You’ve probably heard it before in spiritual settings: everything you need is already inside you. It sounds really nice, and it might even make you feel good, but it can leave you wondering how it happens.
Laura Day, is a practicing intuitive who has been teaching for over 40 years. She calls that inner knowledge your Master Self, the highest, wisest version of you across every point of your life, past, present and future. In her words, you are your own master guide and your own guardian angel.
Laura joined me on Dear Guides to walk through how to reach that part of yourself, how it connects to something much bigger, and how to use it to change your reality.
What Is Your Master Self?
According to Laura, your Master Self is the highest, wisest version of you across every point of your life: past, present and future. Laura grounds this in physics. She points to Einstein’s view of space and time to suggest that the highest version of you already exists at a different point in space-time.
“Your master self is your ability to dialog with that part of yourself.” — Laura Day
Most of us externalize wisdom, we assume a teacher, a healer or someone other than us has the answers. Laura’s view is that the wisdom is already yours, and the practice is learning to communicate with it.
Oneness, Separateness and the Universal Mind
Some teachers call the field of collective energy the Universal Mind. Laura playfully calls it “the blob”: all the energy together, all one. In her view, we as individuals are doing the hard part. We take that oneness and make the effort to be separate, with bodies, choices and responsibilities.
Your Master Self is that hard work taken to its highest degree. When you’re in dialogue with it, it can guide you through the messy, confusing parts of being human.
What Does “You Are Your Own Master Guide” Mean?
It means you have an inner guru, an inner healer and an inner guardian angel available to you at any moment. I find so much comfort in that, because it means I’m never facing life alone.
My training is in Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS). In IFS, we talk about Self with a capital S, the calm, compassionate essence inside each of us. The more I’ve developed that presence, the more I can bring my fear-based thoughts to it and receive compassion and clarity in return. Laura’s Master Self gave me a new way into that same relationship.
Laura says everyone gets there from a different place. Some people find it through compassion, some through openness, and some by finding their inner warrior. Being your own master guide doesn’t mean being happy all the time. Laura laughs about her own “pond slime moments” and reminds us of the saying “no mud, no lotus.”
How to Access Your Master Self With a Water Bottle
This is the practice I’m now using every day. It’s simple, and it works because it gets the conversation out of your head. It’s taken from Laura’s book: The Prism: Seven Steps to Heal Your Past and Transform Your Future.
Laura explained that when we try to talk to ourselves internally, it gets messy. There are so many dialogues running at once. Giving your Master Self a physical form lets you interact with it more clearly.
How to Do the Practice
- Place an object in front of you. A water bottle works perfectly. Designate it: “You are my Master Self.”
- Ask for help. Something as direct as “I’m having trouble with this. What do I do?”
- Notice where your attention goes. You might remember a video, a book or a friend who’s already doing what you want to do. You might notice a bird on a tapestry and suddenly think of the park outside your home.
- Follow it, if it’s safe. Laura’s view is that the answer often lives in your interaction with the world. Go to the park. Call the friend. Pull the book off the shelf.
What Came Through When I Tried It
I tried it live with Laura. I told my bottle I was having trouble in a relationship that was really triggering me. I heard “Listen to me.” Laura had said the name Fritz earlier in our conversation, and my grandmother’s name was Fritzie, so it felt like her saying, “I’m going to help you, but you’ve got to listen to me.”
Then Laura read my bottle without knowing any details. She said there needed to be some space, without anger and without making a statement, and that I had the absolute right to make my own choice. It was very accurate. I want you to try this now. Pause, look at whatever object is in front of you, and ask it for help.
How to Access Your Intuition in Everyday Life
Laura says part of the problem with receiving intuition is that we expect it to arrive by winged angel. It usually doesn’t. It comes as a mix of sensations, images, memories and distractions.
Once you begin an intuitive process, everything you experience is part of it, even an itch on your head. That’s how you train intuition away from intellect. Your thinking narrows your focus, and intuition follows your attention as it moves around.
Laura also teaches that intuition is in the interaction with your life, and it’s happening all the time. What gives it direction is having goals. Goals give your intuition context, so your conscious and subconscious mind both have a roadmap.
Here are the ways your Master Self tends to speak:
- A person comes to mind, or you run into someone unexpectedly
- A book, video or poster seems to jump out at you
- An idea for an action arrives out of nowhere
- A memory surfaces that holds a clue
- A small, safe impulse, like Laura’s example of taking half a chocolate cake to a neighbor you’ve never met
Can Your Ego Block Your Intuition?
Laura uses the word ego differently from how I usually do. To her, ego is your powerful machinery for taking the energy you’re part of, setting a goal and creating it. You can see it in a baby reaching to grasp something.
Damaged ego is the part that repeats the same mistakes over and over, patterns ingrained by about age seven, before we could question them. That’s what blocks intuition. It keeps your attention circling the old story.
Laura’s antidote is to step outside your usual world. When her state isn’t good, she goes somewhere she wouldn’t normally go, somewhere that doesn’t resonate with her. Anything that feels familiar resonates with the old dynamic, and something new invites a catalyst.
Can It Change as an Adult?
Yes. Laura was candid about working on what she calls her “crappy little temper.” She realized it was really overwhelm. She would get flooded and then lash out. As she worked on it, she noticed she was included in more situations, and she slept better without all that stress.
“A tiny interaction, a tiny change can change your entire life.” — Laura Day
A Heart-Centered Telepathy Practice for a Difficult Relationship
Laura taught a telepathy exercise I want you to try. She explained that we think telepathy comes from our head, but in her experience it comes from the heart. She described the heart as having the strongest electrical charge in the body, sending that charge out with every beat.
- Let one hand represent the person you’re having difficulty with.
- Keep your eyes open. Laura’s point is that you’ll need your intuition in daily life, rarely on a mountaintop.
- Drop into your heart and ask what result you want. Make it tangible. When Laura asked me, my answer was relief.
- Slowly bring the person’s energy into that feeling by bringing your hand toward your chest.
- When your hand touches your chest, let it rest there. Feel the contact between you, with your goal held in that energy. Stay until it feels done.
- Notice what shifts over the next minutes, hours or days.
Laura says you’ll feel your own energy change, the other person’s energy change, and a third energy, the connection between you.
Quantum Entanglement and Spirituality: Why Contact Continues
When I asked Laura about quantum entanglement, she explained it through her own framework. Energetically we are all one. Physically, once you make contact with someone, whether in person, at a distance or through telepathy, that contact continues.
This is where so many of us get into energetic trouble. We think we can simply walk away. Laura teaches that you need to put a period at the end of your sentences and renegotiate your contracts. A common example is a love contract that started as “you can possess me as long as you take care of me” and no longer fits. Both people have to take responsibility for renegotiating it. (If this resonates, you may also love this post on how to cut energetic cords.)
Even small contacts count. Someone cuts you off on the highway and you argue with them in your head for two hours. Laura’s advice is to close it consciously.
How to Use Your Intuition to Reach Your Goals
Laura says real spiritual attainment includes being able to get what you want in the material world, whether that’s love, money, standing or a good pizza. She lays out a clear process.
Step 1: Choose No More Than Three Goals
Avoid a laundry list. Choose up to three goals that sit under one umbrella. Laura’s umbrella is family: her work feels like family, her travel feels like family, and her family feels like family. Write your goals down, or draw them if you’re more visual.
Aim them like an arrow at a bull’s-eye. Instead of “I want to be happy,” ask what feeling and effect you actually want.
Step 2: Notice What You Notice, and Write It Down
Once your goals are set, notice the people, ideas, books, videos and posters that seem to come from left field. Laura carries a pen everywhere, and a voice note works too. Look for good things without ignoring the bad.
Step 3: Interact, As Long As It’s Safe
“Miracles happen in interaction.” — Laura Day
Laura is clear that intuition is never an excuse for passive or dangerous behavior. If you get a sign to quit the job that pays your bills to become a writer, she’d question that sign. Wake up half an hour earlier and write instead.
This step brought back one of the most important moments of my life. I was in a yoga class and kept hearing, “Go upstairs to the 12-step meeting.” I left halfway through. Upstairs was a young woman with one day sober, and our connection became a turning point for her. She told me many times she might never have gone back if we hadn’t met.
Why Laura Says to Verify Your Intuition Instead of Trusting It
This was the biggest unlock of the episode for me. When I said Laura had given us practices for trusting our intuition, she stopped me. She doesn’t believe in trusting it.
“Don’t trust your intuition. Document it. Verify it.” — Laura Day
For Laura, intuition is a tool you refine, the same way you refine your intellect. She says intuition should be accurate, immediate and actionable, even when it’s about the future, because the reason you’re getting it now is to do something now. She also says to get the detail first and verify it afterward, instead of doing the research and then looking for the detail.
Once or twice a week, she reviews what she’s written down. She checks her predictions and underlines the ones that haven’t happened yet, since timing can be funny. Over time she begins, in her words, to tell herself the story of the successful her.
Practice Reading for Each Other
Laura says we’re our own hardest reading, and she finds a reading community so valuable. Grab your spiritual running buddy, give them no details, and let them riff on your bottle.
She even does this with her husband, a former journalist who prefers the safety of data. She writes several questions down, picks one without knowing which it is, and asks him to follow his attention while she writes down everything he says.
Know Where Your Intuition Is Shaky
Documenting also shows you where you need to learn. Laura shared that because of how she was raised, the one place she needs to mistrust her intuition is romantic relationships. So she asked her two best friends to introduce her only to men they had known for at least ten years. That’s how she found her husband.
Resources
Read Laura’s book The Prism.
Read my book The Universe Has Your Back.
Want to go deeper? Join me for Dear Guides Live on Nov 21 via livestream or in-person in NYC and learn how to connect to your angels and spirit guides. Get all the details here.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is your Master Self? Your Master Self is intuitive Laura Day’s term for the highest, wisest version of you across every point of your life, past, present and future. In her teaching, that version of you already exists, and your work is to learn how to dialog with it so it can guide you.
What does “you are your own master guide” mean? It means the wisdom you’re looking for is already available to you. Laura teaches that we tend to externalize wisdom and assume someone else holds the answers. When you learn to communicate with your Master Self, you become your own guide, healer and guardian angel.
How do you access your inner guide or higher self? Put an object, like a water bottle, in front of you and designate it as your Master Self. Tell it what’s going on, using whichever sense comes naturally to you. Then notice where your attention goes next, and if the direction is safe, follow it.
Can your ego block your intuition, and can it change as an adult? Yes, it can. Laura distinguishes healthy ego, the drive that turns energy into goals, from damaged ego, the patterns set in early childhood that make us repeat old mistakes. Those patterns can change in adulthood through goals, conscious practice, documentation and new interactions.
Should you always trust your intuition? Laura says no. Document it, verify it, and notice where it tends to be less reliable for you. In those areas, lean on people who love you and on your intellect too.
How do you use your intuition to reach your goals? Choose no more than three goals under one umbrella and write them down. Notice and record the people, ideas and events that come your way, act on the interactions that are safe, and review your notes once or twice a week.