One Sunday, while driving home from the reiki circle I often attend in order to start my week positively and worry-free, I began to cry. The circle had been wonderful -- it was unusually large that day, and while sitting and meditating I felt a wonderful energy. The reiki, which is an Eastern method of healing through the power of the universe, had been very strong and even alleviated the sinus pressure I had been feeling that morning. So why was I so sad? At the traffic light, I traveled back to the circle in my mind to try to pinpoint the origin of my sadness. A rose quartz had been placed in the center of the circle, assisting the participants in focusing on our heart charkas, and the reiki master opened the circle with a talk about living authentically. She spoke about how we should never say, "I'm finding my path," because we are on our paths. What we needed was to open our eyes while on our path, realize that we are who we are, and rejoice over this.

I wiped my eyes as the light changed. That was it, I thought. It was all that authenticity talk. It was nothing new, of course. After all, finding yourself isn't rocket science or even basic math. But nevertheless it was making me cry that Sunday morning as my mind multi-tasked on bills that had to be paid, food that needed to be purchased for the week, and a job that I was starting to despise. All this great energy I had received in the circle was dissipating because the spirituality I was seeking was nothing more than lip service. I felt like a big fraud.

The reiki master was attempting to awaken in us what is often referred to as the higher self -- the part of us that is connected to something larger than our physical existence. Some feel at peace when it is given a name -- God, or the Higher Power, or the soul -- but when we hone it down to its essence, the name doesn't really matter. One of the tenets of all major religions is something I regard as a collective truth: everything in the universe is connected. The higher self is our connection to everything. The "disconnect" between our daily living and our unity with the universe has much to do with living in a culture that thrives on negativity. The higher self, being part of a positive, loving life force, does not engage in negative thought. Daily exposure to this type of thought disconnects from our higher selves.

All this talk about the higher self is pretty basic and may even sound a bit "New Age-y." It's easy to ask how this information going to help us in our daily existence. Here's my proposal: the higher self is the place where our self-esteem resides. It could be an important key in helping us live our lives authentically, and even more importantly, helping us feel better about ourselves as women.

Driving home that Sunday, I realized that I had been ignoring what was important and had begun feeling like a victim of the daily grind. Let's face it: our lives are bombarded with negativity. The core of this problem lies in this dominant work culture that becomes part of our adult lives. Another contributing culprit is mainstream media, which baits us by using fear and anxiety. These factors feed off each other in a cycle that drives us away from who we truly are. Thus, a new "ego being" emerges, fueled by a need to Work because we need our Stuff to feel complete and make us feel good, so we have to Work harder to get more Stuff to feel even better, but all this Work makes us feel bad, but if we could just get more Stuff, we're bound to feel better. And then we wonder why we feel so empty and unhappy.

It can become difficult to recognize negativity when it's so ingrained in our daily lives. The news of the world, for example, is available 24 hours per day on at least four cable channels. This news is padded by commercials that speak to the insecurities of our ego selves: insecurities of our size, gender, looks, race, and mental states, all in order for us to buy more Stuff. Meanwhile, self-esteem and true worth are evaporating amidst all this anxiety, and we fall into the trap of the ego, forgetting what is truly important -- such as joy, love, inspiration, and freedom.

And the higher self? It isn't listening anymore. It's shut itself in a room somewhere inside us and locked the door. Finding the key and then coaxing it to emerge does not require a prescription from any one source, an ancient text, or a guru. Unlocking the safe room into which the higher self retreats is an individual experience.

The only secret to finding it resides in us, and it involves realizing why it retreated in the first place. We need to discover how and when we began falling into negative thought patterns. One way to find our way back is to break a physical pattern in our daily lives. It might involve reading a spiritual or inspirational text rather than watching television, writing poetry instead of surfing the Internet, or going on a walk in nature rather than on a treadmill at a gym. Or instead of turning on news radio and delving into the bleakness of our time, try downloading some of your favorite songs from high school and then belt out their lyrics on the way to work. Anything that brings us joy is a way back our true natures. My personal rule is that if it gives me goosebumps, something wonderful is going on.

Once we've reconnected to our higher selves, it becomes something easy to recognize—after all, it's been a part of us since birth (perhaps even before that). It's a bit like when we first recognized our heartbeat and how it pulsates at different places in our bodies. When we made that discovery, we also acknowledged how external factors affect our heart rate, and we became tuned to what can speed it up or slow it down. The higher self reacts to the same stimuli in our lives, only it retreats and extends. Once we've recognized that the higher self is always present, we can use self-talk and our own individual pattern breakers to keep it active, free, and involved in our daily life.

So, all mysticism aside, it is only through knowing and caring for the higher self that we will ever be truly comfortable with who we are, and that is the essence of spirituality. By recognizing ourselves in every part of the world and reminding others that their contributions are a reflection of who they are, we can begin mending the damage not only to ourselves, but to the earth, and leave our positive imprints for future generations. Caring for our higher selves just might help to ignite the revolution.