After a few weeks of sitting in meditation with just the simple goal of feeling peace all throughout your system and a sense of divine love, you may feel inspired to open and receive communication from your helpers in the spirit realm.
A lot of the meditation community call these helpers “spirit guides.” I’ll use that term for the sake of conversation. Just know that ultimately they are one with you on a soul level, and they have the task of assisting you from the immaterial, inner realms. In older paradigms, mystics would refer to guides as their “angels.” Also know that you have a primary guide, or a helper who is with you your whole life, and then you have a team of helpers that come in for specific times in your life.
Okay, that’s at least a starting point. I’ll be sure to share more about spirit guides in the future (because there are a lot of different types), but for now let’s continue on about what you can expect when connecting with your guides.
1. They speak to us in the language of symbols.
The first reason for this is because the language of symbols is more universal. Symbolism is the language of the subconscious, or what I refer to as the superconscious. That’s the part of your mind that is connected to the totality of consciousness. Carl Jung spoke extensively about symbolism and how it functions universally in the human mind.
The language we speak here in our earthly life is pretty narrow. English, for instance, can be understood best as a cultural implementation. Divine communication on the other hand transcends culture. If you zoom out and look at our full soul trajectory, not just our present incarnation, we’ve spoken many earth languages. Because you’re guides know you as a soul, and on some level they share a soul with you, they’re addressing you on the soul level. That’s why symbols sometimes work better than language does. Symbols are wide-reaching and can often be culturally universal.
This isn’t to say that your guides won’t ever give you direct guidance. Like “save more money” or “you need to rest.” They do this for me all the time. But what I’d like you to know is that the majority of content that comes in will be up for interpretation, sort of like in the dream state.
Something else to know is that the meanings I ascribe to certain symbols will not always be the same as yours. We all have our unique lexicon of symbolic meaning. You and your guide will develop those meanings over time.
Still, there’s no harm in picking up a good book on symbols and their historic meanings. I have a great one that I adore by Barbara Walker (who is a boss), and I use it all the time, especially in my creative writing.
Here are a few examples of symbols that my guides have used with me over the years, just so you can get a sense of what to expect:
- Porcupine = protection
- Chalice = the mystic
- Telescope = star guides or interdimensional
- dolphin and whale = Sirius star system
Another reason why we get symbolic messages instead of direct or declarative statements is this: our spirit guides want to be gentle with us.
Here’s the deal. We have free will; that’s what keeps the journey of the soul interesting and dynamic. Therefore, our guides don’t want to give us all the answers. They don’t want to come in and tell you what to do, which would be disempowering for us. That’s also why good parents won’t tell their kids how to manage all their affairs. Making meaning and decisions on our own is how we learn, right?
For example, I asked my guides to show me a lifetime where I was super strong in the gifts that I am meant to unfold in my current life. They told me it was tricky… that showing me what I wanted to see would create a positive feedback loop that would increase my desire to become like the vision. In a word, they would be creating a reality by answering my question. Good, responsible guides understand their power to alter our lives. And they’ll use their assistance and communication judiciously.
2. You’re not always going to know what a message means.
Just know that it’s totally normal to get a flash of a message and have no idea where it fits in the bigger picture. That’s the case for all of us. But Spirit knows what it’s doing. Often the meaning will come later.
It’s also possible that on some level, you feel you’ve received a message out of context, but really on a subconscious level you in fact know the deeper meaning and have processed the full impact of the communication. We don’t always have to be conscious of our guide’s full meaning in order for their communication to benefit us.
Also know that if you don’t know what something means, you can dialogue with your guide and ask them to explain a little further. Ask them to clarify. If you can’t get anything substantial in the way of clarification in the same sitting as the first impression, don’t be afraid to go in on another day or time and ask again. I do this a lot, and it works well for me. But I’m stubborn like that.
3. It might sometimes feel like you can’t hear your guides.
It’s common to experience periods of “inner silence.” Really, on some level, you’re always receiving divine input, but it’s not always super apparent. There are so many reasons why this is, and those reasons will be different for each of us. Here are a few common reasons you may be experiencing “silence”:
- You still need to release fear from your system. Use affirmations that state your divine protection and peace. (This is the biggest block I’ve found in myself, and almost everyone experiences this one.)
- You have expectations and goals relating to your psychic development. This contracts you psychically, which makes your intuitive body too narrow to receive guidance. Let go of any goals.
- You still need to surrender to the will of your higher soul. Communication doesn’t happen because you will it to; it happens when you come into alignment with the divine plan for your life.
- Your guides want you to evolve your intuition and “find” them in a new ability. This is how they grow us. If we start out really strong in clairvoyance, then sometimes they will recede until you can develop your clairaudience or other “clair” to reach them.
- Because your guides have decided it’s not time for some reason:
For instance, I had an intense period of silence from 2016-2017. My boyfriend’s house at the time happened to be pretty pretty haunted. My guides didn’t open me extensively during those years, because I would be in close contact with some spirits that were not especially friendly. Which would have likely shut me down psychically over time because of how new I was to the practice.
BUT…When I got my own place in the late summer of 2017, my spiritual gifts opened gradually and widely. I was back on track, and I could feel the shift. The thing to know is that your guides won’t open you unless it’s safe. They want you to have a peaceful experience with the other side.
My last point about inner silence is this: know that your can ask your guides how you might strengthen the connection with them. When I asked mine this question, they told me to direct divine energy to my psychic glandes (my spiritual eye in the center of my forehead, my crown chakra and my heart chakra). They also told me chanting every day would strengthen the connection. Cool, right?
4. Always ask for a “high level guide.”
When practicing prolonged meditation with the goal of connecting with the sacred, it’s important to know that there are different levels of beings on what I’ll call the “other side.”
I plan to go into this topic much further in another post, but just for today I want you to know that you are safe to connect with your personal spirit guides. Just make sure you expressly state in writing or out loud in your protective prayer in the beginning of your meditation that you want to connect with “only high level guides.” In the realms of spirit, reality follows intention and directive consciousness. Your words have power. Your belief has power.
After creating a deep, peaceful state of mind, and using your intention to connect with higher level, unconditionally-loving guides, most of the time you’ll create a direct channel of communication to exactly who you asked for.
That being said, there are times when even the strongest mystics will come across negative beings in the higher realms. It happens. It shouldn’t happen often, but just know that it’s a thing. And know that it’s nothing to be afraid of. If you experience this, simply reset your meditation by opening your eyes or changing your energy to big big big bright love and reaffirming your protection by and connection to God. That should do it. Also, feel free to end the meditation then and there if you want and try again another day if you need to recalibrate and get in a better state. You’re in control of your experience at all times.
Here are the clues that the energy you’re experiencing is a negative one, just so you know to ignore it:
- accusatory language
- guilt trips
- distorted imagery
- degrading imagery
- plainly frightening content
- flashes of violence, etc.
All that’s pretty obvious right? Our guides will never talk to us in this way. They don’t want to upset, disturb or confuse us. They’re like our god-parents. They want us to feel peace, loved and unity with our higher soul. Their information is wise and benevolent and constructive.
More on how to transcend negative energy in the lower astral later. For now, just know that a negative being can’t “get” you. You are a sovereign soul, and you don’t give them that power or permission. Just like you would leave the party if a jerk was bothering you, just exit the situation if you come upon a snarky being in the higher realms.
It doesn’t happen often to me, but when it does I just open my eyes and reset the meditation and reaffirm my protection and re-establish deep peace and gratitude in my heart, which naturally propels me above the lower astral. This works for me, and it works for a lot of intuitive meditators.
The more you trust in your higher power’s strength, the more protected you are. Belief is powerful in that way.
5. Use your discernment.
Maybe some will disagree with me on this, but I believe that we should only incorporate meditative guidance that feels right for us. This is the subjective take on truth.
Here are some practical ways to sense your truth:
- How does the information make you feel? Info that is a good fit for you will make you feel strength, peace and order. Take a couple of days or even a week to feel into this. This form of peace in my experience feels like stillness. An inner quiet or rest. It is a palpable feeling and gorgeous!
- Is the information compatible with what else you know to be true of yourself? Does it fit with the rest of you? If it doesn’t, the timing may not be right.
- Meditate on it a few times. Ask your guides to clarify and provide more insight around this topic. If it’s right for you, they’ll show you ways the concept could benefit you in everyday life.
- Don’t be shy about bouncing divine guidance off of a trusted friend like a therapist or soul sis. I do this a lot with my therapist who is down with the “woo.” lol.
That being said, I do believe there are some universal truths or laws. But I also believe that there is a level of truth that is subjective, or personally determined. Truths that fit us well like a good pair of jeans.
At the end of the day, intuitive people see a lot of things. Doing this work long enough, you’ll see that the majority of divine guidance you receive is super constructive and useful in your every day life. BUT you’ll also notice some guidance may not completely feel like it’s right for you. Leave it for another day. Requests from spirit that are truly for you and vitally important to your betterment will continue to come in again and again.
For example, my guides gently invited me to consider cutting out meat last year. Probably because I’ve had many lifetimes as a vegetarian, and taking on that lifestyle would unlock gifts that were connected to those previous incarnations.
It took me something like a year to implement this lifestyle after my guide asked me to consider it. It’s not that I’m a slow learner. I was waiting for a time that felt right. I was waiting for that choice to feel right for me.
The main take-away when working with spirit guides is that the choice is always ours. Because we have free will. That’s the deal here. Free will and choice is a gift and an empowering one, and our guides totally respect that at the end of the day it’s better for our soul’s growth for us to make the calls in our life.
As I said in the beginning of this article, higher guidance is gentle feedback and generally up for interpretation. It’s a lot like a work of art in that way. When you’re at a gallery and looking at a painting you like, the point isn’t to discern THE meaning. The point is to feel into what it means TO YOU. What do you see? What does it inspire in you?
Spirit’s guidance isn’t meant to take us over or take control of our lives. It’s gentler than that I find. The best way to use guidance is to let it act as a prompt in your psyche to think in new ways, to tweak your perception to consider different angles. To gently soften your defenses and open your heart to more love.
I think I’ll leave it there for today. I hope that helps and makes sense.
So..I’m dying to know your thoughts.
Leave in the comments section below what you’ve experienced when connecting to your guides.
I’ll be sure to post again soon, in the meantime you can reach me at sissatsuma@gmail.com with any questions you have about the meditation process.
I also do readings and one-on-one mentoring for anyone who’s trying to take their intuitive meditation to the next level.
Until next time.
Satsuma Diaries 
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