A Spiritual Level of Conversation: Between Higher Selves

Andrea Lee Avari, Ph.D.


Most of us have never had any lessons to assist us in sharing with another person how we feel about something in a respectful way and how to ask for what we need. And most of us are just skating by on the time-tested skills of our parents and their parents who most likely had less opportunity for skill-building than we have had in our lives. We may have passed algebra (or not) but most educational organizations never taught us the art of effective communication. We try to get by on whatever communication skills we have picked up along the way.

Even if we have had exposure to proper training in communication skills, how many of us become blank slates of knee-jerk reaction when conflict comes into our lives?

Effective communication skills point us toward:
· Observing as a witness (not a judge) as to what we heard the other person say or what we saw them do
· Stating how we feel when we observe the behavior (a feeling word not a dissertation)
· Asking specifically for what we need without being attached to the outcome.

We know from practice, practice and more practice that this method does connect disparate points of view in many circumstances…..if we remember to respond from a sense of centering rather than to react. But then real life steps in and sometimes we fall down. It may be a challenge for all concerned but the personal growth in learning to take responsibility for one’s observation, feelings, and needs is well worth the work.

Are there other tools that would help us to connect with the energy of the other person in times of conflict? If we are to visualize the other person’s Higher Self or essence of the Soul during the exchange, we can come into a special connection with the true sense of that person. And in doing so, we join more deeply with our own Higher Self.

In conversation we can see each personality working the needs of the ego and masking the luminescence of the inner Self. But if we look with a softer eye we can see the protection that surrounds each heart in hopes of shielding it from being wounded. With this new awareness we honor the truth of one another with compassion. At our essence we are all the same; we are costumed in different wrappings but we all want the same thing: love.

What can we do? We can focus our awareness on our own light, breathing it in and out, expanding our inner beauty to radiate all around us. We strengthen our connection with our own Higher Self by focusing our attention on that which is our essence.

We can visualize the other person’s Higher Self as a similar beautiful light, a blossoming flower, a vibrant color, or an energetic feeling of knowing. We ask our Higher Self to assist us in speaking words that enhance connection with the other person. (Although intuitively we know that there is no other one. We are speaking to ourselves.)

We ask our Higher Self to speak to the other’s Higher Self in acknowledgement of our true intention, that of compassion and understanding between us. Our intention focuses on working together for the highest good of us all. We visualize ourselves emanating a beautiful energy of light and ask our Higher Self to facilitate sending this light and the high vibration of love to the other’s Higher Self.

We do so without attachment; if the other chooses to accept our transmission of energy and meet us in the middle ground so much the better for both. If not, we have taken responsibility for our intention to be in connection with the truth of who we are. We continue to shine our radiating light and move on.

In times of conflict and anxiety coupled with this increasing rate of vibration in our world, it helps to remember that there are ways of communicating with people that are nonverbal and telepathic. In times of email, twittering, and blogs we can get lost in our pursuit of the art of true, direct communication: soul to soul.

The next time you find yourself in a conflicted conversation, consider asking your Higher Self to assist you in connecting with the other person on an energetic level. The results may surprise you.

Copyright 2008. Andrea Avari, Ph.D. is an intuitive spiritual coach working with clients to balance and integrate wellness, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. She is the author of “A Hit of Heaven: a soul’s journey through illusion.” Her next book, “Letters from a Lunatic in Love: creating soulful relationships” will be available at the end of the year. Her website is andreaavari.com. Email address is andrea@andreaavari.com.

Look in the Mirror: Your Teacher Awaits You

It is time to stop looking for others to guide us to inner peace. It is time to look in the mirror and see our teacher. It is us; it has always been us.

We have been looking for signposts to guide our way and somehow we tend to get caught up in another’s story and their interpretations. The bookcases full of books we all have may have been helpful and uplifting in some cases but after awhile we realize in different ways and in different words, they all say the same thing: inner peace is within us.

There are self-proclaimed gurus and spiritual teachers everywhere and a new product to buy to help us find enlightenment at every turn. They all hold the hope that we can make it; we can get where “they” are. There is no ‘where’. We are the ones we are seeking.

It sounds so simple as we put down the books and discuss it with our friends, but then life happens and we are challenged to respond in non-attachment and allowance rather than falling back into the same old thinking and reacting patterns of lower vibrations. How do we actually create and sustain the process within ourselves?

Look in the mirror. There is the person who knows, who contains the essence of inner knowing and always has. This person knows by an inner resonance. There is a felt sense of knowing what is true in the heart and the body. When this person is quiet and calm, the inner voice can be heard whispering the way. This person is each one of us.

A life has been lived by each of us and continues to evolve from fear to love if we make a higher vibrational choice in every moment. Our entire life is a meditation. Each one of our lives is continually pointing to that which yearns to be gathered into love. Sometimes we are embarrassed by choices we have made in our lives but these points of shame are the very points of healing for us, if we are willing to hold them in the transforming light of acceptance.

Sometimes we may feel victimized by relationships or events in our lives. In order to be a victim there must be a persecutor for us to blame for our troubles. And then we hope for a rescuer to ease our pain. That ‘saving grace’ may come in the soothing form of another person, approval, chocolate, sex, TV, drinking, something to smoke, shopping, anything that suppresses the painful feelings for a while.

If we can see the distressing event as a gift for our growth, a doorway of opportunity to learn how to love ourselves more deeply, then we create our own process of healing. We can learn to observe the distress within a state of mindfulness, bringing our full attention to it. We learn to hold the circumstance with compassionate awareness as it dissolves. By allowing the highest vibration of compassion, we transmute the fearful thoughts into light. We take responsibility for our lives rather than turning our attention outward to temporary external solutions.

The life that has been living in fear keeps knocking on the door of healing which is our heart. Our stories contain every bit of wisdom we need. And then we realize that we are not our stories. We remember that the earth is a classroom for our learning. Our own particular stories were created by our souls to help us transform the places of fear into places of awareness and acceptance. And in that way our human opaqueness becomes translucent and luminous and the world becomes brighter because of each individual process of courage to open to what is.

It is our job to hold those points of blocked light in an embrace of compassionate awareness. We know those areas of resistance better than anyone else. The old proverb says when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. So often we thought it meant someone else was coming to help us find the way. We are the way.

The signposts on our path are the circumstances and relationships in our life. We become our own best friend who will never leave us as we continue to act out of that place of self-compassion. We are not our life stories. Our lives are not something that happens to us or is done to us. Our lives are our most profoundly creative meditation.

Copyright 2008