I received an excellent question last week from one of my readers who's also a participant in my Circle workshop:
I've been talking to my spirit guides but wondering if I'm over-analyzing the experience. Perhaps on some level I'm thinking a lot about the questions I'm asking, so my mind is well aware of the answers I want to hear. Am I really tuned in to my guides, or am I just really good at channeling the messages I want to hear? Am I supposed to hear something different from what I am hoping to hear?
You may indeed hear something different once in awhile -- it might even be easier to accept guidance that challenges you a bit -- but, no, I do not feel you're necessarily supposed to hear something different from your guides than what you might hope or expect to hear, at all.
The thinking mind, or ego-driven interior voices, are based in fear and always motivated by maintaining a sense of safety (whether practical, realistic, or illusory).
It may well be common sense that characterizes divine guidance, more than any other type of information.
Here's what I find most often happens to me when I communicate with my guides:
The answer I get is not a "surprise" but it often has a brevity, a succinctness, that I would not normally have articulated on my own. Let's say I've been worrying about something, over-analyzing it, running an inner monologue about it for pages and pages, day after day... Or I feel truly inspired by an idea or an intuitive impulse, excited about it, but seeking a lot of extra confirmation and attempting to get assurance.
Then, when I ask my spirit guides to weigh in, a single sentence will pop out that kind of trims away all the "fat."
Often, that simple, direct response could be some part of what I might "expect" but it's often surprisingly clear or blunt. And even though the answer is not a "surprise" it's often put together in a no-nonsense kind of way that makes all my thinking processes seem overwrought and complex by comparison.
It's not unlike asking a really blunt person, a man of few words, who doesn't like to talk much, but one you trust to listen to you and offer sound insight. He simply drops this one sentence on the table that makes you think "Duh. I guess it is kind of obvious."
Once you "have" one of these responses, even if it sounds like "what you're hoping to hear," how can you test it in the real world?
At this point, you need to set your intentions and follow through on some action, with faith. Until you have actual results from taking action on your intuition, faith feels like a Question Mark. But, there's no need to have blind faith -- why demand faith be blind?
We believe when we see results. Our faith is based on the positive results of past experience. When you follow these responses, that's how you will arrive at a result that you can better trust.
Bob Makransky Magical Almanac
As for not thinking about your question too much before-hand, try this:
- Write down the questions you want to present to your spirit guides, as they come up throughout the day or over the course of a week, but don't engage them at that moment.
- Collect your questions and "schedule a meeting" with your guides. Choose a specific time and place, a part of your day or your week you can set aside just for communicating with your guides, and sit down and tackle the questions all at once.
Scheduled sessions will give you some additional emotional and analytical distance from the moment of worrying or over-thinking about a particular topic, so that your asking and listening for the response is not married to the moment that you contemplate the question.
Keep in mind that the impulse to create change in your life is an intuitive impulse -- your Higher Self, your concept of God, or your spirit guides and guardians inspire positive changes that push you beyond your comfort zone.
Ask yourself if courage is really the one thing you require.
Do you have a question like this you'd like me to answer? I guarantee you that whatever you may be wondering about, others are wondering about as well. From my perspective, question and answer sessions like this often produce the best articles. I encourage you to contact me and submit your question