Tips for Working with Your Spirit Guides
Thanks to everyone who attended the live teleclass with Andrea Hess from Empowered Soul. Talking with Andrea about Spirit Guides in an audio format was a momentous first for me — it definitely marked the beginning of more to come. I would really appreciate any feedback about my performance on the call so that I can improve my public speaking.
If you missed the call, the recording is now available to all those who registered; I’m also making the recording available to all my subscribers in a free download link at the end of my posts (scroll to the end of your email delivery or feed reader to find it).
Since there was so much information about working with Spirit Guides that Andrea and I wanted to cover and perhaps did not get to — not to mention, while in the hot-seat, my vocabulary became illusive and my train-of-thought derailed a few times — I thought I would share with you the notes I made prior to the conversation.
Talking Points
The following notes are my initial thoughts | impressions regarding the major talking points | issues Andrea and I hoped to address on the call. My notes here do not reflect all the practical and insightful points of view that Andrea brought to the call — I encourage you to have a listen or check out Empowered Soul for Andrea’s unique, complementary wisdom.
“What’s the first piece of advice you’d give to people who want to communicate with their spirit guides?”
- Release your expectations of what you think communicating with your guides is supposed to be. It’s not something you’ve never done before — you’ve always been communicating with your guides. Divine guidance is not complicated; it’s not especially supernatural – it’s on-going, subtle; it happens every day. Your communicating to your guides is a first priority over their communicating back to you.
Tips for how people can tune in to their own Spirit Guides
On the call, Andrea offered some great advice regarding setting your intentions first, creating some basic personal ritual, or setting an atmosphere when soliciting divine guidance.
- Create conditions that work for you. What will work best for you may be dramatic or eccentric; it could be low key, with few bells and whistles. The key is ultimately personal.
- Keep it simple, comfortable, familiar. Don’t make it more formal than it needs to be — I don’t personally require any official ritual, dramatic spell, or specific meditation.
- Supercommon meditative activities (as opposed to supernatural) — I personally feel that you are just as likely to receive intuitive information during mental states induced by simple activities like gardening, mowing the lawn, showering, running, driving, sewing, cooking, washing the dishes, drawing/painting/digital design work, any kind of hand-craft, or journaling.
- Think of your guides as personal assistants who can arrange for you to discover the information that you need.
- Speak to them out loud, whenever possible. Clairaudient intuition, in particular, is empowered as much by speaking as hearing. Be conversational and use familiar language, as you would with anyone you’re close to.
- Talk to your guides often; practice all the time. Don’t make this type of ongoing dialog an event – meaning, you do it once in a blue moon, or only under extreme circumstances — do it all the time, regularly, through out your daily life.
- Start working with your guides when things are going well, instead of waiting until you’re needy. We have a tendency to ask for guidance when we’re feeling desperate, confused, stressed, panicked; start talking to your guides when you are feeling especially hopeful, excited, peaceful, grateful. When things are going the way we want them to, we don’t feel we need to talk to our guides — but that gratitude and positive feeling is the energy we want more of. I say talk to your guides when things are going incredibly well. That’s your opportunity to focus on and practicing wielding the best spiritual energy.
- Word Choice — Instead of saying “Tell me…” try saying “Show me…” or “Help me find…” or “Bring me…” — the complaint I hear over and over again is “I can’t hear my guides.” If this is the case, release the expectation of hearing them. You may personally be stronger in clairvoyance or claircognizance than in clairaudience.
- Opportunities and Guidance delivered by the living — Don’t discount other people as being the most likely — effective source — for the information and opportunities you’ve requested. We all act as one another’s guides.
- Obey impulses or flashes of inspiration. Practice simple, sometimes mysterious acts that require courage and faith. Manifesting requires rightful action and follow through on your part.
What guidance is NOT:
Andrea wrote to me how important is was for her to share this message: “Guides do not give us orders or tell us what to do, they’re never critical or judgmental, their guidance is always in the highest good of all, they will never give us guidance that contradicts our personal ethics, etc.”
My own comments supporting this:
You are in charge. They’re your guides. They work for you; you don’t work for them. They follow your direction — if you’re hell bent on repeating mistakes or learning the hard way, they will assist you in doing so.
Biggest misconceptions people have about Spirit Guides
These are a few things I’ve noted about people who inquire about readings…
- Your deceased loved ones do not become your guides when they pass over. Anyone you’ve known in this lifetime is NOT a spirit guide. Deceased loved ones do come around you and watch over you, but I refer to these entities as ancestor spirits. Ancestors spirits have a completely different motivation and role to play.
- The guidance you receive will not likely come in the form of miraculous, supernatural events. Everyone is familiar with the concept of interpreting dreams — begin interpreting your waking life from the same perspective. Just as your dream states are filled with symbols and metaphor, what you call reality is filled with the same types of clues and messages.
I cannot stress enough how unique the experience of spiritual guidance is to YOU. It’s a relationship. It’s dynamic — it grows and changes over time — and, most importantly all relationships are created by the participants. If you’re trying to put a relationship, a soul — not to mention the synergy of souls — into a template or recipe or strict formula – a role of some kind — you’ll end up with a wooden, hollow, soul less interaction. This actually affects all relationships.
The subjective details of perception — the energy your guides use — is taken from your experience — the data stored by your consciousness — and this is more emotional than it is informational.
Personal responsibility vs. receiving guidance Andrea mentions the importance of free will — that we’re responsible for our own choices, no matter how much we’d like our Guides to make our choices for us.
To this I say “Amen! Absolutely!” Just as with manifesting techniques — the Secret — thinking or wishing or visualizing or praying without taking rightful action and following through only initiates the evolution you wish to experience on your path. If you ask for opportunities and assistance along your way, you must practice recognizing and acting upon those opportunities, in the present, when they happen.
Asking for guidance — initiating divine communication — is a small part of raising your vibration, follow your path, living your purpose, and creating the life you wish to live. The most challenging, important, and effective aspect to practice is learning to receive, in gratitude.
Seek Wisdom — Practice Love
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13 Responses to “Tips for Working with Your Spirit Guides”
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This is a great summary, Slade! It was such a pleasure doing this teleclass with you. For me, this opened the door to pursuing many more joint ventures … and I hope we’ll do it again!
Lots of hugs,
Andrea
Thanks Andrea!
Let me stress that this post is heavy on my side of the conversation — I encourage everyone to listen for YOUR brilliant contributions.
Here’s to many more future collaborations!
xxxooo
Slade
Slade and Andrea, I hope that you will do this again also. It was incredibly informative in a friendly manner. You both worked well together. Slade, losing your train of thought for a second just made you appear more human. It didn’t detract from the information. You both have pleasant speaking voices and your rapport makes it hard to believe that you have only spoken on the phone once or twice before this. And, yes, Slade, she is psychic. Ha! Ha! Ha! I couldn’t resist. Humor in a talk is always good. I look forward to hearing more from both of you.
The teleclass was great! Thanks to both of you, and thanks Slade for sending the download as I couldn’t listen live.
I really relate to the comments that communicating with my guides is something I’ve always been doing. That’s probably the number one thing I’ve learned in the last year. As I get tuned in tighter and tighter, I realize that I recognize these voices/thoughts. They are some of the most familiar parts of me and have been here all along. All I had to do is acknowledge and listen.
Slade,
I came to your blog yesterday — after the call — to leave my comments, but I got beautifully distracted by your archives again. Almost caught up now, but it’s a wonderful place to get “lost,” as I have found.
In any case, I REALY enjoyed yesterday’s call, & I am ecstatic that you are planing more.
Just so you know, you sounded great — no trace of nerves that I could detect. Very natural. In fact, your voice sounded a lot like one of my favorite instructors from collage. My point being that he’s been teaching for decades and is, therefore, at ease in front of his students. You sounded like that.
The content was wonderful as well. You two really answered a lot of my questions, including some I had emailed you about. The concept of me being the “boss” is something I hadn’t thought about before, and I know it will help me as I continue to explore my conscious relationship with my guides.
A quick detail for thought:
You might consider branching into “Webinars” as a more visual alternative. That’s where people call in AND go to a web site to see stuff. I know you love digital art; a webinar would give you an opportunity to give us a slide show or Power-Point style presentation. (Not to mention give your hands something to do while you talk! Especially if it’s just you & no interviewer.) Camtasia seems to be the software of choice for this purpose, but I don’t know much about it. Anyway, it’s just a thought.
In any case, I can’t wait for the next call. I’m SO there!!
Virtual hugs, Slade.
Love & Light,
Julie
Slade,
It occurred to me today I might expound just a bit on what I said to you after hearing the teleclass. And especially to say thank you more publicly for the more than enlightening reading you provided to this very lucky winner of your contest. So thank you, I can’t say it enough.
I naturally see your blog as one overall element of Slade. It represents who you are, giving us a glimpse of you at different and distinct levels. It is why we all keep coming back.
Both your blogs are very powerful. You take command as you write. It can be inspiring. There is evidence of much hard work and knowledge behind the scenes.
When you spoke, however, you gave us another part of Slade. A genuine softness behind the confident presence we so often witness as you post. It was intringing and just as powerful, if not more so.
I think phone readings will take on double meaning. No one should miss out on the opportunity to do that with you. I know I won’t.
Most grateful,
Barbara
Okay… Where’s the real Slade and what
have you done with him ? Smile
I did not hear one off color word
in that entire teleclass.
Ohhhhhh I’m just messin with ya. !!!
I LOVED it.
It’s taken me a couple of days to listen to
the entire program, and I just want to
thank you so very much for providing the
recording in a download format.
Andrea, I am almost embarrassed to admit that I’ve
never been to your site prior to hearing this
program, but I can assure you that has changed
as you are now bookmarked.
Just curious, did either of you have any
messages from your guides after the program ?
Thank you both!
xo xo
Deb
Lola,
Thanks for your feedback on what resonated with you most from the conversation — that you are already/always connected with divinely accessible wisdom — the cord’s plugged in, the channel’s humming… Having something playing in the background is one thing, but paying attention is that all-important extra step!
Jewels,
Thanks for the recommendation. I am indeed familiar with Camtasia — it’s a very cool tool!
Just for the record, though, I pace like a madman when I do Readings and when I talk on the phone.
:-)
Debs,
Thanks for the glowing critique of the teleclass. I’m thrilled to hear that you were introduced to Andrea because of the call (and I’m sure she will be too).
Great question! I’ll be curious to hear Andrea’s response to that…
Messages from my guides regarding the call:
A few things happened, as I was contemplating dialing in early/not too early I was distinctly told “Go NOW!” Responding to that resulted in my having a brief moment to say hello personally to Patricia and hear her voice for the first time. We’ve been corresponding and writing to one another for over a year now, but have never spoken. Although I would love to talk to everyone of you for probably hours on end, the beginning of conference calls like that can be crazy, everyone began to come on the line quickly and that brief quiet passed within seconds.
My guides have been nudging me to go audio for months and months — I’ve been standing on the edge of that diving board for so long — Andrea was the one who came running up, smiling and laughing, and gave me that glorious final shove!
For the remainder of the day my energy was so high — from having both my physical aural perception and my clairaudience turned on at the same time, full blast. I was overwhelmed by an amazing crowd of voices and forgot how much I need to have filters in place when engaging with a chorus of energy like that!
I was quite hyper and excited and immediately planning future call-in events with you guys. I am eager to go another round with time set aside for audience participation.
I love that image!
Debs, I’m thrilled to have you visit my blog, too.
Since you asked … I get really, really “high” when I do classes like this (or readings, for that matter), like I’ve had five cups of coffee. I also feel very loved and supported whenever I talk about Spirit Guides or connect with them. Our Guides really love when we acknowledge them and reach out to them.
Being a Spirit Guide is another path a Soul can choose on its own journey of spiritual development, so in our work together, our Guides grow and evolve also. In many ways, we make their journey more fulfilling when we are happy recipients of their guidance!
So glad you enjoyed the class!
Blessings,
Andrea
Andrea, thank you for sharing the information about the path of a Spirit Guide. I know I read somewhere in the past year that even spiritual masters are still on the upward spiral of spiritual growth and are just on a higher level than most of us. Spirit Guides are also on that upward spiral of growth and we are helping them. I like that idea. It gives importance to our participation in their “lives” as well as the important part that Spirit Guides play in our lives. Thanks for that insight.