One of the reasons I find a spiritual awakening such a magical experience is that we wake up to the realization that there’s an entire army of soul guides behind the scenes, ready to support us! There are different levels of connection that we have with these spirit guides and this article is dedicated to helping you understand and deepen your connection.
In case you are new to the idea itself – the existence of soul guides – let me share a little more about that as well.
So, these guides are essentially the souls that are more evolved in their spiritual journey AND have chosen to support “younger” souls in their evolution.
Side note: I don’t want us to assume that being “younger” as a soul means anything less about us, hence the quotes.
What does it mean to be supported by our soul guides?
To understand our spiritual guides’ purpose in our life, we need to understand a little more about our own purpose here as humans. Why are we born and more importantly why do we keep reincarnating?
As I often talk about in my articles, we are all here to fulfill our potential and exhaust our karmic debts.
And in order for us to live out a purposeful life, we need support. Not just physical resources or skill training, we also need emotional and spiritual guidance. That’s where well-wishers from the spirit world step in for us.
Our spirit guides then become our saving grace, in that they are a source of unconditional love and spiritual guidance. Sometimes, they are also that gentle “nudge” waking you up in the middle of the night, reminding you to get back on track with your purpose.
These soul guides can be anyone, from your beloved ancestors to angels and archangels, animal spirit guides, or the different Gods and Goddesses that you may pray to. The only hierarchy that I observe in these different types of spiritual guides is based on the level of consciousness they’ve evolved to. But this hierarchy isn’t necessarily the dominating kind, as we see in corporate jobs or wounded patriarchal families.
Do soul guides come in and out of our life?
If you go by what renowned afterlife regression therapist, Dr. Michael Newton researched and revealed throughout his work (which I’ll share more about in the tips section), our spirit guides are pretty much always available in our life.
Of course, you don’t “need” them around if you’re taking a shower or doing something mundane. And they’re not in our private business like that. However, they are also seeking opportunities to connect with us, and sometimes, a calming bath is your soul’s way of connecting with its guardians.
In essence, our soul guides are either on standby or actively engaged with us, depending on the intensity of our challenges. As well as how receptive we are to their messages.
What do you mean by the receptivity of spiritual messages?
When you’re crying, for instance, you’re all caught up in your emotions. At that point, just like it’s difficult for you to understand what a human might say to you, it’s difficult for your guides to connect with you.
In a similar fashion, you may receive insight or advice but ignore the message, refuse to act on it, or simply not take the guidance seriously enough to understand that action was possible. That’s where your free will plays out. So while you’re not bound to listen to them, you probably should start tuning into these messages if you want to accelerate your spiritual journey.
But just know that you and I are constantly being guided through spirit guides whispering ideas in our ears (clairaudience), showing us synchronicities, popping images and inspiration in our heads (clairvoyance), etc.
I like to believe that soul guides also help us have intuitive “hits’, where we have insight about something that we couldn’t have possibly known a moment prior. Essentially, they are our caretakers from the beyond. They are looking after us, and are capable of doing even more so if we allow them in.
Do all of us have a soul guide?
Yes. We actually have multiple of them, as confirmed by many spiritual teachers and from my own experience facilitating soul guide connections.
Our spiritual team can be a combination of some of your closest, deceased loved ones, angels, masters, and so on.
And as Dr. Michael Newton quotes in his book, Journey of Souls, “I have never worked with a subject in trance who did not have a personal [soul] guide. Some guides are more in evidence than others during hypnosis sessions.”
It’s a different story how connected (and receptive, as I shared before) we are to them.
Can soul guides be mean? And would they ever stop helping us?
Recently a reader reached out, asking me whether she was truly connected to her soul guides or not, as she was experiencing some synchronistic/prophetic things, however her guides were “not particularly warm and fuzzy”, and had been yelling at her every time she asked for help. Here are some insights that I shared with her.
Our spirit guides are not in a human body, and therefore do not have dualistic emotions such as anger or happiness. They are in pure soul state, and their purpose is to help us evolve.
Sure, they can be quirky, or firm with us. They may be “quiet” when we ask for help because they want us to figure out the lesson on our own. But they will never be annoyed for being called on too much – there’s no such thing in the higher realms.
How do we really know it’s a soul guide?
When we interact with them, they will evoke within us feelings of:
- being loved,
- being witnessed with compassion,
- and being guided into empowering opportunities.
So, if you experience anger or judgement coming from an entity, it’s more than likely a disturbed soul that hasn’t crossed the plane. We are more likely to attract such entities if our own nervous system state is dysregulated or if we are not feeling connected to Earth life.
Also, yes, stuck entities do still have some energy they can spend to “prove” their existence. But typically these events don’t last AND they feed off our own energy so you will probably feel more drained when you experience such a “miracle” – is that true for you? Or was the synchronicity empowering?
Ultimately, connecting with soul guides should feel SAFE in your body and should help you feel uplifted. Anything happening opposite of that can be an indication that you’re not connecting with a soul guide.
With all that briefing laid out for you, I want to now share some personal experiences and stories.
What is my relationship with my soul guides?
When my spiritual journey first began (here’s that story), repeating numbers like 11:11 on the clock and number plates, called angel numbers, was my first encounter with the divine. I was curious why they were associated with angels in the first place and went down the rabbit hole of research.
That, and reading Dr. Brian Weiss’ books (also shared in the tips later), I was finally initiated into the world of connecting with souls from the ‘beyond’. As I kept reading and trying on new things, I began to have my own experiences.
Some people see orbs or flashes of different coloured lights, which would signal that an archangel was near them. Other people might hear “guiding voices” in their heads.
And for me?
I was freaking out. Every time I saw a flashing light after meditation or heard thoughts that were clearly not mine, my logical mind rushed to sabotage my awakening. I did NOT want to have any of that, so I also started researching ways to cut all connections.
Later on, I learned that being scared of spiritual experiences is pretty common, and I also figured out how to turn down this supernatural dial.
Of course, it wasn’t all scary. I would often ask for help from my guides, and it would work out like this:
- Getting help in finding a parking spot or clearing the traffic when I was running late for a meeting at work;
- Wondering where something was in the supermarket and having a “hunch” to turn around, my eyes landed on exactly what I was searching for;
- Asking for healing and noticing my health recovering startlingly fast;
- Praying for guidance and the right song coming on the radio at the exact same time to give me some insights;
- Making a prayer to help me open the lid on a stuck can (this has worked SO many times);
- and more!
A more recent practice that I’ve been introduced to, is asking for guidance from our soul guides before we sleep, to clear energy (or recover health) in our dream state. I don’t doubt the powerful healing ability of dreams and love that we can work with the Universe for our spiritual growth even while we’re asleep. You can use the same technique to ask for guidance about pretty much anything – career, relationships, money – whatever you’re ready to receive more direction on.
Is it normal to NOT know how to connect with soul guides?
I wasn’t “born” with my connection and had to work towards it. This is unlike some spiritual seekers that share how they’ve always talked to or seen souls from the beyond. Developing this connection isn’t rocket-science, but it does require intention and the ability to feel “safe”.
By feeling safe, I am referring to the examples above where I shared how scary it was for me to experience the connection in an intense way.
While my spiritual journey first had a lot more involvement from my angels and soul guides, I just wasn’t the person to want them overly involved. This includes NOT throwing angel numbers at me a hundred times in the day!
So over time, I tuned out the intensity of the guidance and consciously prayed to work with the Universe, but from a less scary place. I will share some tips on how I did that in the upcoming section.
And now, as a professional life coach and forever student of spiritual practices, I guide my clients to help them connect with their soul guides and ancestors, and heal from past lives. You can learn more about my 1:1 support in your spiritual journey here.
Next, let’s explore practical tools, tips and lessons that can help you develop the connection.
5 Ways You Can Connect With Your Soul Guides
While I believe that every soul guide is unique in their approach to connecting with us, here are some helpful tips to help you deepen your connection. Also, scroll all the way down to access the workshop we did around this subject.
#1 – Allow them in.
There’s something childlike and mischievous about this idea of “invoking” a spirit guide. I would always think of myself as a Pokemon trainer, summoning one of my angels or guides to be with me!
You may not have done this consciously before, but today, I invite you to call in your team to actively make themselves known to you. Here’s an example of what that intention could sound like:
“Dear soul guides, I would love to have your support and to know that you’re here for me. Please guide me in a way that I know it’s you. Thank you.”
Don’t miss the thank you. It’s nice to be grateful!
Of course, you might be like me and not want active participation from your guides. There’s nothing to worry about in this case, you can simply roll back a past intention.
In which case, you may say something like:
“Dear soul guides, thank you for being so present in my life. I wish to receive your support in a way that’s not so intimidating to me. (if there’s something specific you want them to stop doing, tell them). Thank you.”
At the end of the day, remember the law of divine intervention and know that your guides will never “interfere”. They will work behind the scenes if that’s all you want from them.
You can also look into channeling divine messages. This simply means you allow the guides to not just speak to you, but speak through you. An example of that is the book, Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch where the author channels messages from higher consciousness and helps us understand our spiritual journey better.
#2 – Don’t stick to just one soul guide.
Of course, each soul guide has its own strength that they lend to you but you don’t just have to limit your prayers to a certain angel or master.
Like I said earlier – because I detached myself from actively working with my soul guides, I made my prayers a little more generic.
So instead of seeking help from one being, I trusted that the Universe would send in the right resource. My prayer for divine intervention was now being sent out to the entirety of this cosmos. This allowed me to not “depend” on instant gratification or idolize (and then get angry at) my guides too much.
Whenever a prayer is not answered, I trust that there’s a spiritual lesson I need to unpack on my own first. As a rule of thumb, when asking for help or an affirmation from your soul’s team, always, always remember to step into a place of gratitude. The answers or help we get may not be what was expected, but by allowing something higher to show up for us, we can be assured that it’s for our highest good.
#3 – Build and strengthen your intuition.
I know that as a left-brain dominant society today, we’ve parted ways from tuning into our inherent wisdom. But science is beginning to catch up with the idea of intuition (here’s some research). So rest assured, your heart and soul are definitely catching on to insights your mind hasn’t grasped yet.
Fortunately for us, intuition isn’t rocket science. It’s actually natural for kids to go with their gut feeling if they’re not being looked down upon for it. Somewhere along the way, most people will disconnect from their gut because of trauma or simply because their environment wasn’t conducive.
So intuition is actually something we’ve “unlearned” and want to call back into power. And when you build your intuitive muscles, you allow your spirit guides to guide you in real time. A tip I share in my article about developing intuition is when in doubt, pause and ask for a sign. Either you will see a confirmation of what you were thinking of doing, or silence (which confirms something too).
When you begin to trust your soul guides in the smaller synchronicities, it will become easier to lean into their insights for bigger challenges.
#4 – Learn, learn, and learn.
I’ve found it SO helpful to learn from those that were ahead of me in their spiritual journey. And five books that I’ve greatly benefitted from reading in context to soul guides are:
- Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss
- Journey of Souls by Dr. Michael Newton
- Destiny of Souls by Dr. Michael Newton
- Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander
- Trust Your Vibes by Sonia Choquette
Along with these resources, of course, keep up your own explorations through meditation and prayers. Remember that your connection with your spiritual team is very personal and unique to you. Everyone can only give you some degree of knowledge, but you’ll eventually find what really works for you.
#5 – Workshop on Connecting with Soul Guides
In this group session, we explore different ways to connect with our soul guides and how they play a significant part in our life on Earth. Leave a comment on the video if you enjoy watching this!
Concluding Thoughts
While the Universe is always guiding us and sending us messages to make our life easier, it is fully our discernment to listen to the call or let it pass. I do know for a fact that after one point, we are all being shown that there’s a higher path available to us. And when we ignore it long enough, our soul guides have a way of shaking us awake!
I would love to know if the insights here help you connect with your spirit world or if there are other tips you have for the community. Drop a comment below!
Vasundhra is the Founder & Writer of My Spiritual Shenanigans. After seeing 11:11 on the clock one fateful night, her life turned around. Ever since, she has been blending modern psychology and ancient spirituality, to help herself and people around the world elevate the quality of their lives.
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I know there is something there. I know that I’m something more but I’ve only seen a demon.
Hi there Bo! That can be scary, and I’m wondering if you’ve read my other article about dealing with such experiences? There are some tips here that might support you in expanding what you see beyond negative energies. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!