Who Is Doing the Listening?
Before we can learn to hear the quieter voice of the Higher Self, there is one useful question to ask: who is doing the listening?
Think about lying awake at two in the morning, going over a conversation from earlier in the day. You think about what you should have said, worry about tomorrow, and then remember something you did years ago.
Our minds can move from one thought to another without us deliberately choosing any of them. Because this stream of thinking is so familiar, we can easily assume it is who we are.
But if you can hear those thoughts, notice them, and even question them, there is also a part of you that is listening.
You might call it awareness, the observer, or simply the part of you that notices what your mind is doing. The name matters less than the distinction.
Once we recognise that we can observe our thoughts, we no longer have to believe or follow every one of them. We can pause, notice what is happening, and decide whether a thought is useful, true, or worth acting on.
That is why the question, who is doing the listening? matters. It creates a little space between us and our thinking, and that space gives us choice.
How We Become Attached to Our Beliefs and Identities
Notice how we describe ourselves. I’m an accountant. I’m a worrier. I’m not a confident person. We can become so attached to these identities and beliefs that when someone challenges them, it can feel like a personal attack.
In The Five Levels of Attachment, don Miguel Ruiz Jr explores how we identify with our beliefs and ideas. We can hold them lightly, changing them when they no longer serve us, or become so attached that questioning them feels like questioning who we are.
There is nothing wrong with identifying with something or someone. The problem arises when we mistake the identity for who we really are.
I discovered this when I left a job I had held for twenty years. I expected to feel free, but instead I felt I had lost a huge part of myself. Who was I without that job and the role I had identified with for so long? It took me a while to realise that although the role was gone, I was still there. I could observe the loss of that identity without losing who I was beneath it.
Thoughts, Beliefs and Identities Can All Change
You’ve already changed your mind about important things: people you misjudged, opinions you once defended fiercely and beliefs about yourself that you’ve quietly outgrown. And you survived every one of those changes.
Even the brain itself changes in response to experience and repetition, as we saw in the introduction to this series. Your thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions about yourself can change.
So if all of that can change, what part of you stays the same?
Noticing That We Can Watch Our Thoughts
Sit still for a few seconds and wait for a thought. Perhaps: I need to answer that email. Wait again. Another arrives. Now notice what just happened. You observed the thought appear.
Psychology has its own language for this capacity. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, for example, includes the concept of the observing self: the perspective from which we can notice thoughts and feelings without being entirely defined by them.
In this series, I see this ability as the first step towards connecting with the Higher Self. Once we can observe a thought, we don’t have to believe it automatically.
From Experiencer to Observer to Decision Maker
Being able to observe a thought is a real step forward. It gives us time to decide how to respond to the thought, and that is where change begins.
A Course in Miracles, one of the most important teachings in my own journey, helped me understand this progression. When we are completely identified with our thinking, life seems to happen to us. We react, feel and often see no alternative.
Then we begin to observe. We notice the thought and recognise the pattern. Eventually, we become what Ken Wapnick, interpreting the Course, calls the decision-maker: the part of us that, having seen the pattern, can decide whether to continue with it or choose again.
Choosing How to Respond
Once observing becomes familiar, we notice which of our beliefs, reactions and habits are working for us. We pause before speaking, question rather than assume, and choose rather than react automatically in our habitual way. Our circumstances don’t have to change for us to respond differently.
I once worked with a senior executive who was thoughtful, effective and an excellent leader. She told me she felt different from her peers because she didn’t hold strong opinions about people or situations.
We live in a world where knowing your own mind is seen as a strength. Yet one of her greatest strengths was her ability to approach each situation without being swayed by fixed opinions or assumptions. She could see what was actually happening rather than what she expected, which gave her the freedom to decide how best to respond.
“Your thoughts can change, your beliefs can change, and your assumptions about yourself can change.”
Try This: Who Is Doing the Observing?
For one minute today, watch your thoughts. Don’t stop them. Don’t analyse them. Don’t judge yourself for having them. Just notice each one arrive and pass.
Then ask: If I can observe my thoughts, who is the observer?
Don’t rush to answer. The question itself is enough.
So now we have looked at our ability to switch from being the experiencer to the observer, to the one who chooses again. What we look at next is how to recognise our Higher Self, our intuition.
Articles in The Higher Self
Connecting to Your Higher Self: Discovering the Wisest Part of Who You Are
- The Quiet Voice You Keep Talking Over
- You Are More Than Your Busy Mind
- When Intuition Speaks: How to Recognise Your Higher Self
- How To Quiet Your Mind So Your Higher Self Can Be Heard
- Living a Guided Life
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