with gentleness and awareness. It is not about being perfect, calm all the time, or living in some enlightened state above struggle. It’s about slowing down enough to actually hear yourself. It’s about choosing alignment instead of autopilot. It’s about coming home to the truth of who you are beneath conditioning, defence, and survival instinct.
To choose your Higher Self is to choose the version of yourself that leads with love — especially when fear is louder.
And this is a practice.
Ego and Higher Self: Not Opposites, but Companions
Our ego is not the enemy. The ego is the wise and protective part of us that learned how to navigate the world based on what we experienced — how to stay safe, how to be loved, how to avoid danger, rejection, or shame. The ego learned from our past. It tries to save us from reliving old pain.
But the ego is limited. It can only reference what has already happened. It cannot imagine possibility, expansion, or the new.
Your Higher Self, on the other hand, is not shaped by the past. It belongs to your future — or more accurately, to your deep inner knowing that exists outside of time. Your Higher Self knows what you are becoming. It trusts where you are going. It senses your soul path the way roots sense water beneath soil — even when the surface appears dry.
Learning to choose your Higher Self means:
Recognising when you’re reacting from an old wound
Pausing long enough to breathe before you speak or move
Asking what the truest, kindest, and most expansive version of you would choose here
It’s the gentle shift from survival to sovereignty.
Not control — but clarity.
Not self-sacrifice — but self-honouring.
Not pushing — but aligning.
How You Can Tell When You’re Leading With Ego
Leading with ego often feels like:
Tightness in the chest or belly
A rush to explain, defend, justify, or convince
Feeling threatened, even if no one is attacking you
Needing clarity immediately
A pull to react quickly
Seeking validation or reassurance outside of yourself
Feeling like you must “fix it now”
The ego’s voice is urgent, fast, panicked, reactive.
It says, “We need to solve this. We need to be right. We need to be safe.”
It speaks in survival language.
How You Can Tell When You’re Leading With the Higher Self
The Higher Self feels like:
A breath that arrives on its own
A sense of steadiness, even if emotion is present
Feeling spacious inside your body
Trusting that clarity will come in its own time
Saying less and listening more
Moving slowly and intentionally
Knowing your worth without seeking proof
Responding after you feel
The Higher Self’s voice is subtle, quiet, and sure.
Not loud — but deeply resonant.
It speaks in truth.
But the Higher Self Is Not Always Easy to Choose
Quite often, choosing your Higher Self means choosing the more uncomfortable path in the short-term — the path that requires patience, presence, and sometimes grief. It means letting moments breathe rather than rushing to make them neat or resolved. It means acknowledging your tenderness instead of armouring it. It means expanding instead of contracting.
Expansion can be uncomfortable. Growth often is.
The ego says:
“Faster. Prove. Protect. Push.”
The Higher Self says:
“Pause. Breathe. Listen. Trust.”
Choosing your Higher Self is choosing the long path — the meaningful one. The rooted one. The soul-aligned one.
And it gets easier every time you do it.
The Practice of Choosing Your Higher Self
The Higher Self is not something you “achieve.”
It is a relationship.
And like any relationship, it deepens through:
Attention
Listening
Devotion
Time
Every time you pause before reacting, you strengthen the connection.
Every time you honour your intuition over external pressure, you strengthen it.
Every time you choose truth over habit, you strengthen it.
Choosing your Higher Self happens in the smallest moments:
When you take time to ground yourself before replying to a message.
When you speak your needs even if your voice trembles.
When you rest instead of pushing through another task.
When you love yourself through a difficult feeling instead of numbing it.
When you let yourself grow at your own pace.
These moments matter. They accumulate. They reshape your life.
A Gentle Self Check-In Ritual
This ritual helps you reconnect with your Higher Self, especially in moments of uncertainty, overwhelm, or transition.
You will need:
A quiet space
Your breath
A moment to yourself (even two minutes is enough)
Step 1 — Pause
Wherever you are, stop for a moment.
Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly.
Step 2 — Breathe
Inhale slowly through the nose for a count of four.
Hold softly for a count of two.
Exhale through the mouth for six.
Repeat three times.
Step 3 — Feel
Ask yourself:
“What is happening inside my body right now?”
Not the story — the sensation.
Tightness?
Heat?
Pressure?
Softness?
Tingling?
Ache?
Let yourself feel without needing to change it.
Step 4 — Ask
Gently ask:
“What would my Higher Self choose here?”
Trust the first answer that arrives — the quiet one.
The one that feels like exhale.
Step 5 — Commit
Take one small action aligned with that answer.
Tiny is enough. Micro shifts are powerful.
Journal Prompts for Meeting and Choosing Your Higher Self
Take your time. Let your answers unfold slowly, like morning light.
Who is my Higher Self? Describe them gently. How do they carry themselves, speak, move, and make decisions?
What does it feel like in my body when I am aligned with my Higher Self? How do I know I am in that space?
What patterns or fears tend to pull me out of alignment and into reactivity? What do they need from me when they arise?
Where in my life am I currently choosing urgency over truth? What would happen if I slowed down?
What would change in my life if I allowed myself to trust my inner timing completely?
What is one small, loving choice I can make today that aligns me more closely with who I am becoming?
If you’d like more meditations, journal prompts and exercises like this to help you reconnect with and understand your higher self and guide you back to centre my SoulWork Guide was created just for that purpose—
SoulWork is more than a guide—it’s a companion for those craving meaning, truth, and a reawakening of their inner world. Through reflective prompts, emotional exploration, and holistic insights, this beautifully crafted eBook helps you:
Understand your emotional patterns and core needs
Cultivate greater self-compassion and emotional intelligence
Heal outdated narratives and reconnect with your authentic self
Awaken purpose from within, not from the noise outside
Whether you’re at a crossroads or simply yearning to go deeper, SoulWork holds space for your unfolding.
Together with its companion guide Astrological Year of You these two workbooks are an accompaniment to your seasonal living and planning, these workbooks allow you to tend to and nourish your inner world.
Find out more and get the workbooks below:
Choosing your Higher Self is not a grand transformation. It is not a destination you arrive at fully formed. It is a slow, gentle remembering — a re-rooting — a returning to the wisdom that has always lived inside you.
You don’t have to earn it.
You don’t have to perfect it.
You don’t have to prove your worthiness of it.
You simply learn to listen.
To soften.
To breathe.
To choose again.
You are already the person you are becoming.
The Higher Self is not distant — she is waiting in the quiet, in the pause, in the breath that comes after you stop trying to control everything.
She is not above you.
She is within you.
Always.
xo Emily
