I’m reading lotsa books right now, as ever – half out of one and half in the other. I’m also reading a lot of stuff about the Higher Self.
The Higher Self is meant to be the Ultimate You really – the part of you hiding out under all the personality and ego and whatnot that is totally, always connected to God, because that’s what it’s made of. My hero Franchesca de Grandis calls it the GodSelf in some of her writings, which totally makes sense.
I really don’t like the name Higher Self. It makes me think of hierarchy, it makes me think of trying to escape life and your body (because it’s higher, right, it sounds like it’s floating above you), it makes me think of snootiness and shoulds.
I prefer the name Deep Self. I think it makes more sense.
It’s the foundation of our selves – it’s always there. All our thoughts, fears and happenings are clouds chasing around on top of it, distorting it, keeping it from view, but it’s always there, just beneath, at the core of us. It’s our base of being. To get into our deep selves, all we have to do is surrender and sink back into it – a lot easier than stretching and reaching for a higher self, no?
Deep is timeless, still, ancient, wise, without judgement, mysterious, within. (And it makes me think of the ocean – no wonder I like it.) Higher is better-than, judgey, clouds and regular-Old-Man-god nonsense, striving and outside of ourselves.
I see the world as having an undercurrent of the divine, of wonder, of magic, just below the surface of what we can see and are used to. I think it makes sense that we’d work that way too.