When you don't -- when you consciously won't -- express some negative state, you are literally asking for awareness of a higher self. Here's why...
As you don't express that state, you become conscious of yourself as the ground upon which it is breaking as well as the presence of that visiting state. In this moment of new awareness there is something there inside of you, with you, that won't change when the state changes.
If you'd like to take the next step in doing the inner work required to help set you free from yourself, here are some suggested ways to begin detaching from these visiting states:
The next time that you're somewhere by yourself and suddenly in comes this complaining visitor -- you know what I'm talking about -- the whining, negative state that wants to grumble about the way your life is - go silent and be a conscious witness to that self that wants to hold onto or glorify misery. Don't give expression to the state. This act of self-sacrifice is the same as asking to be lifted above yourself.
Dare to look at yourself when you denigrate other people, and you'll see that you feel this need to lash out because it seems to you as though they've made your ground shake. The truth is, they didn't make your ground shake. You're just being visited by a vicious, shaky state. Not expressing the state, not gossiping, is a form of requesting for yourself something that doesn't need to talk about other people in order to give you a permanent sense of yourself.
Consciously refuse to go along with any fear that directs you to protect yourself from an enemy it has projected onto the screen of your mind. Such fear is then revealed as the psychic intruder, the intimate enemy that it really is. This new and higher self-awareness will give you what you need in the moment to set you free from the fear overshadowing you.
Give up the last word in any disagreement, regardless of its seeming importance, because the you that wants the last word isn't you at all; it's just that dark spirit of one-upmanship and combativeness. When you say "I" to it, it's the same as giving your whole life to it. But when you don't express it for the first time, you'll become conscious of its presence in you, and you'll realize its presence there is a punishment and not some power that it passes itself off as being while you're identified with it.
As you begin to work with these new inner actions, you will see them as the invitation they are for the Truth to take your side. Then you'll also start to see how you can extend this conscious invitation all the time, everywhere you go!
You will no doubt hear other inner visitors telling you, "If you don't express this, you're going to explode!" Don't listen to them. Listen instead to Truth's instructions in any of these inner situations. Truth says to go ahead and dare that visitor to do everything it can do to you, including taking your life if that's what it wants! Stand on the ground of this new knowledge. Watch yourself. Don't push anything away (or down) and don't give yourself up to what wants your life. Remain with the Truth, with what is eternal. Remain within what is not the state.
Each person attracts certain types of inner visitors, so take the time to look into your own life. See where it is that you are like what you are because of what you are allowing within you. Start this very moment to become aware of all inner states. Your conscious refusal to go along with them is the same as requesting a life that is not dominated by them - a life with the Truth as your closest and truest friend.