Your particular spiritual guidance squad, the team of spirit guides assigned to you, could include any or all of the following: Spirit animals could show up for the first time in a dream, in your backyard, or on your co-worker’s coffee mug. My guides have told me that all ascended masters are partners and work together in harmony, no matter what culture or religion they were part of when they were alive. One of your grandmothers could be an important spirit guide for you, whether you knew her well in life or not. In fact, any human who has passed on might become a spirit guide for you. If you’re a dancer, you could have a spirit guide on your team who was once a dancer and performer too and now wants to help guide and inspire you as an artist. An example would be realizing you need to improve your romantic relationship after having a fight with your partner before bedtime, and out of the blue the next day you notice a book about communication in romantic relationships sitting on a co-worker’s desk. Spirit guides could also communicate to you through numbers or number sequences like 111, or you might have a lucky number, and when you go for a job interview, your lucky number is in the company’s address. Spirit guides could talk to you by sending musical messages, like a song that always inspires you playing on the radio when you get in the car after a rough day. Spirit guides might send you a dream that gives you an idea about how to handle a situation, or a guide could even appear to you in a dream. Spirit guides even send helpful people and opportunities your way, another form of communication that often requires you to take action (asking an interesting new person in your life out to lunch, buying a ticket to a transformational workshop) regarding the person or opportunity your guide has sent or somehow put on your radar. Action step: Try opening up some space in your schedule or taking some responsibilities off your plate, if possible. When you’re not rushing around, you’ll notice more messages from your guides. Help quiet your mind by finding a meditation practice that works for you so you can get better at creating more space in between your thoughts. Action step: Remind yourself on your train commute to work or while you’re showering in the morning that every day your guides are sending you messages. If you’re trying to make a major decision, or you’re going through big changes or challenges, expect the guidance coming at you to increase to help you navigate this situation. While your guides know you and your life well, it can be powerful to use your free will to ask for help and guidance. You can also use this journal to record any important signs they send. Action step: Write your guides a letter at the beginning of the week and express gratitude for a sentence or two about anything in your life you think they’ve helped with recently. Then spend a few sentences asking them for help or guidance on a specific issue. For the rest of the week, watch for synchronicities from your guides regarding this issue. Giving a guide a name makes them feel more real and may encourage you to connect with them more regularly. You may also come to know the personality of one of your guides after working more closely with them over time. Action step: See if a name comes to you for one of your guides via your intuition or a synchronicity, or get creative and give them a name. If a guide is always offering you help taking your career to the next level, they might be serious and motivated. Yet another guide could be playful and always send you humorous guidance, encouraging you to lighten up and enjoy the ride. Action step: Practice energetically releasing an issue to your guides, perhaps just temporarily. Try to quiet your mind instead of strategizing and worrying. Use a mantra like, “I’m surrendering this issue over to my guides to see what they can do.” Action step: Attend a workshop, take an online class, or read a book about spirit guides, like one of my most recent, Angel Intuition. Notice if simply learning more about them magically opens you up to more communication. Your guides will be excited they have your attention! You can hear gentle voices in your mind (clairaudience); see guidance as images in your mind (clairvoyance); know guidance as breakthrough thoughts or mental downloads (claircognizance); or feel guidance as energy, emotions, or physical sensations (clairsentience). Action step: Practice using your intuition to make small decisions the outcome of which aren’t a big deal, like where to go for lunch with a co-worker. You can also play a game with your intuition right now by asking it which method here you should emphasize to communicate more with your spirit guides. Ask for a number between 1 and 10. Did you hear a number in your mind, see a number in your mind, have a strong knowing about a number as a thought, or feel drawn to a certain number when you looked back over this list? Having regular spiritual practices—like drawing an oracle card every morning for inspiration, taking a meditative yoga class once a week, or attending a spiritual gathering once a month with other people—will create more intimacy with your spirit guides. Action step: Do something in the next few weeks, like a new moon or full moon ritual, to create more regular spiritual practices in your life. You can also make a list of some of your most important spiritual beliefs. For example, you may have a strong belief that the soul lives on after the body dies, or feel closer to Spirit whenever you spend time in nature. Action step: As soon as you finish reading this article, ask your spirit guides for help in your thoughts with something you’ve been worried about. Then also ask for help from a loved one, co-worker, expert, or health care professional. You deserve all the support you need! Action step: Before you work with your divination tool, take your cards or anything else in your hands and hold them for a minute, closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths to center yourself. Then silently ask your spirit guides to send you a helpful, healing message through this tool. When you’re going through big changes, it can help ground you to feel connected to your spirituality and your spirit guides. Watch a documentary or movie with spiritual themes, listen to a podcast by a spiritual leader who resonates with you, or read an uplifting and inclusive book about spirituality for 20 minutes every night before bed. Your spirit guides very much want to have a closer relationship with you. As you open up to and attempt more communication with them, you may be pleasantly surprised by how many messages you notice. Your spirit guides already send you so many messages. For most people, the invitation is to start recognizing the communication that’s already happening.
