How do you sense the presence of entities like spirit guides or attending angels? What are the patterns and forms your guides take that indicate they are responding to you?
The key to developing your sense of their presence is to make a mental note of how you feel and then look for a pattern. Each spirit entity feels different from another. Also, the general patterns of feelings, thoughts, or other phenomena may be unique to you -- don't expect your personal experiences to necessarily resemble what another person reports.
Communicating with Spirit
You may initiate divine communication as a form of prayer, meditation, dreaming, or a common everyday activity.
This shouldn't be a "one time" activity -- you don't maintain relationships with a single introduction... You will benefit tremendously from integrating your dialog with spirit as an on-going component of your daily life.
Keep in mind, you are not praying to any of these entities -- spirit guides are messengers, direct go-betweens with God / the Source / the Creator. You are God, so on a very basic level, I believe you are always soul-searching -- connecting to your highest Self.
Call on your guides by name, ask questions, and pay attention to the way you feel immediately or soon after.
Angels seem to be more likely to manifest in some physical way: an all-over emotion, or it could even be a particular physical sensation. Sometimes, you may experience something external in your physical environment -- such as a faint white flash of light, an "orb" caught out of the corner of your eye, or you suddenly notice a change in temperature or the quality of light...
Many people report inexplicable smells -- like a sudden whiff of a flower or perfume that has no obvious source. (It's my personal opinion that many of the manifestations associated with ghosts are actually the presence of angels. How do you tell the difference? Again -- I'm being redundant -- it's about how it makes you feel.)
Don't limit yourself to expectations of "super-natural" or extraordinary experiences -- if you ask your perception of God, your Higher Self, your personal guardian angels, or your spirit guides to help you with a particular question or situation, the answer you receive can take an almost infinite number of forms in your daily life -- from a "gut feeling" to something like a book that you are drawn to in a store, a channel that you flip to on the radio or television that seems timely, an email from someone you know, an interaction with a total stranger, a billboard you pass while driving, a song lyric that comes out of nowhere and sticks in your head... A number sequence that pops up again and again...
Pay attention to your emotional response to anything that seems like "meaningful coincidence" -- the form that the message may take can vary so greatly, and can "look" like a coincidence. The best way to tell the difference is ask yourself about the feeling it gives you and the timing -- does it FEEL like you just received an answer to your question?
Your spirit guides are slightly different in the way they communicate -- they are more likely to feel like parts of your own thoughts, the "still small voice" inside you, a whispering or sudden flash of inspiration, dreams, gut feelings, intuition, hunches, or instincts.
Spirit guides also put information in your path in the form of books or the discovery of web sites -- even something you see on TV, a song on the radio -- or a lyric that's stuck in your head.
Note feelings; look for patterns.
Care to share? I'd love to hear about some of the ways YOU identify how and when your guides are responding to you. Can you describe some of the patterns, sensations, emotions, or physical phenomena you've come to associate with divine communication?
Seek Wisdom -- Practice Love