Your Highest Self

Many people have written about our “best self,” our “favorite self,” and/or our “higher or highest self.” I personally like the term highest self, because I think it incorporates the other two descriptors of best and favorite. 

Whether you choose best, favorite, higher or highest, we are describing who we are when we are being the best version of ourselves. We refer to those times when we trust and respect ourselves…when we can see ourselves with pride…when we look in the mirror and genuinely like what we see…when all pretense, defense and the clutter of everyday coping are stripped away, and we know ourselves to be worthy of our own self-respect.   

As I said, this notion of “highest or best self” isn’t at all new, but I would like to put a subtle spin on it. Usually, we describe our highest self with adjectives.  For example:

·       I am brave

·       I am kind

·       I am smart

·       I am compassionate

·       I am talented…and so on.

 What I would like you to do is change the adjectives that describe your best or ideal self to nouns. For example, instead of saying “I am brave or courageous,” try “I am courage.” Instead of “I am loving,” try “I am love.” Just to get you started, listed below are some nouns that you might use to describe your highest self. Choose from this list, and /or generate your own list that embodies your highest self. Examples:

Courage            Strength

Compassion      Kindness

Love                     Intelligence

Forgiveness        Stability

Goodness          Light

Changing adjectives to nouns might seem like just an exercise in linguistics or vocabulary. But using nouns actually has a specific purpose. Adjectives describe a quality that is attached to your sense of self. Nouns, on the other hand, move you to a place where you actually embody the quality that you have chosen. We have all heard people describe another person as “she is kindness itself.”   Nouns dissolve the distance between “you” and the quality you describe, making that quality the essence of your being as opposed to an outer trait or description of you. 

Try it! Generate your own list, and repeat to yourself in the quiet times that you are the qualities you have chosen to reflect your highest self.  Combine a couple if it works for you.  I use seven pairs of nouns as daily affirmations.

·      I am strength and courage.

·      I am kindness and compassion.

·      I am love.

·      I am generosity.

·      I am forgiveness and tolerance.

See if thinking of your highest self in nouns instead of adjectives creates a more clear and powerful sense of what you know is your best you, your highest self.