66. How to Connect with Higher Consciousness: Science, Spirituality & Divine Guidance

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Welcome to The Authentic Path. I'm your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, Harvard-trained physician and healer. I integrate science and ancestral wisdom to support you in creating the success you desire in all areas of your life. In the last two episodes, you heard a conversation between me and my guest, Dr. Rashmi Sharam, During our conversation, we briefly touched on the concept of with a higher consciousness. And today we're going deeper. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. We're going to talk about what that connection can look like in everyday life, why it matters for you, how it can support you in the way you live, lead, and move through the world. And always, we're going to approach this through multiple lenses, including science, ancestral wisdom, spirituality, and practical everyday practices. ⁓ Because hope is that by the end of the episode, you walk away knowing that this connection is available to you right now. Hello, sweet friends. Welcome back to the Authentic Path. We're talking about something today that I think is incredibly important and is actually a follow-up from the last two episodes where I interviewed my sweet friend and colleague Rashmi Sharam. ⁓ In the conversations I had with her, we of briefly touched on the topic of connecting to a higher consciousness. And what I want to talk about today is what we meant by that, what it actually means to connect with the higher consciousness and why that matters for you. So I'm not talking about something rigid. I'm not talking about something prescriptive here. This isn't meant to be a religious dogma by any means. it's not about how to do it exactly right. It's about how to connect. ⁓ that connection can look very, very different. When I spoke with Rashmi about it in the last episode, we talked about connecting through meditation. We about connecting through slowing down. So I'm going to give you a few different ways of ⁓ what connection can look like. One of the most common ways people are used to is through the concept of prayer, where you sit down and you're praying and you're connecting with higher consciousness. Super powerful. has come to mean being in communication with higher consciousness, but you can do the same thing with meditation by just slowing yourself down, slowing your breath down. ⁓ can do it through the breath. and you can even do it through signs. So I did a whole episode I called it, speaking the language of the heart or the language of the universe, where you are looking for synchronicities. That's way to be in direct communication with higher consciousness. So let ground this just quickly in science for a moment before I go on. Practices like meditation have been shown to decrease activity in your amygdala. The amygdala is the part of the brain that's responsible for fear and for threat. that part of the brain increases activation. ⁓ ⁓ part of the brain is super hyperactive, it decreases your activity in the prefrontal cortex. The cortex is the part of our brain that essentially is responsible for clarity, decision making, and emotional regulation. So in like meditation, when the activity in the immingdala is decreased, then the activity in the prefrontal cortex is increased. So other practices like prayer and other contemplative practices like walking out in nature have been linked to very similar things. And they've also been linked to resilience, improved emotional processing, and a greater sense of meaning. is... a spiritual practice, but it's also physiologic. And when you can connect to something greater than yourself, turns out you're also supporting yourself and regulating your nervous system you're clarity. So let's dive a little deeper in history and talk about what this looked like ⁓ in traditions. So if we look way back this kind of communication wasn't something people to learn. ⁓ It was the way that they lived. It was a way of living. they knew is that they were understanding that life itself was sacred. You're born into this life ⁓ there no separation between the sacredness of the world around you and the way you lived your life because you lived your life in nature and nature sacred ⁓ and nature part of something bigger, something higher and you had to be in communication with nature to survive. ⁓ So there a of rituals that were created. rituals around the moon. And in fact, many ancient pyramids and ancient mystical sites that have been discovered through Mesoamerica, through Latin America, but also through Egypt and other parts of the world, you can see that the pyramids were built in relationship to the moon, to the stars, to the sun. And was a ton of ritual that would happen around these sacred sites. And I guess that's just an example of how the way that they lived. The way that they governed was all in communication with something greater than them. It was all integrated. somewhere the way, a lot those practices got forgotten. ⁓ And sometimes that forgetting was forced upon a lot of those and replaced with control replaced with you got to do it our only, or you got to believe in this one thing only. what's beautiful is ⁓ even there was a lot of attempt to erase a lot of those practices, a lot of those practices continued to live through bodies and the stories ⁓ of the and the grandfathers that got passed down through generations and continued to in the bodies of a lot of people that are alive now. And so when we talk about this concept of connecting to something higher than you, if resonating with you, listen to that resonance, that resonance. is what is a symbol of remembrance. It's something that your body knows to be true, your subconscious, something deep inside you. Your highest self knows it's true. So if we know this to be true, why isn't it that people do this? Like, why don't people connect with higher consciousness more and more? ⁓ want to just spend a little bit of time here because I think there's two main reasons. One is that ⁓ I some people just don't believe they can. I think some people don't believe that they are entitled to have a relationship with higher consciousness. they learned through social programming or through life that there's that has to go through someone first, like a for example. Maybe you can only connect to higher consciousness if you go through this person that's super holy or you go this person that's really practiced and you don't realize you are your own inner authority, that you can directly connect. to consciousness yourself. You don't need anybody in between. You can do that yourself. Having my clients remember that in my work that I do with them, bringing them back to their own source as they are the authority of their lives and they can directly connect to higher consciousness themselves, I think is some of the most powerful work that we can do because ⁓ you understand that are ⁓ back in control, you have the power to connect directly with divine and that's incredibly powerful. The other reason I think people don't do it is because life is busy. is just life. It's really busy and ⁓ folks just don't prioritize it because there's ⁓ lot of ways to do it. Walk nature, sit quietly for a couple minutes a day, intentionally like dance with some soft music. Any way that essentially slow down your body and pause, those are all ways that you can do it. But if you think it, it's not something that we've really valued in society. What we value in society is producing, being productive. checking things off checklist. so there are million excuses that you can make. And remember for me when I decided I was going to very specifically and consistently start to meditate, I was residency. And ⁓ in we have a lot of time. I think it was third or fourth year of residency And wow. like looking back and observing myself at the time, the inner battles that I had with myself, I couldn't even sit for a minute. I would try to sit down and immediately like, oh my God, I haven't put the laundry in. Oh wait, did I forget to pack my lunch? Have I done this yet? Have I done that yet? And I would keep making excuses to not sit and meditate. So there are a million excuses that you can make. And for me, what started to work was I just decided, okay, I'm just gonna sit for one minute a day. That's it, just one minute. because I realized it was really hard for me to make an excuse that I didn't have just one minute. And so I started sitting every day for one minute a day. If I drove myself to the hospital before I'd get out of the car, I'd sit for one minute in my car. If I took the subway into the hospital, I was living in New York City at the time, I would just sit quietly in the subway. I wouldn't read a book. I wouldn't listen to anything. And that would be my one minute. And then that one minute expanded to three minutes, and then five minutes, and then 10 minutes. And now I have a very habitual meditative practice and I sit every day for at least 20 minutes of quiet time a day where I meditate. But it took practice and it took habit. It took me building that habit because again, there's a million excuses that we can make. And the thing I realized is that some people do ⁓ connect, but only connect when things get hard. example, let's say you get diagnosed with something ⁓ now you want to connect with higher consciousness or And again, ⁓ yes, connect anytime even things get hard There should be absolutely zero guilt because you're connecting because things get Don't don't feel guilty about that ⁓ connect anytime and I want you know that can also connect when things are not hard And I think that that's the practice. The practice is building a regular relationship of connecting to your highest self, higher consciousness, whatever you want to call it, regularly in your regular life, just when you feel like It's like, ⁓ my gosh, I really need to do this now. And I don't want you to think that connecting in regular life is frivolous, because that's the other thing that I hear a lot of my clients say, can I really like, God busy? Isn't like, ⁓ know, whatever you call divine spirit source, aren't busy? Do they really have time for me? And that just want you to know if any of those thoughts resonate with you, know that they're normal. You're not the only person that has them. A lot of folks have those. And I also want you to know that you matter and you're incredibly valuable and your life matters and your desires matter. And so if you want to connect with divine or a higher self or God or whatever you call I want you to know that it's possible for you. And these benevolent spirit guides, they're around us all the time and they want to connect with you all the time. what I've come to learn. For those of you that are new to this podcast or don't really know me well, I am a Harvard graduate. I'm a physician. And I also grew up in a house with mystics. I was raised by a father who incredible human being, incredibly compassionate, big feminist, though would never call himself that. And he was also a mystic. ⁓ And I grew up in lineage of ancestral healers from Mexico and El Salvador. ⁓ And so the things I'm to you now, ⁓ I don't see them as new age. These are just things that people have been practicing for thousands and thousands of years. And I was so blessed that it was passed down in my own lineage. so I share these with you ⁓ these are just universal truths ⁓ and you know how I know, ⁓ why I say they're universal, because not just thousands and thousands of years ⁓ of lineage that I come from. If you across the entire world, cultures that have existed for ⁓ centuries across world, the concept of communicating with a higher source or divine, that's universal. Everyone's been doing that forever. And so I say that to you because I want you to know that where this is coming from. Okay, so you are absolutely eligible, justified to connect with divine anytime you want. what do you connect about? So when you decide, okay, I want to have a connection with higher consciousness, I get that the way to do it is to slow down. fact, there's this really powerful saying from the Yaqui Indian tribe in Mexico, which to change the world, you have to stop the world. And to stop the world, you have to stop your world. So ⁓ in to big changes in the world, you get to pause for yourself and change yourself. And when you change yourself, that's how we can impact the world around us. many people, ⁓ ⁓ try hard to make change by trying to change other people. And ⁓ Miguel the author of The Four Agreements, he ⁓ comes from Toltec tradition in Mexico. And one of the things he said is, I want you help me make the world a better place and change the world. And I want you to help me do this by you changing yourself. sort the the call to action you would have is, ⁓ help me change world by changing yourself. Focus on you, and that's enough. And so when I about you connecting to higher consciousness and why that matters is because you can have this direct connection with higher consciousness, and can ask for support if things feel hard. You can ask for your desires if that's what you want to ask for. And I want you to know that nothing is frivolous. you are allowed to ask for what you want. Because the other thing with higher consciousness, divine God, is you are going to be respected as a sovereign being walking this planet. You are a sovereign being. So if there is something that you want support with, you have to ask for it. Our benevolent spirit guides, this energy around us, they're not going to intervene in your life unless you ask for So I want you to feel. ⁓ safe, comfortable, asking for what it is that you desire. You're allowed to ask for what you want and what you desire. And this takes me to a very important topic, which is your desires matter. Your desires are not random. Those little pulls of your heart, your heart's deepest desires, they're not random. They're coming from somewhere. You somewhere along the way, your soul got this little light, you know, to say like, hey, please go write this book. hey, please go write the song, hey, write this children's book, go create this program for the world, whatever it is that you desire in your heart, that's not random. That is something that, that's a gift that was given to you that you get now to now put out in the world. And the beauty is the work from that desire to the actual creation, that journey in between, that's where the magic is because it requires growth. It requires getting to know yourself, getting to know your fears, pushing against your fears, taking action, learning every, like learning all those little things that are getting in the way. What if I do it wrong? What if they make fun of me? What if I humiliate myself? All of those things, getting to see those things show up and working through them. That's where growth comes in. And it's such a beautiful process. And so the magic is in you. respecting and honoring the desires that are coming your way and doing the work to create them, to call them forth, to bring them into this three-dimensional world. And from a neuroscience perspective, your brain's dopamine system is actually activated by desire. When you have a desire, that desire drives your motivation. Motivation comes from dopamine hits and that motivation will create an exploration and it'll create growth for you if you actually take action. And so, so many of us see our desires as sort of indulgent or selfish and they're not. What they actually are, those, all those little points of curiosity that you get, that's just information showing you where you're meant to expand. So when you feel a pull towards something, whether it's having a bigger impact or whether it's just like relaxing and taking a break and going to sit on a hammock and reading a book, Whatever it is, it's not something that you should just ignore. It's something that you should be curious about. Listen to it and just ask, wow, this is coming. Is this coming to me? Am I ready for it? And if the answer is yes, I do actually want to write a book, but I'm scared, that's where you ask for support. That's where you create this relationship with divine and you can say, I just got this desire and I want to create this new program, but I'm really afraid. I need your support. Help me. Show me the way. I love about creating a relationship with higher consciousness or divine is ⁓ the regular connection you have, the more you can be in regular communication throughout your day. ⁓ You have to wait for a large catastrophe. You don't have to wait for things to be down in the dumps for you to communicate with divine. ⁓ You can have that communication regularly every day. So I sit and meditate daily and every day I ask a question and I wait for an answer. Sometimes it comes while I'm sitting in my meditation and sometimes it'll come throughout the day as the day goes on. Sometimes I'll ask. I remember a very specific example a couple of weeks ago where I said, help me experience peace on this earth. Help me experience peace on this earth because There's a lot of suffering on this earth. It can be really hard to be human. You know, we're all born with the limbic system. That means we have feelings and emotions. when there's a lot of grief in the world, it can feel hard sometimes to walk on the planet. And I said, help me experience peace. And that day, to the gym ⁓ and it happened to a day where I was intervals. ⁓ And I usually watch something when I run intervals. And didn't really have anything planned to watch that day. So I just pick up my phone and I'm like, huh. I'm going to go to one of my favorite teachers on YouTube and see what she has to teach me today. And I go to her YouTube channel and guess what the lesson was. It was about how you create peace on earth. And it was in my, it was a synchronicity. And I just was like in awe and in steep gratitude to divine for sending me that video. I asked for it and there it was, there was the answer. And it was the most beautiful lesson of how to do that. That's what's available to all of you. This isn't something that's hard. I'm not gatekeeping this. This is something that's available to everybody. And I'm bringing you this episode because want you to know that you have the technology, the capacity, the ability to do this for yourself. ⁓ doesn't have to be complicated. ⁓ can be really simple. ⁓ can start with just sitting for a minute a day like I did. It can start with you going out for ⁓ walk. and touching a tree if you want out in nature. It can just be you breathing for 10 seconds. All you get to do is just slow down, slow enough to start to notice your thoughts and just observe them. And the more and more you do that, and the longer and longer you spend in that silence, the more you slow down your world. And that's how you change who you are. And that's also how you communicate with divine. a really powerful practice and I want it for everyone. I want it for all of you. And brings me to one last piece, which is ⁓ When we ask for what it is that we desire, whether it's, you know, show me how to create X or Y or ⁓ show me how to create peace on earth, like I was asking, whatever it is, whatever question you're asking, the first step is to ask. And the second step is to receive, is to be open to receiving the answer. And being open to receiving the answer requires a state of openness. And I did a podcast episode a couple of weeks ago on the concept of surrender. Surrender is a practice of being open, of being open to communication with divine. And so I want you to be open to knowing you get to ask and just be open to knowing that the answer will come if you're open to it. Be open, be curious, look around for signs, look to see when the answers are coming to you. of the things, ⁓ I'll share one last thing. because I'm a huge skeptic. So if you're listening to this and you're a huge skeptic or you really want to believe in this, but you're afraid to go do it because what if you don't get the answers that you want? So when I first started practicing this, when I first started taking this seriously, because again, I grew up with this in my life. And so this was always something that I believed to be true, I had never actively practiced it specifically for myself or my own desires because I had a lot of the same stories everybody else has. My desires don't matter. Feel selfish, you know? God doesn't have time for me, whatever, all of those thoughts. when I decided a couple years ago that I was ⁓ going to create an active practice of being in direct communication with divine, ⁓ I started doing is creating a journal. And I called this journal my miracle journal. ⁓ what I would do is I would journal ⁓ night before I went to bed ⁓ I would write down all my miracle moments, all the times that I had asked for something and I got the answers and I came to fruition because I wanted to see direct evidence to prove to that part of my brain that needed the evidence that these things were actually happening, that I was asking and that I was getting all these things. And it was so beautiful because the more and more I started seeing the evidence, it created this beautiful virtuous cycle where I started believing that it was happening, that it was true, that I can actually communicate with divine and I can ask for what it is that I desire and it can come to me. And the more and more I started doing that and building that evidence, the more I felt safe asking for what it was I wanted and it was this beautiful virtuous cycle. And that is available to you too. So that is what I want for you. Okay, sweet friends, as you take this in, I want you to remember a few things. Number one, you are not Walking this life alone. It can feel really lonely sometimes and that's just really the ego that likes to sort of isolate us But we're not alone. We are in relationship to something so much bigger than us. Call it whatever resonates with you divine source Spirit higher consciousness higher self call it God call it your ancestors resonates with you and Remember that you can be in direct communication with divine anytime you want. All you need to do is slow down, slow down enough to just be in communication. Ask for what it is you desire and be open to receiving what it is that you asked for. you know, practice it, ask, listen, remember that your desires are not something to suppress. There's something to get super curious about and to celebrate. And can also ask and just be open to it coming to you. Surrender the rest. And if this is something that really resonated with you, I want to invite you to share this episode with your friends, with your colleagues, because I want everybody to be in direct connection with their higher selves. And this is how we create a conscious, a more conscious world. I hope. you found this helpful. And of course, if you want help doing this, this is what I do regularly with all of my clients. So you can reach out and create a coaching consultation appointment with me. The link is in my, ⁓ the link is in the show notes. All right, sweet friends until next time. Adios.