A quick and effective guide to help you open up and allow your spirit guides to communicate with you.
Building a Relationship with your Guides
Building a relationship with your guides can take years; that was my own experience. Where some may speak to a guide or guides clearly from a young age, I spent years trying to connect with mine. I learned about spirit guides as a kid, reading books by psychic mediums. I wanted to know my own guide, but I was also a little afraid.
Fear of the unknown can be a big obstacle to building a connection with our guides.
Intuition was always my guiding light, and this was the connection to my higher self and my spirit guidance, but I didn’t differentiate between my higher self and my spirit guidance until I began to actively connect and communicate with them.
During meditation, I would ask for my spirit guide’s name, but I wouldn’t receive anything. Sometimes I would just fall asleep! I even tried guided meditations meant to lead you to your spirit guides. None of them ever worked.
I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to connect with them, and along with feeling it was a weird thing to do, I think I also doubted, at least on some level, that I could communicate with my guides, even though I had a solid belief that they were there.
That was, until one afternoon, while sitting in meditation, I was prompted by my intuition (guides) to lay down on my bed. I walked up the stairs, lay down in the bed, and was guided, in my mind, to walk a lovely path toward a beautiful garden. There I was met by beautiful beings that offered me the names of my guides.
What I came to more fully understand in the days following that meditation, was that I was always in tune with my guides. I had a relationship with them already. Knowing their names and working with them as I would another living, breathing person, wasn’t necessary until I was actually given their names. The lesson in not receiving the information about them when I asked was this:
I needed to learn to trust that they were there, even though I couldn’t see them and they weren’t tangible to me.
If you have tried to connect to your guides and you feel you have failed, realize, you don’t need to know their names to work with them. You already work with them, they are always with you, and when you listen to your intuition, you are connecting to them, even if you don’t feel like you are. Spirit guidance is very often subtle. So subtle, we often don’t recognize it for what it is: constant loving support and guidance.
Spirit Guidance is always loving.
When We Least Expect It
The other morning I was meditating, and I was struggling! My mind was going every which way, and the dog was whining and running around tapping his little nails all over the hardwood floor. Just then, as I was trying to settle my mind, my dad came through. My dad passed away in 2003, and I’ve had very few connections with him over the years, but when I do connect with him it is always a powerful and healing experience.
I was telling my daughter recently that I rarely connect with him, and I wonder why. Then, just days later, I see him, and feel him. He hugged me and I felt a rush of loving feelings. I cried and sat, trying to hold onto the moment and to try and dive deeper into the connection.
Trying to concentrate so that I could hold onto the moment, I lost all focus when the dog created so much commotion, it brought me right out of the experience. Whether it was meant to be a short hug, or a longer conversation, I can’t know. Focus is important, and I tried holding on to receive the full message, but maybe he just stopped by to hug me because he knew I needed it. I called him, and he answered.
We can try to force these experiences, but it doesn’t work. Our guides and loved ones come to us in their sweet divine timing. Sometimes that is in the moment we request it, and other times it’s at another, unexpected time. Our job is to be open, be patient, and trust that the experiences that are meant for us will come when we are ready for them. Often, this is when we least expect it.
Loving Guidance
Spirit guidance is always loving. If you feel you are receiving guidance that you aren’t enough, that you need to do more, do better, that you’re failing; this is ego. Spirit guidance is always loving. While it’s true, there are always things we feel we need to improve, spirit guides us to these changes lovingly, and accepts us fully as we are.
Ten Tips for Connecting with Spirit Guides
Have an open mind. The most important tool we have in our spiritual toolkit is an open mind. Once we are able to open ourselves up to the possibility that we aren’t walking alone on this earth, that we are spiritual beings with a soul, that we are deeply loved by an infinite Universe, God, or Source – whatever your preference – that spiritual world opens up for us. We are loved! The more we can open up to this idea, the easier it will be to receive communication from our guides.
Meditation. Meditate in whatever you have found that centers you, that works for you. Meditation can include anything that relaxes the mind and calms the ego; from traditional meditation which regards sitting in silence, to walking, running, hiking, taking a long shower or a bath; whatever activity brings you calm and some sense of inner peace.
*You do not have to clear your thoughts. Though meditation can help you to have a calm mind, some of the thoughts you push away could very well be messages from spirit. If they are loving, guiding, and make you feel good; write them down. Explore them.
Prayer. I learned to pray as a child in religious environments that didn’t align with my personal, innate beliefs. For this reason, it became hard for me to pray, and I felt disconnected because of this. Eventually I took a class. Really! I took a prayer class that taught different kinds of prayers, and this opened me up once again to a Universe that not only heard my prayer, but held me and provided for me in ways I didn’t understand before.
Learning to pray in a way that aligned with my personal understanding of the Universe, brought me closer to my own inner guidance and to my guides.
Journaling. I began to journal after meditation, and soon found that I could use automatic-writing to communicate with my spirit guides. I didn’t intend to do it. I just sat down one day and realized that’s what was happening. Journaling in the morning after you wake, or at night before bed, and consistently, can be a powerful way to connect to your higher guidance, whether you are practicing automatic writing or not.
Oracle Cards and Tarot Cards. Tarot cards crossed my path at a young age, and I always found their guidance rather on-point. I still use tarot and oracle to confirm or solidify guidance I receive from my guides.
Other methods of divination. There are a number of other tools that can be used for divination, and you can use anything at all to gain insight and guidance. Some other methods of divination include divining rods, pendulums, scrying, and reading tea leaves or coffee grounds.
Signs and symbols. Maybe you’re familiar with Angel numbers: 11:11, 333, 555, 777, 999… These, when we recognize them, are powerful indicators that we are on the right track, and opening up to our spirit guidance. Other powerful signs can be feathers, butterflies, birds, sparkles of light or orbs, or anything that you see over and over again, whether a word, a phrase, or a symbol. After my dad passed away, hearts were a big sign for me. I saw them everywhere, in everything. It felt like a hug from the universe.
During several different trips to a local bookstore, every time I went, a book would fly off a shelf nearby and land at my feet. It wasn’t a coincidence, the store wasn’t haunted; it was a sign.
Any sign or symbol can be a sign from your guides. Anything that repeats, that’s consistent, that comes up at a particular time while you’re having a particular thought or feeling, anything and everything that grabs your attention can be considered a sign. If you keep track of them, you will find over time that your guidance is consistent.
Synchronicities. A synchronicity is an event or series of events that connect in a meaningful way. For instance, if you are thinking of someone you haven’t seen in a while, and they suddenly, out of the blue, send you a text message. Seeing repeated numbers, angel numbers, is also a form of synchronicity. The more you recognize the synchronicities in your life, the more of them you experience.
Discovering and developing the Clairs. How we receive guidance can vary from person to person. Some of us are more able to hear guidance, clairaudience, and others just know information, seemingly out of nowhere, claircognizance. Our ability to discern our intuition relies on The Clairs, and which of our senses are the strongest. Some of us have natural access to all of them to some degree, while others naturally have one or two of them. We all have access to these senses; everyone can develop them.
Media messages. One of my favorite ways to receive guidance is through music. I’ve also received messages from music, books, the internet, and even a commercial or two. When we remain open to signs, synchronicities, and messages; we find them all around us.
After someone I loved dearly passed away, I went for a hike to grieve. I took my headphones, which I never do when I’m hiking. Every song that streamed felt like a message, and the songs began to weave together to make a sort of mental tapestry for me. I created a playlist of these songs and it deeply helped me heal from the loss, and to feel more connected to the loved one who had passed.
Our loved ones help us grieve; they remain with us to comfort us and try to tell us that they still exist; they are always with us.
Anything that spirit can use to communicate with us, they will use, and whatever we personally enjoy most is going to work the best because your guides are here FOR you, so they will follow your lead and use anything you’ll pay attention to to offer messages of guidance and love.
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