Spirit guides are incorporeal beings that are assigned to us before we are born that help nudge and guide us through life. They’re responsible for helping us fulfill the spiritual contract we make with ourselves before we incarnate. Your higher self helps select these guides, who help us while we are living out our incarnation.

Who are these guides?

Some guides will stay with you throughout your entire life, and others will pop in every now and again to help you with specific areas of your life or goals you are trying to achieve. These guides are at varying levels of consciousness themselves. Some may be highly ascended masters (such as Jesus) and others might be your average spirit who just happens to be a master in a certain area. They may appear to have a male or female energy, though in reality they are just energy. They may be spirits who have had physical incarnations, or they might be spirits who have never taken corporeal form. You may be the only person they are guiding, or they may be on the “panel” for other people as well. They might be deceased relatives, but that is less likely. When it’s time for your spirit guides to help you, they tune in to your energy and help direct you to fulfill your earthly mission.

How do guides help us?

Spirit guides can see what’s going on in our lives, and when it’s time for them to actually guide and/or intervene they have several ways they can accomplish this.

Sending signs. Guides can arrange synchronicities to help alert you to something you need to see or know about. Pay attention to those when they happen. Recently the same scene from the movie, The Incredibles, was shown to me 3 times in 3 different ways in a 24 hour period. I saw it at home while my kids were watching it, at Office Depot (it was playing as a demo on the tv), and someone else mentioned that particular scene to me in conversation. That’s a sign, folks. I got the message.

Gut feelings. Guides can poke you in the gut when you’re experiencing something they want you to pay attention to. Following your gut feelings is probably a good idea. Have you ever had this eerie feeling that something terrible was going to happen but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it? That might be a guide poking you in your gut.

Intuitive insight. Guides can send you flashes of intuition which may sound like a voice in your head. “Slow down!” and then you realize you were almost in a car accident. Or “He’s cheating on you.” These are thoughts that appear to come out of nowhere but which contain important information you’ll want to notice. Many people tune out their intuition, but it’s a valuable source of information.

Sending people into your life. Your guides sometimes get together with other people’s guides and together they try to create a meeting between their charges. Perhaps you are thinking about someone from college and whammo blammo see them in the bookstore later that day. Chance encounter? Probably not. Perhaps you were thinking about moving and you run into your old realtor friend in the supermarket. If it feels like a coincidence, consider that it might be more of a set up.

Arranging and nudging. Guides can also nudge you in the direction they want you to go, or arrange for something to happen to you. For example, perhaps you’re running late and can’t find your keys. You’re frustrated because you need to get somewhere on time. Suddenly, your phone rings and it’s a really important call you would have missed if you had found your keys earlier. Who do you think actually misplaced your keys? This is hard for them because you have free will. They can only arrange so much or nudge so hard. The more you can pick up on their clues, the better. Sometimes you just need to surrender to a situation that seems frustrating.

How do you connect with your guides directly?

Wouldn’t it be great if your guides could just call you on the phone and tell you what’s coming in your future, or tell you to look out for a guy named Joe, or that your child needs you and you should get to them right away? For some people that’s quite nearly how it works. It just takes time and practice to be able to hear, see, or feel your guides. Here are some ways you can work on increasing your connection directly.

Listen to your intuition. That little voice that tells you to “slow down” or “buy bread” or “take notice of the pretty woman in line in front of you” is a direct communication from your guides or higher self. Try listening to your intuition and see what results you get. Many people dismiss their intuition. See what happened to me when I ignored mine. It’s not always pleasant. Do not mistake your ego for your intuition, however. If you’re hearing thoughts like, “Don’t bother asking her out, she’ll never go out with someone like you” then that’s your ego. Flick him off your shoulder.

Go with your gut. Following your gut instinct is also a manner in which guides try to direct you. For example, let’s say you’re in a business meeting and logic and reason tell you that the people sitting in front of you will fulfill their end of the deal, but your gut feeling says these people are going to fail to deliver and you’ll be stuck holding the bag. Listen to that gut feeling. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. At the very least, use your gut feelings to protect and keep yourself safe.

Watch for signs. Ask your guides for what you want and then watch for signs that you’ve been heard. My guides like to show me interesting license plates. For example, at my mastermind meeting recently I put out the intention to become fit, trim, and slim. When I left the meeting I found myself driving behind a vehicle with the license plate, “Fitness.” But signs can come in so many ways. Maybe you’re wondering if you should take up tennis and you go out to your car and see a flyer offering tennis classes in your area, and then you get home and your spouse has coincidentally brought home a tennis racket that a co-worker just didn’t need anymore, and you see a news story about tennis later that night on television. Those are all positive signs.

Journal. A method I recommend to a lot of people during my readings is to open a journal program or just a Word document and write down some questions you’d like to ask your guides. Be quiet and meditative and type up the answers you hear. Keep going as if you’re having a conversation with them. It may seem like you’re just typing answers from your imagination, but keep going. When you get to a point where the answers you’re getting don’t feel like your own voice, take notice of what they say. A benefit of this approach is being able to refer back to it later.

Meditate. Do a meditation where you imagine yourself going to a room or a garden and ask your guides to appear before you, sit with you, and chat. Like the journaling method, just see what they say. In time your connection will become stronger, and the information you get will be more accurate and applicable to your life.

Dream. One of the best ways to meet and connect with your guides is to meet them halfway. Open your dream up to them. You can put out the intention every night to see and connect with your guides in your dreams. It may take a while, but it will probably eventually work. If you can master lucid dreaming you’ll have success much faster since once you become lucid you can simply ask your guides to appear and talk to you.

Ask a psychic. One of the services I offer in my readings is to help people identify at least some of their guides, usually the ones working with them on the areas they’re asking about in the reading. This introduction can help you tune in on your guides yourself.

How do you know if you’re just imagining them?

You’ll know by the advice you get. Does it resonate with you? Do you feel like it’s coming from them and not you? Does the advice make sense to you? Do you get great results when you listen to their counsel? Do they appear the same way every time? If the answers to these questions are all “yes” then you are on the right track.

by Erin Palvina