When I was a child and life felt overwhelming, I would sometimes experience what I can only describe as a loving presence. At other times, when I was questioning life, answers seemed to come that were loving, reassuring and wiser than my usual thinking.
I didn’t know what it was. For a while I thought it was God; later, I came to see it as a loving and wiser part of myself. I knew I could reach for its comfort, but it never occurred to me that I could ask it to help me see a particular problem differently.
Years later, during a time when I felt completely blocked, I came across A Course in Miracles. One idea changed everything: I could take the situation I was struggling with and simply become willing to see it another way.
When I did, the perspective felt remarkably familiar. There was no blame, fear or judgement, and it didn’t simply tell me what I wanted to hear. It seemed to come from the same loving place I had known since childhood.
Over time, I came to understand this through the idea of two thought systems. One begins with separation and fear. The other begins with connection and love, with the understanding that our fundamental worth is never at stake. That second way of thinking is what I call the Higher Self thought system.
What Is the Higher Self Thought System?
The ego thought system begins with separation. It assumes we are separate from one another, that there may not be enough to go around and that we need to protect ourselves. Once we start from there, fear, comparison, judgement and defensiveness can seem perfectly reasonable. I explored this more fully in the companion article to this one.
The Higher Self thought system starts somewhere quite different. It begins with the understanding that we are connected and that nothing anybody does can change our fundamental worth. This is the idea behind unity consciousness, and it does more than comfort us. It changes how we interpret what happens.
The process itself is much the same. Something happens, and we make it mean something. But what we make it mean depends upon the beliefs we are looking through.
If I believe I am separate, vulnerable or somehow lacking, I will interpret what happens from there. If I begin from the understanding that my worth is intact and that other people have their own fears, beliefs and struggles, the same event can look entirely different.
That is why recognising the two thought systems matters. We are always interpreting what happens. Once we realise there is more than one way of seeing it, we have a choice about which one we use.
The Characteristics of Higher Self Thinking
These are not rules about how the Higher Self should sound. They are the characteristics I have come to recognise through my own experience of asking to see things differently, and they help me notice when my thinking has shifted.
It Doesn’t Make Everything About You
The ego can turn almost anything into a verdict about us. Someone criticises, overlooks or disappoints us, and suddenly it means something about our worth.
Higher Self thinking doesn’t give me a kinder verdict. It doesn’t see my worth as being under discussion at all. Instead of what does this say about me, it asks something closer to what is actually happening here, and what is needed now.
It Doesn’t Need Anybody to Be Wrong
Higher Self thinking doesn’t seem interested in deciding who is right and who is wrong. That doesn’t mean ignoring harmful behaviour or losing our judgement.
We can recognise that something isn’t working, set a boundary, say no or leave without needing to make anybody bad. For me, that difference between discernment and condemnation is one of its clearest characteristics.
It Isn’t Building a Case
The ego loves evidence. Once it has decided what something means, it starts remembering everything that proves it.
Higher Self thinking doesn’t seem to need a case. It stays open to information that might change the picture. When I find myself gathering evidence, replaying previous offences or rehearsing my argument, it is usually a good indication of which thought system I am using.
It Doesn’t Fill in the Blanks
When we don’t understand somebody’s behaviour, the ego is quick to supply a motive. Higher Self thinking seems much more comfortable with I don’t know why they did that.
That doesn’t stop us responding to what actually happened or setting boundaries where necessary. It means we don’t need to invent the missing parts of the story before deciding what to do.
It Remembers There Is Another Person
Ego thinking can make everything about our experience: what they did to us, what it means and how it made us feel. Higher Self thinking widens the picture.
The other person has their own history, fears, pressures and beliefs, much of which may have nothing to do with us. We don’t have to excuse their behaviour to remember that their internal world exists too.
It Usually Speaks Second
My automatic thinking is quick. It reacts, judges and explains almost immediately. When I stop and genuinely ask whether there might be another way of seeing something, the answer is usually quieter.
It doesn’t seem to argue or keep repeating itself if I ignore it. That is why I have learned not to assume the strongest thought is the wisest one. I explore this further in When Intuition Speaks.
It Takes the Drama Out
This may be the disappointing one for some people, and it is one of the reasons I think I resisted this wiser part of me. Higher Self thinking can be remarkably unimpressive. You’re tired. Don’t answer today. This probably won’t matter in a year. Sometimes I have asked for another way of seeing something and almost wanted to send the answer back.
The ego usually has a much better story, complete with motives, injustices and somebody to blame. More of us are attached to that story than we would care to admit, because it makes an ordinary week feel significant and gives us a part to play in it. The Higher Self takes most of that away. What feels rather flat at first can eventually feel much more like peace.
It Doesn’t Require You to Feel Loving
Higher Self thinking is not a mood. I don’t have to feel peaceful, forgiving or loving before I can ask to see something differently.
In my experience, the change in perspective often comes first, and the feeling follows later. Sometimes all I can manage is willingness. I don’t see this differently yet, but I’m willing to consider that I could. That is enough.
It Doesn’t Excuse Anything
Seeing something differently doesn’t mean pretending everything people do is acceptable. We can say no, leave, set boundaries and recognise harmful behaviour for what it is.
This took me years to understand. The Higher Self was never asking me to accept being treated poorly. It was asking me not to use somebody else’s behaviour to reach a conclusion about myself that wasn’t true.
What Gets in the Way
If this way of thinking is always available, why don’t we choose it more often? Ken Wapnick, one of the major teachers of A Course in Miracles, wrote extensively about our resistance to choosing differently. At the heart of his teaching is our attachment to the separate self we have created. From that come guilt, fear and judgement, along with resistance to anything that seems to threaten the identity we have built.
I recognise all of those, and I also see them showing up in much more ordinary ways. We become invested in our version of events. We have built our case and perhaps had other people agree with us. We don’t want to let somebody off, or we aren’t ready to see things differently. And sometimes there is no great barrier at all. It is just habit, the familiar way we have learned to think.
You Don’t Have to Choose It
This took me a long time to understand. We are allowed not to choose the Higher Self. Nobody is keeping score, and there is no failure involved. We can stay angry, frightened or convinced of our position for as long as we need to. The other way of seeing remains available whenever we are ready for it.
That permission applies backwards too. I can look at things I did years ago and know I would respond very differently now, without condemning the person I was then. I acted from what I understood at the time. If learning about the Higher Self leaves us with a long list of things to feel ashamed of, we have found another way to judge ourselves.
Choice Becomes Practice
Knowing there is another way of seeing something doesn’t mean we will immediately be able to see it that way. Some perceptions shift quickly. Others are held in place by beliefs we have spent decades reinforcing.
That is why repetition matters, and I explore it more fully in From Observing to Choosing. A Course in Miracles uses 365 daily lessons to practise choosing differently, and it isn’t the only way to do it. What matters is making the choice often enough that it becomes easier to reach.
That is the difference between understanding the two thought systems and gradually learning to live from one of them.
Try This: Write It Again Without Making It About You
Take something that is bothering you and write down what happened, including everything that feels unfair.
Then write it again with one rule: nothing that happened is allowed to mean anything about your worth. You don’t have to make the other person right, excuse what happened or find a kinder explanation. Take yourself out of the judgement.
Now look at what is left to deal with. There usually is something, but it is often smaller and more practical than the original story suggested. That is the part you can do something about.
And if you don’t want to do this today, don’t. The choice will still be there tomorrow.
Articles in Two Thought Systems
Two Thought Systems – Choosing Between the Ego and Your Higher Self
- The Thought System That Has Been Running Your Life
- Characteristics of Higher Self Thinking