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Despite being on a spiritual journey for many years, spirit guides were a concept I heard a lot about but never really believed. After all, Iโve never seen one myself, and some of the descriptions that people gave were relatively vague.
โItโs probably just a belief system for people to feel supported,โ I thought, never dismissing the subject but taking it with a grain of salt. Until one day, when I encountered a full-bodied apparition by my bed that immediately shattered my skepticism.
While living in the US in 2022, I went through a particularly painful breakup. As a means to discover answers, I held a ceremony for myself using DMT (a very powerful plant medicine) the following night.
I knew I had to be particularly cautious with this medicine as I was in a vulnerable state. However, I had learned how to navigate the space and use it as a stage for the deepest levels of healing and growth, so I went ahead.
Before ingesting the medicine, I set intentions and said prayers to the ancestral spirit, asking it to bring forward benevolent spirits to help me illuminate, guide, and heal. Immediately afterward, I was granted access to the spiritual realm and blasted through the cosmic gate.
After having many insights and realizations about my situation, I noticed a tear in the space-time continuum. An indigenous man was standing in a portal and looking at me as if staring through a doorway. The level of hyperrealism was impeccable. I could see every detail as if I were face-to-face with this man.
He was short and had dark skin, and I noticed his large hands holding an instrument that looked like a giant rustic violin bow. Intuitively I knew he was here to help, so I let him do his thing.
Instantly, the spirit started rattling this ancient-looking shamanic instrument over me, which forced these painful energies out in a violent convulsion. At the time, I didnโt know what was happening, but I knew it was positive, so I surrendered to it.
The next thing I remember is waking up the next morning. For the next five days, I would be completely at peace. All the pain I was experiencing had vanished, and it never came back. This episode almost felt like a second rebirth, induced by an ancestral spirit who was very real and just wanted to help me.
I have had many deep spiritual experiences, especially with medicines, but I know itโs something special to have a face-to-face encounter like this. This experience opened me up to learning more about spirit guides, and what purpose they serve in our lives.
After spending six months working with Ayahuasca shamans in Ecuador, this is what I learned.
What Are Spirit Guides?
Spirit guides can be understood as higher-dimensional facets of oneself that we can tap into for guidance, wisdom, and support. Because they are extensions of our infinite consciousness, they possess an innate understanding of our needs and the best paths to fulfill them.
Thereโs a lot of ambiguity surrounding the topic of spirit guides. We know that theyโre spirits that exist within another realm of information and are here to help us, but what exactly are they?
The way I understand spirit guides is that theyโre interdimensional aspects of ourselves. In that sense, your spirit guides are different incarnations of your soul that have mastered different spiritual pathways within this world and others.
As an infinite consciousness yourself, you have incarnated countless times, in every form. That wisdom is stored in your soul which can be retrieved, and this is where spirit guides play a role: As separate projections of your consciousness.
I donโt necessarily believe that you have an assigned squad of beings to watch over you. Perhaps you do, and I, like anyone else, donโt have all the answers. However, I do believe that our spirit guides are us at a deeper level of consciousness, and weโre simply retrieving information from them. Spirit guides can manifest as apparitions, visions, downloads, in dreams, and in whatever way your consciousness will receive them.
All the wisdom, support, and knowledge resides inside yourself, and this is something I need to assert. In the deepest layers of reality, we are all the same consciousness experiencing itself infinitely. At this level of consciousness, you and I are the same being too.
All the information, wisdom, and healing in the word resides in yourself. Therefore, you connect with your spirit guides by going inwards, as theyโre within you. Searching outward for them will only make you lost.
How Can Spirit Guides Help?
Most people wonโt encounter their spirit guides because most people havenโt deeply explored their own consciousness and spiritual nature. People who have dedicated themselves to the exploration of their consciousness may experience manifestations of spirit guides.
Often, spirit guides appear to warn you. Iโve heard all sorts of stories from people about to commit suicide when a spirit showed up, to being in dangerous situations where a spirit guide deterred a particular course of action, or signaled the person that they needed to leave a shady situation.
Your spirit guides tend to appear in your life when you need them the most. You tap into them as a way of receiving wisdom, healing, protection, and support. They may appear to you when youโre about to walk into a life-threatening situation or veer off track in a way you’re not supposed to go.
Spirit guides will clarify what you need to do moving forward in your present situation. Clarity often comes in the form of realizations or intuitive spikes. There will be a deeper knowingness that shines through when youโre connecting with a spirit guide about your situation (even if itโs not what you want to hear).
Other times, people who desperately need their guidance may tap into them unconsciously, although I would say this is quite rare.
Spirit guides can appear when youโre at your lowest and youโre praying for help. Situations such as mourning, heavy trauma, and derailment from your path can bridge the connection to these spirits.
How Do We Perceive Spirit Guides?
Spirit guides are not external to you. Youโre just tapping into a deeper part of your consciousness to receive information from your higher self (or interdimensional versions of your higher self). Remember, youโre not a human! Youโre just here for a temporary experience, and youโve already been here and done this countless times.
I have tapped into my spirit guides on many occasions. Sometimes it happens throughout my day-to-day life when Iโm working, walking through nature, or engrossed in something. Other times they appear through ceremonies, meditation, and while practicing spiritual crafts such as astral projection.
Iโve met guiding spirits in the form of humans, orbs, and interdimensional beings. Often, thereโs an element of ambiguity surrounding an encounter with a spirit guide. Rarely, they will smack you in the face, and youโll know. But it does happen.
There are many different ways that you can tap into your spirit guides. They donโt come in a single form, rather, they can be perceived in an array of forms and figures, depending on their manifestation.
A spirit guide will appear in any form that is significant to you. Iโve had encounters with different spirit guides since exploring these other dimensional realms. While astral projecting Iโve been in contact with orbs that felt like family and gave me a tour through the spiritual dimension.
Iโve seen the same figures in extremely vivid dreams that seem to convey a deep message to me, which is exactly what I needed at the time. Then there were strange things like whispers and voices that came out of nowhere. All of these encounters were quick but very real.
Spirit guides are seen with the third eye, and they usually donโt occupy space in physical reality, although sometimes they appear as apparitions. People tend to connect with their spirit guides during dreams, prayer, spiritual practices, and meditation.
Spirit guides can be perceived in different ways, depending on how they manifest into your reality. Some common ways that people perceive their spirit guides include:
- Visions: These visions vary in intensity and can range from a vague imprint of people to vivid, dreamlike manifestations.
- Apparitions: A spirit guide may manifest as an apparition, occupying the physical space around you.
- Disembodied voices: A spirit guide may manifest as a disembodied voice that may sound very clear, as if someone spoke next to you, with no source or logical explanation. These voices are usually a word or perhaps a few words rather than a dialog.
- Intuitive feelings: Intuition spikes tend to accompany other signals that youโre tapping into a spirit guide. Often, when you have a vision of a spirit guide, you get a sharp intuitive spike and a feeling that there is another presence with you, whether you can see it or not.
- Downloads: A common way to receive information is via a download. A download is a telepathic communication where you may experience a sudden burst of information, knowledge, insight, inspiration, realization, or what appears to be intrusive thoughts or feelings.
How to Connect With Your Spirit Guides
Remember that you are your own master. Itโs fine to seek help from outside sources, but be careful not to give your power away. All the answers you seek are stored within your consciousness, and your spirit guides are aspects of your consciousness.
By practicing going deeper into yourself, this is where you will start to experience your guides, hereโs what you can do to cultivate a deeper connection with them.
- Set your intentions: Many different spirits are hanging about in the spiritual realm, and you donโt want to connect with just anything. Your intentions are like a spiritual compass. When youโre reaching out to your spiritual guides, set clear and concise intentions from the heart. As long as you feel it (not just say it), youโre aiming in the right direction.
- Pray to them: Praying creates a sacred space and potentially opens up a connection with your spirit guides. Prayer is a way of asking for guidance, protection, and clarity. Whether the answers come through intuition, immediate clarity, visions, synchronicities, or signs, itโs an indicator that you are connecting with your guides.
- Be present: Youโre unlikely to connect with these deeper realms of information if youโre doing things. By sitting with your experience of consciousness, you create space for more messages to come through because youโre paying attention. Mindfulness is key because it brings you into the here and now, where youโre receptive to subtle signals and messages.
- Pay attention to your intuition: Trusting your intuition is necessary to tap into your spirit guides. When you become very good at listening to this inner voice, you might start to notice other voices coming through, too. Practice paying attention to what you feel and your gut instinct. Surrender to the experience of being, and allow any thoughts, feelings, ideas, memories, or visions to enter your consciousness.
- Surrender: Almost all the major spiritual experiences that have happened in my life occurred when I surrendered. When you let go of control, your ego ceases which opens up a direct connection to the realm of spirit. Stop trying to control the outcome too. When youโre in a state of nonresistance with the universe, youโre much more likely to tap into your spirit guides.
- Engage shamanic ceremonies: Personally, most of my major spiritual experiences have happened during shamanic ceremonies. The responsible use of plant medicines can be a powerful tool to tap into guidance from the deepest parts of your soul. I suggest always doing ceremonies with genuine healers who have walked the shamanic path within their tradition and know how to hold the space when working with these medicines.
- Explore spiritual modalities: By practicing a spiritual craft, whether itโs energy healing, mediumship, or astral projection, the veil between this reality and the spiritual realm thins. This is where you will begin tapping into spirit guides, especially in past incarnations where you used or mastered the same modalities youโre using now.