Your spiritual, energetic, Self resides in your body, the temple of your soul. I have often thought that the stories of jinns/genies in bottles were patterned on the sense of our expanded spiritual self pouring itself into the container of our relatively smaller bodies. The reason we talk of higher selves is that not all of who we are fits in that temple or container.
How much of our Self is at home also varies a good deal over time. There are those magical peak times when we are intensely aware of our bodies, but also of nature around us, a partner making dancing or making love, a child or pet we are playing with. Present and alive, we are both finite and infinite. On the other end of the scale are concussions, anesthesia’s, severe inebriation, traumatic experiences of various sorts, or even day dreams and sleep.
Several years ago in the midst of a long period of grieving that started with specifics and opened to anything and everything, I came face to face with a young aspect of myself, strongly associated with my physical and emotional self, who had felt abandoned at times by my spiritual Self. He was angry and mistrustful due to events when, in apparent danger, my higher Self had “checked out”. When I was put under to have my tonsils removed, age five, I “knew” they were trying to kill me, having been gassed before at three months for a hernia.
How many of us have residual anxiety from times when our Spirit left under fire. As mammals we have biological mechanisms that pop us out of our body when it looks like we might die. Out of body experiences during accidents, operations, and other threatening events, are apparently an evolved survival mechanism. However this explanation is of little solace to the childlike nature of your body/emotional self, which will hold fear and resentment associated with your spiritual Self.
Consider, what happens when you as an adult, on your spiritual path, start doing work to strengthen your conscious relationship with this same higher Self. Is your adult self going to jump ship as well? A wild ruckus and self sabotage may ensue.
In our spiritual work we need to include and integrate our small self/inner child. In working with this myself and with others, it seems important to build a healthy relationship between our body oriented emotional self, and our higher Self. Our higher Self can help support, nurture and heal our emotional self, it can guide, teach and be a major resource in all our growth work. Where there is fear and mistrust though, you may need to lend a hand, or two.
The Chinese speak of Man standing between Heaven and Earth, balancing those energies to create your life. Consider your adult self as a bridge, or mediator between your emotional inner child and your expanded essential Self. Reaching up to the stars, keep one hand for your small self, inviting him to come along. It is only by including all your aspects that you truly become whole, that your Spirit can lodge peacefully in your body temple.
There is wisdom in all our aspects, not just the exalted, expanded ones. You might even set some time aside to play with your emotional self, to swim or dance, or smell the flowers, giving her space to lead. I’ll bet you wind up having fun and learning some interesting things too.
(© 6/2013)
