Recently, one of my clients challenged me on a direction I gave her to go inward and ask herself the question I tell everyone they need to ask in order to find their true path, which is: “what do I really want.” My client argued that any answers that bubble up would come from the ego and therefore would be self-serving and not for the greater good. She felt frustrated because she wanted to know what she should do, not what her ego wanted her to do, and felt strongly that acting on one's wants and desires is an act of selfishness. What gold, I thought, and created an episode to unpack this. In this episode, I give you some tips to help you decipher between your “egoic” mind and your higher self and I explain how exploring what you really want and why it matters will ultimately lead you to act for the greatest good of all. Let’s dive in!

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If you want to learn more about what I teach around finding clarity and creating a life you love full of purpose, passion, and joy, I encourage you to join our community at Joyful Inspired Living. Here’s the link: http://www.joyfuljourney.ca/

About your host:

I’m your host, Anita Adams, an award-winning leader and the founder of Joyful Inspired Living, an organization dedicated to teaching people how to access their highest most authentic selves so they can find clarity and create a life of purpose, passion, and joy. In addition to hosting the Joyful Journey Podcast, I offer retreats, both live and online, and private coaching programs to further guide my clients on their journey to their highest selves.

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Welcome to the joyful journey podcast. If you're looking for more clarity in your life, clarity of purpose, or how to activate that purpose, and you are someone who wants to operate from your highest self to be a force for good, you know this world craves, then this is the show for you. I'm Anita Adams, your host and guide to finding clarity and creating a life you love. Let's tap into our inner wisdom, access our highest self, and unleash joy. As we do this, we raise our vibration and heightened the collective consciousness. And that, my friend, is the joyful journey. Let's dive in.

Hey, joyful journey or thanks for joining me, I'm Anita Adams, your host and today I want to talk about how to decipher between your egoic voice and your higher self, or what I often call the voice of inner wisdom or soul voice. Recently, one of my clients challenged me on a direction I gave her to go inward and ask yourself the question I tell everyone they need to ask in order to find their true path, which is what do I really want. My client argued that any answers that bubbled up would come from the ego and therefore would be self serving and not for the greater good. She felt frustrated because she wanted to know what she should do, not what her ego wants her to do, and felt strongly that acting from one's wants and desires is an act of selfishness. Oh, there is so much gold here and baby, you have some of the same concerns. So I thought let's create an episode around this and unpack this a bit. All right. First, I want you to understand that when you turn inward and start asking yourself, what do I really want. Part of the turning inward process is feeling the answers and how they resonate in your body. Although these feelings can be confusing, they're also very telling. So pay attention, the voice of your ego will often come from a place of fear, and it will give you direction that is mostly about protecting you from getting hurt, or getting uncomfortable. Of course, this is not a bad thing. But it may also prevent you from stepping into the best version of who you really are, or cause you to make choices that don't truly serve your greatest interest. The name of the game for our egoic self is to keep us safe and comfortable. Your higher self on the other hand will always come from a place of love, and will only speak to you of the grandest version of who you really are, and the greatest vision of your life. This too can spark some fear because the vision presented will be big, bold and possibly scary. What is yours to do is to recognize the difference between the voice that comes from a place of fear, and the one that speaks from love, but presents such a grand vision of who you are that it evokes fear that fear is typically fear of not being enough, smart enough, capable enough or talented enough, whatever enough, and it triggers the ego to steer you away from the higher self direction. Remember, the ego wants to keep you safe and securely planted in your comfort zone. I recognize it's difficult to distinguish between these two types of fear. Fear is fear after all. It's a skill you can learn though. And it starts by asking yourself probing questions that will guide you to understanding yourself better. This is what I do with my clients, guiding them to ask themselves the questions that will reveal a deeper understanding of who they are and what they really want. When you have this understanding, not only is it easier to distinguish between the ego and your higher self, it's also much easier to act on the guidance that comes from your higher self. The way you talk to yourself and the language you use can also help you to decipher between direction given by the ego and direction from your higher self. Anything attached to I should is usually the ego speaking, I should is a judgment statement. And if you pull back the layers and ask why should you do something you'll likely discover the answer is fear based. Whenever you hear the word should crop up in your inner dialog question it I love this word only because it gives us such a clear indication that we need to poke around internally a bit more to better understand what's going on.

For us, so pay attention to the language you are using. Of course, I'm not talking about the little day to day things that we tell ourselves, we should do like, I should do the laundry. Yeah, no, I should feed the kids. All right, I'm on it, I should go to the gym. I've been telling myself that when for a while, I'm talking about when you are making those life path decisions and exploring next steps to take when the shoulds and should not start cropping up here, it's time to take a closer look, and get clear about the feelings that are evoking the judgment.

All right.

Let's move on. When you learn to decipher between ego, and inner wisdom, and you choose to listen to your higher self, you are tuning into a higher consciousness. Your higher self is connected to the fabric of the universe, you could say the voice of your higher self is God's amplifier. It's how we hear the voice of God or source or the messages from the universe. It's how we connect and tune into the greater good. So when you ask yourself, what do I really want and tune into that higher self that soul voice, you will be directed to act in your highest good and therefore the highest good for all. Understand this your highest self is part of the fabric of the universe, which is so tightly interwoven with the highest good for all. So you can only be acting for the highest good for all when you act from your highest self. This is a universal truth. Now let's tie that back into your wants and desires. Stick with me here. You can only act for the highest good of all, when you learn to tap into your inner wisdom and allow yourself to be guided by your highest self, which is discovered by uncovering and understanding your wants and desires. In other words, your wants and desires ultimately lead you to your highest good and the greatest good for all, you may have trouble believing this because like my client, you may feel it is selfish to go after what you want. It is not selfishness when you've learned to decipher between ego and your higher self wants, and you allow yourself to be guided by your inner wisdom, aka higher self. Here's another tip that will help you decipher between those two voices so you can act from your highest self and the greatest good for all get clear on why you want something. What's super interesting about seeking this kind of clarity is that in the process of getting clear about why you want something, you can actually shift an ego want to a higher self want. And it can be the same want just a different understanding of why you want it. Let me explain. I hear a lot of people talking about wanting to be a six or seven figure earner. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. What's important, though, is having clarity about why you want to make that kind of money. Is it status? Is your self worth attached to the number of zeros in your bank account? Is it because you want freedom, freedoms and interesting an answer and it's one lots of people would give? Is it freedom from something like debt or freedom to do something like travel or both? These are really good questions to ask and to continue to explore further. By further exploring this desire, you may uncover that what you really want is to buy big beautiful home. That's awesome. Now go deeper and ask why is that important to you? You might come to realize that what you really want is a beautiful space where you can bring your family and friends together you discover what you are seeking is community and connection and the hub to share your love with others. Perhaps the big beautiful homes simply represents a place of love and comfort. And you want to be able to provide that for those you love. That's beautiful, and it's a higher self desire as the desire comes from a place of love.

Having this clarity will help you identify other opportunities to experience what you really want. Your true highest self desire can be manifested in many ways, including and beyond being a six or seven figure earner and owning a big beautiful home. However, if you are not clear on the root of the desire and just focus on achieving that one thing such as making loads of money or acquiring that dream home, you may miss other opportunities

is to simply be the love you want to give, because you're so distracted by trying to get something you perceive you don't have. If you invest your time to more deeply understand why you want something, you will either recognize that that want is unhealthy, such as the need for recognition and validation, which is an ego want. I share my personal story about that in episode two and how that need just about destroyed my marriage. And then you can do the inner work needed to change who you are being and potentially change that ego want into a higher self want. Or you will recognize that you're acting from your Higher Self want and lean into it with more purpose. And that can lead to you discovering a multitude of ways to manifest your desires. Either way, you are on a path to your highest self. And again, I want to emphasize that when you work on you by understanding who you are, what you want, and why it matters, then you are acting in the highest good for all. Remember your wants and desires, your dreams and your hopes

are how God source the universe speak to you. Your job is to understand those wants and desires by asking why do I want this? Why is this important? By examining the answers you can decipher because they come from a place of love for self and others or if they come from a place of fear or lack. If they come from a place of love for self and others, then you can be assured you are moving in a direction that is for the greatest good for all. If they come from a place of fear or feelings of lack than recognize this is a sign from God source the universe, that it is time to invest more time in learning to understand who you are, what you really want and why it matters. It's also a time to learn how to love yourself more deeply. Because when you love yourself deeply, your wants and desires will be rooted in love. And love is the highest frequency. When we operate from a place of love, we are operating for the greatest and highest good of all.

Wow, that feels like a lot and maybe a little convoluted with jumping between highest self and highest good and inner wisdom and soul voice. I trust you got the essence of it, though. And if you have any questions about any of this, reach out and let's connect all my contact details are in the show notes. And if you want to go deeper into understanding who you are, what you really want and why matters. Think consider one of my coaching programs will journey there together and it will be a beautiful, joyful journey. Thanks for tuning in joyful journeyer we'll catch you next time.