How I Revisioned My Relationship with my Higher Self

When I was in my 20s, I used to think there was some path I was supposed to take, some destiny I was meant to fill, and if I could just decipher what my higher self or divine spirit had in mind for me, then I could find that path and fulfill my destiny.

Then in my 30s, I started babysitting more. I saw how most of the time, my job as a babysitter wasn’t to tell the child what to do, but rather to keep the child safe and help him while he explored his own desires. Sometimes I had to take the lead, and guide him to leave the playground, or eat dinner, or go to bed; most of the time, though, I would just hang out with him and support what he wanted to do. If he wanted to throw pebbles, we’d throw pebbles. If he wanted to “climb” trees, I’d hold him while he walked up leaning coconut palm trunks as far as he could. If he wanted to jump on the trampoline, I’d lift him up. If he wanted to run, I’d run with him. (Yes, it was actually a boy, and yes, he was pretty butch even at two.)

This gave me a whole new idea for what my relationship with my higher self might look like. I started to think that there was no specific path or destiny some higher power had chosen for me, but rather that it was my job to choose to explore and create and play however I wanted. And just as the child I was babysitting could ask for help, so could I. Just as a child gets better at asking for help, so could I.

First babies ask for help by crying. Adults respond by trying everything until they stop crying, or developing keen skills of perception and reasoning to decipher what the baby is crying about. Toddlers, before they can talk, will often receive help by attempting to do something, like trying to open a jar, or trying to reach something. When an adult sees them trying to do something, and it looks like they either won’t succeed or will hurt themselves in the process of trying, the natural reaction is to help them (unless it’s something dangerous, like trying to turn on a stove). At some point, toddlers start to use their words to ask for what they want.

I saw a parallel for me with my higher self. Many people report the experience that when they start a project, and they have no idea how they’re going to complete it, that as long as they stick with it, after awhile doors will start to open, resources will become available, and support will show up, often in unexpected and serendipitous ways. If I’m babysitting a kid who is just sitting there wishing she had a truck to play with, I have no way of knowing that. If she starts to crawl towards the shelf that has the toy trucks, and reaching for them, I can tell what she wants and then grab them for her. If she is old enough to say, “Can I please play with a truck?” or even just “Truck!”, that also works. There are actions we can take in this world that guide our helpers to help us in the ways we most desire.

I see prayer as the equivalent of the girl asking for the truck with words. Asking specifically for what we want with words can be as effective, or sometimes even more effective, than indicating what we want with our actions. We certainly don’t need prayer to receive help from the spirit world; sometimes I wonder, though, if all those unseen helpers get as excited by our first prayer as parents do by their child’s first word. “Finally, she can just tell us what she needs instead of us having to guess!” they might think.

I don’t know if any of this is true. It makes sense to me, though. It fits my experience of the world. I often feel helped in whatever endeavors I am pursuing, often magically from unseen quarters. Sometimes I feel swept up by events, the same way I would sweep up the kid I was babysitting when we absolutely had to get in the car to go back to mom even though he wasn’t quite ready to leave the playground yet. Sometimes I feel blocked, and find out later it was a bad situation I had been trying to get into, and am reminded of a dad keeping his child out of the street when he sees cars coming.

Whether it’s true or not that I have unseen help, I’m glad I let go of the story that there was some path determined by divine spirit that I was supposed to be following, if I could but figure out what it was, and started using my desire as my guide, instead. I suspect that, if divine spirit does have a path in mind for me, my desire IS the beacon lighting up that path for me.