Episode 18: Spiritual Awakening and the Higher Self: How to Trust Your Inner Knowing - PT 1

By Lindsay Goodwin, The Consciousness Medium™ and founder of High Frequency Mind™

On the spiritual awakening journey there comes a point where the life you have known still appears intact from the outside, yet something within you can no longer relate to it in the same way. The roles you have played, the beliefs you inherited, and the expectations you learned to meet may begin to feel unfamiliar. What once seemed certain starts to loosen, and what cannot yet be logically explained begins to feel unmistakably true.

This is often described as transformation, but transformation can suggest that you must become someone entirely new. What if awakening is something more intimate than that? What if you are not being asked to construct a better identity, but to remember who you were beneath the identities you learned to inhabit?

That question opens Episode 18 of The High Frequency Mind™ Podcast and Part 1 of the four-part series From Thought to Inner Knowing, featuring Lindsay Goodwin, host of High Frequency Mind, and Julianne Thon, host of Souls on Tap. Their conversation explores the evolution of the self, the intelligence of intuition, the role of fear, and the disorientation that can arise when inner truth begins to speak more clearly than conditioned thought.

Spiritual awakening is not a destination

Many people unconsciously approach spiritual awakening as another form of achievement. They imagine that enough meditation, personal work, knowledge, or healing will eventually carry them to a final state in which doubt disappears and every choice feels certain. Yet the belief that awakening has a destination can turn consciousness into another pursuit of perfection.

In the episode, Lindsay offers a different understanding: it is not so much that you are getting to a destination of evolving; you are remembering. This changes the entire orientation of the journey. Instead of measuring how far you still have to go, you begin listening for what has always been present beneath the noise.

Awakening then becomes less about acquiring a new identity and more about releasing what obscures the essential self. You may still learn, change, and evolve, but those changes arise from a growing alignment with your deeper nature rather than from the belief that your present self is not enough.

The higher self beneath conditioned thought

Lindsay describes the truest aspect of the self as the Observer, while acknowledging that others may call it the soul, the higher self, or the higher mind. The words may differ, but they point toward a similar experience: there is an awareness within you that can witness your thoughts without being defined by every thought.

The conditioned mind speaks through repetition. It carries family expectations, cultural rules, social pressure, past experiences, protective responses, and ideas about who you must be to remain accepted. Because these patterns are familiar, they can sound like truth even when they no longer reflect who you are. If you are beginning to question that relationship, explore Are You Your Thoughts? How Conditioning May Be Shaping Your Mind.

The higher self often communicates differently. Its guidance may arrive as a quiet recognition, an embodied sense of expansion or contraction, a persistent inner pull, or a knowing that remains even after the mind produces every argument against it. It does not always give you the entire path. It may simply illuminate the next honest step.

Learning how to connect with your higher self therefore requires more than searching for a louder answer. It asks you to notice which voices within you were learned and which one feels ancient, clear, and deeply your own.

Why awakening can feel confusing

Spiritual awakening is often portrayed as peaceful, luminous, and immediately liberating. There can be moments of profound clarity, but awakening may also destabilize the internal structures that once helped you make sense of your life.

As Lindsay explains, peeling back layers can be confusing. When you begin remembering who you truly are and aligning with the Observer, much of what you learned may stop making sense. Relationships, ambitions, habits, and definitions of success that once fit your identity may no longer resonate. The mind can interpret this as failure or uncertainty, even when a deeper intelligence recognizes it as realignment.

This confusion does not always mean you have lost your way. Sometimes it means the map you were given cannot lead you where your inner knowing is calling you. The space between an old identity and a more authentic way of being can feel empty, but it is also where a more conscious life begins to emerge.

Intuition versus fear

One of the most difficult questions during awakening is whether an inner signal is intuition or fear. Both can influence the body, both can interrupt ordinary thought, and both can feel urgent. The difference is not always found by analyzing the message more intensely.

Fear tends to multiply possibilities and demand certainty before movement. It often repeats familiar warnings, imagines rejection, and pulls you toward protection. Intuition can still direct you away from something, but it often carries a cleaner quality. Even when the message is inconvenient, there is a simplicity beneath it.

This does not mean intuition is always comfortable. Acting in alignment with your authentic self may challenge relationships, expectations, or patterns that once created belonging. Fear may appear precisely because your inner knowing is leading you beyond an identity that has kept you safe. The task is not to eliminate fear before choosing. It is to develop enough self-awareness to hear what remains true beneath it.

For a deeper exploration of this distinction, read Intuition vs. Anxiety: How to Tell the Difference and Trust Your Inner Knowing.

When old beliefs stop making sense

As consciousness expands, inherited beliefs may begin to feel too small for what you now perceive. You may question ideas about productivity, relationships, spirituality, success, leadership, or even who you are allowed to become. This questioning is not rebellion for its own sake. It is discernment becoming active.

Conditioning survives when it remains unseen. The moment you can observe a pattern rather than automatically enact it, you create space between awareness and reaction. In that space, choice becomes possible.

You may notice that you have been pursuing goals you never consciously chose, maintaining peace by abandoning your own truth, or confusing external approval with inner alignment. These realizations can bring grief as well as freedom. You are not only releasing beliefs; you may be releasing the version of yourself who learned to survive through them.

Remembering the intuitive self

Before intuition was something you tried to prove, it was something you experienced. Children often sense the emotional truth of a room before they understand its history. They respond to energy, tone, and incongruence without needing a complete intellectual explanation. Over time, many people learn to distrust this sensitivity and prioritize what is acceptable, measurable, or externally confirmed.

Remembering your intuitive self does not require abandoning reason. It means restoring a relationship between thought and a deeper form of intelligence. The mind becomes a tool rather than the sole authority. Analysis can help you evaluate information, while inner knowing helps you recognize what is aligned.

This is the movement at the heart of From Thought to Inner Knowing: not the rejection of thought, but the return of thought to its rightful place within a larger field of awareness.

How to begin trusting your inner knowing

Trust is built through relationship, and your relationship with inner knowing strengthens when you consistently create space to hear it.

1. Notice the first signal before the explanation

When you ask yourself a meaningful question, notice what arises before your mind begins building a case. It may be a sensation, image, word, memory, or simple sense of yes or no. You do not have to act immediately. Begin by recognizing the signal.

2. Ask whose voice you are hearing

When an inner statement says you should, must, cannot, or are not allowed, ask where that belief originated. Does it reflect your present truth, or does it belong to family conditioning, social expectations, an earlier experience, or a past version of you?

3. Let the body participate

Speak each possible choice aloud and observe what happens in your body. Notice the breath, chest, throat, abdomen, and shoulders. The body can reveal where truth, fear, expansion, and protection are moving within you.

4. Practice with small decisions

Do not wait for a life-changing crossroads to begin trusting yourself. Listen inward when choosing how to structure your day, which conversation needs your attention, or when rest is required. Each honored signal strengthens the bridge between awareness and action.

5. Become the Observer

Rather than trying to silence every thought, witness the mind with curiosity. Notice the pattern without becoming the pattern. This shift allows you to recognize that a conditioned thought can be present without controlling your next choice. Explore this more deeply in Observer Consciousness: How Awareness Changes Your Brain, Health, and Leadership.

From thought to inner knowing

The movement from thought to inner knowing is not a rejection of intellect. It is an expansion of the way you understand intelligence. You are learning to include intuition, embodied awareness, self-observation, and the deeper consciousness that perceives beyond the limits of habitual thought.

You may not receive certainty in the form the mind demands. Inner knowing often asks for a different kind of trust: the willingness to honor what feels true before the entire path is visible. Each time you do, you loosen the authority of conditioning and deepen your relationship with the person you have always been beneath it.

Spiritual awakening may change how you see everything, but its deepest invitation is not to escape your humanity or become spiritually perfect. It is to return—to the Observer, to authenticity, to the quiet intelligence within you, and to the truth that awakening may be less about becoming than remembering.

Listen to Part 1 of From Thought to Inner Knowing

Episode 18 of The High Frequency Mind™ Podcast begins this four-part series with Lindsay Goodwin and Julianne Thon, host of Souls on Tap. Together, they explore intuition, consciousness, fear, authenticity, self-trust, and the movement from conditioned thought into embodied inner knowing.

Follow The High Frequency Mind™ Podcast on Apple Podcasts so you do not miss Parts 2–4 of From Thought to Inner Knowing.

You can also begin with Episode 17: Introspective Hypnosis, Past Lives, the Subconscious and the Higher Self, the conversation that opened the doorway to this special series.

About Lindsay Goodwin

Lindsay Goodwin, The Consciousness Medium™, is the host of The High Frequency Mind™ Podcast and the author of The High Frequency Mind. Through her work in consciousness, intuition, and self-mastery, Lindsay helps people recognize the conditioning that has shaped their lives, reconnect with their inner knowing, and make choices from a more authentic state of awareness.

Explore High Frequency Mind™

Frequently asked questions

What is spiritual awakening?

Spiritual awakening is a shift in awareness that changes how you understand yourself, your beliefs, and your relationship with life. It can involve questioning inherited conditioning, becoming more conscious of habitual patterns, and reconnecting with a deeper sense of identity or inner knowing.

What is the higher self?

The higher self is a term for the deeper awareness beneath conditioned thoughts and learned identity. It may also be described as the soul, higher mind, or Observer—the part of consciousness capable of witnessing thoughts without being completely defined by them.

How do I know if my higher self is guiding me?

Guidance from the higher self often feels quieter and clearer than fear-based thought. It may arise as a persistent knowing, an embodied sense of alignment, or a simple recognition that remains present even when the mind argues against it.

Why does spiritual awakening feel confusing?

Spiritual awakening can feel confusing because beliefs, relationships, goals, or identities that once made sense may no longer feel aligned. This disorientation can occur as conditioned patterns become visible and a more authentic way of being begins to emerge.

How can I trust my inner knowing?

Begin by noticing intuitive signals before analyzing them, questioning where internal rules originated, listening to bodily responses, practicing with small decisions, and observing thoughts without automatically acting on them. Trust deepens each time you recognize and honor your authentic guidance.