Over the last decade or two, the term “higher self” has become more and more popular. I have been working on a definition of what the higher self is for close to 40 years now, and I would like to share with you what I believe it is and a simple technique to access it.

I think of it as an electromagnetic field that is part of all your bodies. It could be called your soul body. By “all your bodies,” I mean your physical, emotional, and mental bodies, along with your soul body. These bodies each work independently of each other and yet, as part of your whole being, have an affect on each other. Various cultural influences may have taught us that one of these bodies is more important than the other, but in fact, they are all important. For instance, if your mother was a professor, she might have taught you that the mind, or the mental body, was most important…more important than your emotions or your physical activities. If you came from a family of athletes, it is possible you might have been taught to “stuff” your emotions and develop your physical body. And if your family was particularly passionate, your mental and physical abilities might have been ignored. There are a variety of religions that teach that the spiritual body or soul body is the only one that matters, and that the others, the more material ones, are to be “overcome” by spiritual practices. None of these approaches is to be judged as right or wrong…they just are what they are.

Think of the three bodies as a car and your higher self or soul body as a GPS guidance system that adjusts to conditions around you as your drive (your day) unfolds. It is sending and receiving sort of radio signals at all times, whether you are aware of it or not. The quality of those signals depends on how well integrated it is with your other bodies. When in alignment and when acknowledged, the higher self can connect you to all sorts of higher forms of knowledge that are outside your particular experience but that are always available to you. Those thoughts might be experienced as “intuition.” I believe it can be your direct connection to divine energies that are available to you. When you are saved from some kind of disaster by being in the right place at the right time, you might call that divine intervention, but I would call it being connected to your higher self and listening to it…even without your conscious awareness. Divine energies cannot interfere with your free will, so only by listing to your “divine radio station” can there be divine intervention.

Getting back to the other bodies, let me try to explain them and how to tune into each one, making this grand alignment possible for you. First let us start with the easiest one to identify, the physical body. That means the bones and muscles and blood running through our veins. If we are in physical pain, we know it can really affect our temperament. Conversely, if we have just had a great work-out and our body is fully “awake,” that state of physical being can put us in a great mood, open and ready to face any challenges and to appreciate any good things that might come our way. The process to isolate and experience the physical body is a simple one. Just sit or stand in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed and ask your physical body how it feels at the moment. Does it want to move? Is it tense? Is it relaxed and flexible? Try to identify just your physical self, separate from any emotions you might attach to how you feel physically. It is how you feel physically, not emotionally. Ask how the physical body feels and what it needs… then just listen for a moment.

Next let us tackle trying to feel our emotional body as separate from our physical body. Sit or stand quietly a minute to identify the state of your emotional body. It may be frightened or happy, unhappy or joyful…or it may feel likely a combination of many feelings. I feel it is wise to “tune in” and ask several times during the day because the emotional body can shift very quickly, more quickly than the other bodies. You may learn some interesting things about yourself and your life. For instance, if you have a weekly office meeting, what is your emotional state right before you go into the meeting? Are you excited and eager to share ideas or progress on a project, or are you uncomfortable as if you are about to go into battle?

The third body is the mental, and that is a bit hard for most of us to separate from the emotional. By mental, I mean how your brain and your whole nervous system is working at the moment. Many years ago I learned about the biorhythm system, as it was the “system de jour.” You can research it on Wikipedia and decide for yourself if it is valid, but by using that system and noting when my “mental cycle” was above or below par, I learned to observe that there was quite a bit of variance in my ability to think. Some days I was “sharper” than others and some days I was just plain dull. Some days I had many brilliant ideas in a row and could problem solve at breakneck speed, while other days I made mistakes with the most simple mathematical calculations. The process to identify the condition of your mental body is the same as the others. Sit or stand quietly where you won’t be disturbed, ask to experience the state of your mental body at this point in time and then ask what it needs.

The final step in this process, after you have asked each body how it is functioning and what it needs today, is to ask to bring the bodies into focus with each other and then invite in the higher self, the soul body, to integrate with them all. I usually feel a deep sense of relaxation with this final step, and I just enjoy it for a moment.

This technique allows you to use all your senses to move through the day with the most accurate picture of what is going on around you. Think of it as like when you go to the eye doctor and he flips various lenses in front of your eye to get the sharpest image. This works the same way. If all your “bodies” have been acknowledged as part of the whole team, each part being as important as the others, and you have asked them to cooperate with each other, and you have asked for your higher self to flow into the other bodies, you’ve got it! It may take some time in the beginning, but eventually, you can just remember this process and it can happen in just a few seconds, in any environment. It is a simple task that promises great rewards!