Connecting with your spirit guide

In this sketch we see the presence of a Spirit Guide beside the arm... not depicted in a human shape, but as spirit really is: A ball of glowing light.
In this sketch we see the presence of a Spirit Guide beside the arm… not depicted in a human shape, but as spirit really is: A ball of glowing light.

One of my clients recently asked me how she could build a stronger connection with her spirit guides. By the end of the consultation, she was delighted, because she could ‘see’ her primary male guide. I’d love to share with you, some of what we discussed, and the process we used to facilitate a deeper connection.

To begin with, I explained to my client that she needs to meet Spirit half way by engaging her imagination. Spirit is just energy. Guide are intangible and cannot be perceived or understood in our normal human way, through our physical senses. Think of your spirit guides as balls of light. The only reason we insist on them appearing human, is because WE are human.

There is nothing wrong with wanting them to appear human, because perceiving our guides as human enhances our ability to communicate with them….but we need to understand that the idea of a specific body image, shape, sex etc, is a human construct, not a spiritual one.

The specific image we use to REPRESENT any one spirit guide, is constructed by our human brain. We compile an image of our spirit guide using information already present in our visual memory banks. Our spirit guides might only be energy, but they are energy with personality and it is the presence of this personality in our auric space that our intuition uses as a reference point when compiling an image of our guides.

My Tomas is blonde with defined muscle tone, gorgeous dimples and a twinkle in his eye. But he has other facets to him, sometimes appearing as a dark-haired American Indian man, or a white horse, or an eagle. All of these images express the essence of who he is for me, but essentially, they are just images. Tomas is just energy. He doesn’t mind what image I use to represent him, so long as it helps us communicate clearly with one another. And like most humans, I find it easier to communicate with images that are reassuringly familiar and physical…. balls of light can’t convey facial expression after all!

So what I am trying to say is… don’t get so hung up on what your guide looks like. People put off communicating with their guides for years because they don’t know whether it’s a he or a she, short or tall, what colour their hair is…. I can just imagine Spirit rolling their imaginary eyes (because they don’t actually have any). And that, my friends, is they key: IMAGINATION. Use your intuition to pick an image for your guide that appeals to you; something you feel comfortable with, enchanted by. Something that is easy for you to visualise or imagine.

And if you aren’t good at visualising, don’t worry. I’m not particularly good at that either, especially when it comes to facial detail. Most of the time, my guides are just a vague presence in the room with me… and if I want to ‘see’ them, I use my imagination to turn the presence into a figure of light. The ‘figure of light’ trick is a good one, because you get a glowing humanoid shape that doesn’t require details. The details can come later, with time, as you get to know the personality of your guide.

The most important point, is to just get on with communicating with your guides. My recommendation is to keep a diary specific for this purpose and to write in it daily. USE YOUR IMAGINATION. Your imagination is the key to your intuition. Everyday, write in your diary, saying “Hello Spirit Guide.”, and wait for your imagination to come up with a response. What do you think a spirit guide might say in response? What would a wise, loving spiritual being say to you?

Write down the response, and any imagery that comes with it. This will exercise most of your psychic muscles and while at first it might feel a bit forced, staged or fake…don’t worry- at some point, your intuition will kick in and the conversations will take on a very vibrant and real life of their own. But it could take a while. You have to practice, practice, practice.

I have only one rule, when it comes to speaking with spirit guides: they are always positive, unconditionally loving and supportive. If negativity comes up, it’s coming from inside you- from your subconscious. Don’t tolerate it. Get up and walk away. Come back to your diary when you are in a better frame of mind. And this may happen a fair bit in the early days of communicating with your guides. I can guarantee you- if any message or interaction is negative or fear-based, it isn’t Spirit.

And please don’t place ridiculous pressure on your guides to solve all your problems, predict the future to tell you what to do with yourself. If you push for specifics, you are again in danger of tapping into an unhelpful part of your own psyche we might call the trickster. It’s so important to stay grounded when you engage in any spiritual work, and to always assess the psychological value of an interaction. The best guidance spirit has ever given me has seemed maddeningly vague and evasive at the time, and yet proved to have incalculable value. Let your spirit guides be Buddah-like rather than fortune-teller like.

The other thing we did in the consult, was consult with spirit about how to facilitate a deeper connection. In this instance, I functioned as the healer/guide….simply because I have more experience communicating and working with spirit. You too can access help from spiritual healers in your quest for a deeper spiritual connection.

Spirit asked me to remove two big blockages from the clients aura; blockages that were hindering her connection. Spirit also asked me to tell her “We have always been with you, through everything. It’s very important that you begin to believe this.”

For this particular client, being able to look back over the events in her life and have absolute faith that Spirit was there with her throughout all of it, was vital to a deeper connection with Spirit. And it’s possible that this might be a vital step for all of us. Faith is powerful. There are no two ways about it. Spirit is with us all the time, even when we can’t see it or feel it. Spirit wants to help and support us, but we need to let Spirit in by having faith in Spirit.

What most people struggle with, is the belief that if Spirit were with them, life would be easier. But do they ever stop to ask themselves how much harder their experiences could have been? Does it ever occur to them that Spirit is softening the blows, but cannot protect us from everything and neither should they: the human equivalent would be an over-protective parent smothering a child’s growth. We learn through the process of experiencing cause and effect. This last point is part of the reason why it does us no good at all to be constantly seeking prediction and quick solutions from Spirit… or from people like me.

Blessed Be