Spirit guide:   a benevolent, spiritually advanced, disincarnate spirit who acts as a guide or protector for a living, incarnated human being.

Your spirit guides are with you at all times. You are their spiritual assignment. They are trainers, ready to assist your spiritual and emotional growth but you must believe they are real. They can’t help if you don’t first ask and then listen to their messages. How deep is your desire?

The asking part is the easiest, and yet many people do not know to ask. It is as simple as saying, “Hello, dear Spirit Guide(s). I’m confused (or sad, or afraid, or whatever) and I need your help and guidance.”

The trickier part is learning to listen to their guidance. You want to hear them, but may not know how. Because they are not embodied in earth suits, and they vibrate to a higher frequency than we do, we have to be still and receptive to catch the message. Yet it is a skill that can be learned by anyone.

Hint: They don’t walk right up and speak loudly to you.

While you may hear them speaking through a voice in your head, or out of a stranger’s mouth, they may come as a smell, a feeling, a dream or other way. This calls for your attention to detail and a willingness to be open to the creative ways they try to engage with you.

For instance, have you ever been distressed and asked for help? Then have you turned on the radio, and a song comes on that gives you guidance? On several occasions, while stressing over an elusive answer, I have heard Paul McCartney singing “Let It Be” on the radio and I know I will have an answer soon. Thank you, Guides.

On another occasion, my curiosity about my principal spirit guide was fulfilled through a massage therapist.  A year before, I had asked my guide to reveal himself to me, and he replied in my head, “I am always standing behind you.” (I thought that he meant he has my back) I glimpsed a tall male figure dressed in white. Scroll forward a year later, when the massage therapist was working on me.  She said, “My goodness, your guide is so tall, and he’s standing right behind you.” Several others over the years have reported seeing him. He’s always behind me, both literally and figuratively.

There are other guides, too, who seem to come and go when the situation calls for it. I have a guide who presents herself to me as a plump, short, motherly woman and says her name is Margaret. I, on occasion, have a Native American guide who appears so very old that I have never been able to tell her or his sex. This being mostly communicates with grunts, and I cannot pronounce her or his name. Sometimes, I see an old Chinese medicine man who won’t give me his name. I know he is here when I see a flash of purple behind my eyelids.

The more often you ask and then listen for an answer, the more often the information comes through. These loving beings have a treasure trove of information for you and they are waiting to share it.

Here are a few ways to learn to communicate with your spirit guides:

1. First of all, believe that they are not only with you, but also there especially for YOU.
2. Tell your spirit guides that you would like for them to reveal themselves to you. You can ask them to show up in your dreams, or in meditation, sitting in nature, or another way. But don’t be surprised if they choose a different way.
3. Spend time in your garden or a park or greenbelt – somewhere in nature where it is quiet. Calm your mind with a mantra, state your desire to communicate, ask a question, and then listen. A mantra is a positive phrase repeated over and over, so it could be as simple as, “I am at peace.”
4. Be aware of interesting encounters with animals.  I don’t mean ordinary sightings. In other words, not just seeing a mockingbird in the tree, but that you see something unusual like a coyote walking down the street in broad daylight or a snake slithers across your path. Then turn to a book like “Animal Speak” by Ted Andrews, or “Animal Spirit Guides” by Steven Farmer, or even go to the internet where you can find the symbolic meanings of these animals. Your guides may communicate with you in that manner. It seems a favorite way mine use.
5. Write results in your journal so that you remember them. Sometimes, you get a lot of information quickly, and it can slip out of your head if not jotted down fairly soon afterward.

Good luck in working with your spirit guides. And let me hear about your successes. I’m excited for you.

Spirit guide: a soul who has evolved over many lifetimes and has reached higher levels of transformation than the average person. This discarnate soul has chosen to act as a guide and protector to an incarnated human being.

I first learned of my spirit guide many years ago. It was before I became a chiropractor. I was doing a polarity therapy session and was standing at the client’s feet. She opened her eyes and said, “Do you know there is a very tall (invisible) man standing behind you? He’s wearing all white, and he’s about 7 feet tall.” We talked about it at the end of the session, and I wanted to believe her, but wasn’t sure.

Soon after chiropractic college, I got a psychic reading. The reader told me that my guide said to let me know he was always behind me, backing me up. At that time, I thought it was a metaphor. Soon, I knew different.

A couple of months later during a stressful time in my life, I was receiving a massage from an intuitive woman. She told me that, when I walked into the room, she saw a tall man dressed in white standing directly behind me. He was smiling and looking tenderly at me.

Since that time, I have had many interactions with him. While I’ve never seen him, I ask his help when I need guidance or information. When I must have an unpleasant conversation with someone, I ask that he step in and smooth it out. I ask for help in saying the right thing.

While working with clients, I call in their spirit guides and angels and mine to assist me with the clearings. Sometimes, clients are confused about the difference between the two. Let me explain how spirit guides communicate with you.

Spirit guides are not angels. They are wise beings who have walked the earth in the past and have chosen to act as a guide for us in this lifetime. As part of their spiritual growth, they are responsible for assisting us to complete the spiritual contract we make with ourselves.

We each have our own special guide who is with us from birth until death. We are never alone. There are no exceptions.

Doreen Virtue, a noted angel expert, says these disembodied souls have received special training to be a guide. There are guides who come to give help with certain issues and then leave. But your special one is always there. Sometimes, one’s guide is a relative who has passed.

Spirit guides have many ways to intervene and help us see the right path to take. But we must be conscious and pay attention when the signs appear. Here are four examples of how they work:

1. Events of synchronicity.  Guides may arrange, with the help of another spirit guide, for you to meet a person who can help you. Perhaps you meet him at a lecture and three days later, you see him again in the vegetable section of the grocery store. Pay attention. Unbeknownst to him, he may have some important information to convey to you through casual conversation.
2. You get a “gut feeling.” Someone introduces you to a person who, by appearances, seems lovely. She requests to spend more time with you or offers a gift or assistance with something. You get that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach that screams, “No! Avoid this person.” Later, you discover that she creates havoc wherever she goes.
3. Intuitive flashes. These are thoughts that seem to come out of the blue. You are thinking about one thing and suddenly, a completely unrelated thought speaks loudly to you. It could be a nonsensical, such as “Take a different road” when you are driving, and you find a new store you were hoping to find. Or, something whimsical like “Buy an extra serving for dinner,” and a friend shows up unexpectedly.
4. Signs – Animals are my most frequently-noticed sign. For instance, when I see a hawk, I try to stop immediately and analyze what I am thinking.  The hawk is often referred to as the messenger, and there is a message in those thoughts or in something in my vicinity.  I refer to the book “Animal Speak” when I notice an animal I don’t usually see. The book is chock full of information about the symbology of individual animals.

Also, there may be something that you see that is unusual, something out of place, like a pigeon sitting in the middle of the street. It could be that the bird is trying to give you a message.

To be sure, there are other methods your spirit guide uses to speak to you. The key is to remain observant of things you hear and see.

Do ask for help from your spirit guide. He or she is waiting for the opportunity to help. Take a moment to just say out loud what you need help with. You don’t have to know his/her name.