How to work with your spirit guides: asking, listening, and knowing it is them

You have felt them. The nudge just before you took the other road, the calm that came on the worst night, the song that started at exactly the right moment. You noticed each time, a little afterwards. And now you would like to do more than notice. You would like to talk to them.

This letter is about that second step. Not who your spirit guides are (I wrote about that in Who are my spirit guides?), but how to work with them: how to ask, how to listen, how to tell their voice from your own worry, and what I do when you ask me to read them for you.

How do you work with your spirit guides?

You work with your spirit guides the way you build any friendship: by giving them your attention on purpose. Find a quiet moment, ask one clear question out loud, and then watch for the answer in the days that follow: a nudge, a sign, a dream, a sentence that finds you. Say thank you each time you notice something. The more often you do it, the clearer the conversation becomes.

Older than any of us

People have always kept up a conversation with the ones who walk beside them. The psychiatrist Carl Jung spent years in dialogue with a figure he called Philemon, who first came to him in a dream. Jung wrote that Philemon taught him that thoughts are not always of our own making, and he painted him in his Red Book. In Hawaii, families have long honoured their ʻaumakua, ancestral guardians who can appear as a shark, an owl or a sea turtle, and who are greeted and thanked like relatives. And for more than three centuries, Quakers have sat together in silence, waiting for what they call the inner light, and speaking only when something rises that is more than their own chatter.

A psychiatrist, a family by the sea, a room full of quiet people. Different words, the same practice underneath: make room, ask, and listen.

Asking: one clear question

Guides answer questions, not noise. So choose one, and make it open rather than yes or no: not will he come back, but what do I need to see about this? Not should I take the job, but what am I not letting myself know about this choice? Say it out loud, once, somewhere you will not be interrupted. A candle and a glass of water help, not because they are required, but because they tell the part of you that listens that this moment is different from the rest of the day. Then let the question go. Asking three times an hour is worry, and worry is loud enough to drown out everything else.

Listening: how answers arrive

Answers rarely arrive the way you expect them to. They come as a thought that lands whole and kind, as a feeling of warmth or of quiet in your chest, as a dream that is still clear at lunch. They come through the world: the same number on three clocks, a feather on the doorstep, a line in a book you opened at random, a stranger who says exactly the sentence you needed. One sign on its own is a lovely moment. The same message returning is a conversation.

Keep a notebook by your bed and write down what you notice, even when it feels small. After a week or two you will see the pattern that you would have missed if you had tried to remember it all.

Is it them, or is it me?

This is the question everyone asks, and here is how I tell the difference. Your guides feel calm, clear and kind, even when what they say is not what you hoped to hear. They never rush you, never frighten you, and never ask you to hurt yourself or anyone else or to give up your own choices. Fear, pressure and urgency are not their voice; that is usually your own worry dressed up as a message. When something feels heavy or insistent, step away from it, put your feet on the ground, drink a glass of water and come back another day. And if you ever hear voices that frighten you or tell you what to do, please talk to your doctor. That is care, not a lack of faith.

A small practice for this week

Each evening this week, light a candle and sit quietly with your hands open. Picture someone who loves you standing just behind your shoulder, and feel what it does to your breathing to be backed like that. Ask your one question, out loud. Blow out the candle, write the question at the top of a page in your notebook, and go to sleep. In the morning, before you reach for your phone, write down whatever you remember, a dream, a word, a feeling. During the day, say thank you out loud each time something catches your attention. Gratitude is how you tell them which language you understood, and what you give your attention to, you draw in.

When you would like someone to read them with you

Some people want to begin with a clearer picture of who is there. That is what my Spirit Guides Reading is for. I read from your full name, your date of birth and your question, sit in quiet until the first presence comes through, and write down who is with you, the role each one holds, their message for this season and the signs they use. At Full Unveiling depth I add how to work with each of them day to day and answer your question with them. It is in your inbox within the hour during my active hours, and afterwards I check in with you.

If what you pick up goes further than company, if you see, feel or simply know things you cannot explain, the Psychic Abilities Reading names your gifts, and the Psychic Abilities Spell is the ritual I hold to open them. And amethyst is the stone I keep close for this work: this is why.

Questions people ask me about working with spirit guides

They have been waiting for you to say hello. Ask them something tonight.

Ivy