Differentiation Tricks
When my sense of self contracts down to the small self, there are several little tricks that helps me find myself as space & awareness again. One is to just notice myself as headless, as space & awareness, in my immediate experience.
Another is to notice that anything that appears within myself as space & awareness, is not that which is experiencing. Whatever arises - external and internal to this small self - is not me as the experiencer. Any sensation, emotion, thought, behavior of this small self is different from myself as awareness of it.
This differentiation helps me find myself as space & awareness in which all these experiences arise in the present. It helps me find myself as my fuller holarchy of being.
The process goes from (a) narrow sense of self, identified with the small self, (b) differentiate myself as space & awareness from the small self, the experiencer from the experienced, (c) finding myself as my fuller holarchy of being - as this space & awareness and whatever arises, internal and external to the small self, in the present.