How to Know When Your Spirit Guides Are Guiding You

Our spirit guides are constantly guiding us, yet most people are unaware of it. Here are the four most common ways our spirit guides influence us to go in the right direction for our highest good.

Photo by Sivani Bandaru on Unsplash

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past 25 years, it’s that we’re guided through life by a force with infinite intelligence. I refer to this force as our spirit guides, but you can call it angels, higher self, or even God. Yet how do we know when our spirit guides are guiding us? I think it’s one of the most important skills we can learn, because this infinite intelligence is guiding us for our own good, which basically means guiding us toward the experiences we hoped to have before birth.

Here are the four most common ways our spirit guides send us messages and influence us to go in the direction for our highest good. What I discovered, which I find most fascinating, is that even when we miss the signals our spirit guides are sending us, our guides don’t simply give up. No, they will persistently try to redirect us using new methods, alternate approaches, and novel strategies, the most common outlined below.

1. INTUITION: The Most Direct Guidance

First, our spirit guides communicate to us (guide us) through our intuition.

Everyone has intuition. I’m not talking about psychic ability, although psychic ability is just enhanced intuition. Nevertheless, your intuition is nothing more than your inner sense about things, your gut feelings, your personal instincts, and those spontaneous thoughts that pop into your mind. It’s important that you learn to follow these signals because much of this is guidance from your spirit guides.

The intuition that I speak of here is that inner voice that tells you to not get in the elevator, not trust what the salesman is promising, or to quickly drive your car into the slow lane. On that note, I was once entering an on-ramp to the highway during a snowstorm when I heard in my head, “Slow down!” I didn’t actually hear a voice with my ears. It was more like a sudden thought that flashed into my consciousness.

I immediately slowed my car seconds before the car ahead of me began spinning out of control due to the icy road. Thanks to this intuitive warning, my car didn’t collide with the car ahead of me and I avoided an accident. The woman in the spinning car eventually came to a stop—without hitting so much as a guardrail—and then just began driving on the highway again, although very slowly.

2. COINCIDENCE: Guidance by Repetition

Second, our spirit guides communicate to us and guide us through coincidence. Some call this divine coincidence or synchronicity.

Unfortunately, many people erroneously use the word “coincidence” to mean luck, fluke, or chance, which is the kind of shortsightedness that will lead one to overlook valuable guidance from their spirit guides.

Coincidence is when two or more events occur that have no obvious relation to one another yet result in a meaningful connection or result.

So if you have three totally unrelated people recommend that you see Chicago at the local playhouse this weekend, that’s a coincidence that might be a message from your spirit guides. What’s the message? Well, the possibilities are endless, but it could be that you’ll meet someone there who will positively affect the rest of your life.

My wife, Melissa, crossed paths with a woman from town that she knew but rarely ever saw. In fact, she bumped into her three times in one week. When Melissa told me that she saw this woman again for the third time, I asked her what this woman represents to her—what she thinks of when she sees her. Melissa said she only knows the woman because the woman supported her friend while the friend was being treated for breast cancer.

Coincidentally, Melissa had an astrology reading and I had a psychic reading that both mentioned Melissa should get checked by a doctor. So with this final coincidence of seeing this woman three times in one week, Melissa got a checkup. Sure enough, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at an early stage, which she subsequently treated successfully using alternative methods. That was in 2008. Melissa is now cancer-free, and we have coincidence to thank for identifying it.

3. MESSENGERS: Guidance Via Other Beings

Third, our spirit guides communicate with us and guide us through messengers. Messengers can be people, animals, or things.

For example, you might be fretting over how you’re going to pay a bill when a stranger on the subway tells you that she just traded in her unwanted gold jewelry for hundreds of dollars. Or you might be watching TV and see a segment on dangerous toys only to discover that your granddaughter has one of those toys in her crib. Or you might be walking your dog down the street when your dog suddenly stops, turns around, and begins walking the other way. You then learn the next day that a man was robbed on that same street around that same time that you were walking there.

This is how spirit guides communicate with us through messengers. If they can find a messenger to deliver a message or lead us in the right direction, they’ll do it.

4. EVENTS: Being Led Down a Trajectory

The fourth most common method spirit guides use to communicate with us and guide us is through events (often called divine events)—things that happen to us or around us.

For example, you might get fired from your job only to land a more enjoyable job with better pay. Or your boyfriend might break up with you, which might lead to a new relationship with someone who is more loving and compatible with you. Or you might break your ankle and begin writing that novel you’ve always dreamed of writing, which might become a New York Times best seller.

Spiritual guidance is not always going to be a seemingly negative event like getting fired or breaking an ankle. It can also be wonderful events. I met a woman who once found a wallet and ended up marrying the man who owned it. Melissa and I were once comped tickets to a conference by a publishing company where we met a woman who became one of our closest friends—both her and her husband. That was 18 years ago, and they remain dear friends today.

This method of guidance is one of my favorites, because it allows me to question if any event in my life might be guiding me in a new, better direction. Even when the event is clearly negative from my immediate point of view, it might be leading me toward a positive outcome that far surpasses the displeasure I initially experience. Knowing this is possible always leads me to wonder if an unfortunate event might eventually have an optimistic spin to it.

Photo by Ben Rosett on Unsplash

MULTIPLE METHODS OF COMMUNICATION

Sometimes, our spirit guides steer us using two or more methods of communication and guidance. Other times, multiple people are utilized in that guidance.

I have a friend who was given tickets to a concert, and while driving to the concert hall, he got into a fender bender with another car. Once his car was in the body shop, an auto body mechanic discovered the car had a gas leak that could have caught on fire or exploded at any moment.

Could spirit possibly have influenced the person to give my friend the concert tickets knowing that he would get into a fender bender, which would lead to the discovery of the gas leak? I’ve seen too many coincidences that had significant results like this to not believe that this is how spirits work.

In another example, two people used their intuitive guidance to catch a shady businessperson. A meditation expert I know once hired a ghostwriter to interview her and write an article based on the interview. My friend felt compelled to share the article with me for feedback. I then had an intuitive impulse to check one paragraph of it in a Google search.

My Google search revealed that complete paragraphs of the article belonged to someone else—they’d been plagiarized by the ghostwriter. While this was an embarrassing event for the meditation expert, her instinct to share the article with me and my impulse to search a paragraph in Google saved my friend from public humiliation and potential legal issues. It also led her to begin writing her own articles and, a few years later, a book.

In a final example, a colleague once recommended I read a certain book to help with a project I was working on. I never got around to purchasing it. The next thing I knew, my television DVR recorded the movie version of the book. What’s fascinating is that I didn’t prompt the recording of the movie; the DVR recorded it on its own. First my spirit guides used my colleague as a messenger to recommend the book. When that didn’t work, they influenced my DVR to record the movie. The story ended up being especially helpful to me with the project.

These stories illustrate that if we miss one opportunity to be guided, our spirit guides will continue trying using any of the four methods of guidance or a combination of them. This is why it’s important to stay aware of (1) your intuitive feelings, (2) the coincidences in your life, (3) the messages brought to you by messengers, and (4) the events that are attempting to lead you in new directions. If you do, you’ll be helping your spirit guides to guide you, and you’ll be a whole lot better off for it.

Wishing you divine love and guidance toward a blessed life,
Bob

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Bob’s the host of Afterlife TV, author of two books, Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and creator of the reputable directory of vetted psychics and mediums, BestPsychicDirectory.com. Bob’s newest venture is BOB OLSON CONNECT, a Substack newsletter where you can read his stories, listen to a recording of each article, and leave comments. Click here to view upgrade options.

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