In my early twenties, I experienced a profound kundalini awakening that reshaped my perspective on spirituality. What once seemed vague and woo suddenly became palpable and immediate. This transformative experience led me to cultivate a deeper connection with my spirit guides, and I’ve been fascinated by the subject ever since.
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 higher selves, they possess an innate understanding of our needs and the best paths to fulfill them.
Here I’m going to shed some light on spirit guides, and it’s probably not what you’re imagining. By the end of this article, you’re going to have a comprehensive understanding of what spirit guides are, how they serve you, and what you can do to connect with them. If you want to learn about my kundalini awakening, read the article below.
My face-to-face encounter with a spirit guide
While living in the US, I went through a particularly painful breakup. At the time, I was practicing working with sacred medicines. As a means to restore my emotional body, I decided to hold a ceremony for myself the following night.
I knew that 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 was 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 instrument over me which forced these painful energies out in a violent convulsion. At the time I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew it was positive, so I surrendered to it.
The next thing I remembered was 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. For a much more in-depth explanation of this experience, you can watch my video on the topic below:
I have had many deep spiritual experiences, especially with medicines, but I know it’s something special to have a face-to-face encounter like this. This experience really 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 afterward, this is what I learned.
What are your spirit guides? Understanding the master within
There’s a lot of ambiguity surrounding the topic of spirit guides. We know that they’re 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 they’re 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. Your soul has incarnated as many different races, species, and beings from other galaxies and dimensions. That wisdom is stored in your soul which can be retrieved, and this is where spirit guides play a role: As projections of your own infinite consciousness.
Spirit guide is an umbrella term. It refers to different higher-dimensional aspects of your soul (and the myriad journeys it has embarked on) that you can tap into. I don’t necessarily believe that you have an assigned squad of beings to watch over you. I believe you’re tapping into other incarnations of your soul journey, and retrieving wisdom from them.
All the wisdom, support, and knowledge resides inside yourself, it’s not something you should search outward for. Therefore, by going deep into your own consciousness, that’s how you connect with your spirit guides as they’re within you, not outside of you.
How do you know if you see a spirit guide?
People tend to perceive spirit guides as external beings that step into our lives to help us out. They often appear as separate entities, but at some level of your existence, they’re other versions of your own consciousness.
Spirit guides are not external to you. You’re just tapping into a deeper part of your infinite consciousness to receive information from your higher self (or interdimensional versions of your higher self). Remember, you’re not a human! You’re just here for a temporary experience, and you’ve 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 I’m working, walking through nature, or engrossed in something. Other times they appear through ceremonies, meditation, and while practicing spiritual crafts such as astral projection.
I’ve met guiding spirits in the form of humans, orbs, and interdimensional beings. Often there’s an element of ambiguity surrounding an encounter with a spirit guide. Rarely, they will smack you in the face and you’ll absolutely know. But it does happen.
The depth of your connection to your spirit guides is determined by how much you practice connecting with them (yourself). Everyone has the ability to connect with their spirit guides because their spirit guide is parts of their own consciousness.
Forms of spirit guides
A spirit guide will appear in any form that is significant to you. In this sense, they can take all sorts of shapes and forms, depending on what they’re trying to convey. They often appear as external beings to us, but that’s just how we perceive them.
I’ve had quite a few encounters with different spirit guides since exploring these other dimensional realms. While astral projecting I’ve been in contact with orbs that felt like family and gave me a tour through the spiritual dimension.
I’ve seen the same figures in extremely vivid dreams that seem to convey a deep message to me, which is exactly what I need at the time. Then there were strange things like whispers and voices that came out of nowhere. Sometimes feelings and visions of different guides show me something. All of these encounters are quick, but they’re all vivid.
As you have experienced many lifetimes, you have a lot of wisdom stored within yourself. Here are some of the different incarnations you might connect with.
Ancestral guides
Ancestral guides are versions of yourself that were descendants of a particular lineage. You tend to tap into these incarnations when you’re walking a similar path that you have previously walked down.
Ancestral guides usually pertain to a particular ancestry, which is essentially an energetic blueprint. They also appear when you’re connected to that particular ancestry within this lifetime, whether it’s through traditions, ceremonies, spiritual modalities, or interpersonal relationships, you may tap into these incarnations to remember ancestral knowledge.
Intergalactic guides
Intergalactic guides are spirits that were incarnated as different species from other planets. The purpose of this form is to help you connect with other bodies of knowledge and wisdom, and to connect with your roots beyond humanity. You tend to tap into these incarnations when you’re seeking otherworldly information that extends beyond your human incarnations.
Animal guides
Animals tend to be symbolic guides. They might not directly communicate with you, but they serve the function of portraying certain traits and characteristics that are needed to overcome your situation. For example, if you have a vision of an eagle, it might tell you to overcome your challenges with strength and grace. As different animals represent different qualities, they can appear to teach us particular lessons.
How we perceive our spirit guides
As your spirit guides are aspects of your own consciousness, there are many different ways that you can tap into them. They don’t come in a single form, rather they can be perceived in an array of forms and figures.
Spirit guides are seen with the third eye, and they usually don’t occupy space in physical reality, although sometimes they do. People often connect with their spirit guides during dreams, prayer, spiritual practices, and meditation. They are usually perceived in the form of visions that accompany intense feelings and downloads.
With that said, here are some ways you’re likely to experience your spirit guides.
Visions
People usually experience their spirit guides in visions. These visions vary in intensity and can range from a vague imprint of something, to watching a five-dimensional being interact with you in high definition (depending on how clear the connection is).
Having a vision of your spirit guide is usually accompanied by epiphanies, realizations, a deep sense of knowingness, or a spike of intuition. These visions can occur during meditation, spiritual disciplines, dreams, or spontaneously in your life.
Voices
You might hear voices randomly at times that are foreign to your own. They feel completely external to you, but point towards something that that you weren’t aware of, or had no knowledge of.
There have been times when it’s like someone said something to me, but it wasn’t actually a person. It’s a strange feeling because I’ll think back on something someone said, or a piece of knowledge I attained, and realize there was no way that someone could have actually told me it (yet I remember it like someone had).
This phenomenon has only happened a few times to me, but each time the message has been quite significant (and relevant) to my life situation. Whether the information is from spirit guides or something else, I remember it as spoken messages that have no source, or logical explanation.
Downloads
If you’re tapping into a spirit guide, a common way to receive information is via a download. A download is essentially telepathic communication where you’re tapping into a different quality of information outside of physical reality.
Spiritual downloads can feel like intrusive thoughts or a deep knowingness. You’re essentially downloading knowledge from a higher source, and have immediate epiphanies. This is usually how spirit guides communicate with you. They beam information into your consciousness (rather you download it by connecting with that particular incarnation).
Intuitive spikes
Intuition spikes tend to accompany other signals that you’re tapping into a spirit guide. Often when you have a vision of a spirit guide, you get a sharp intuitive spike regarding a certain occurrence in your life.
If you’re in a conflict with someone, perhaps your intuition will suddenly tell you to resolve the issue. You will suddenly know exactly what the right course of action is when previously it could have been unclear. If you’re on the fence about a difficult decision, perhaps you will suddenly get a clear insight about which path will serve your growth, and know which option you need to take.
How can spirit guides help you?
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 you’re about to walk into a life-threatening situation, or veering off track. There are several primary reasons why you might have an encounter with one of your spirit guides.
Clarity
Spirit guides give you information to 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 you’re connecting with a spirit guide about your situation (even if it’s not what you want to hear).
Healing
Spirit guides can appear when you’re at your lowest, and you’re praying for help. Situations such as mourning, heavy trauma, and derailment from your path can cause you to tap into your spirit guides. They can then either help you manage the suffering, or heal it themselves if they believe it’s in their best interest to do so.
Protection
Often, spirit guides appear to warn you. I’ve 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.
Spirit guides can bend reality so to speak (as reality is a projection of your infinite consciousness). Otherwise, they may come in the form of a real person, animal, or occurrence that alters the outcome of the situation, or to send you a clear message to alter your course of action.
Support
Spirit guides can act as the hand on your shoulder when you’re in a dark spot. When there’s nobody else to help you out, sometimes you will tap into a deeper part of yourself that knows exactly how to help. To learn more about tapping into spirit guides when you need support, read the following article about one of my experiences below.
How to connect with your spirit guides
To connect with your spirit guides, you need to cultivate a practice of tapping into a deeper part of yourself that’s usually guarded by the ego. As you journey deeper into your soul nature, your spirit guides become more prominent in your life, because you’re looking beyond the surface level of reality (where they reside).
Let’s look at some common ways that you can tap into your spirit guides here.
Set your intentions
There are certainly many different life forms hanging about in the spiritual realm, and you don’t want to invite just anything in. Neglecting setting intentions can have unexpected consequences such as contacting entities you really don’t want to, or having something attach itself to you.
Your intentions are like a spiritual compass that navigates you within these other dimensions of experience. When you’re reaching out to your spiritual guides, set clear and concise intentions from the heart. As long as you really feel it (not just say it), you’re aiming in the right direction.
Pray to them
Prayer acts as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds. By praying, you create a sacred space, allowing for protected communication with your spirit guides. Prayer is a way of asking for guidance, protection, and clarity when you’re dabbling with the spiritual dimensions.
When you’re really struggling with something in your life, naturally you will pray to a higher power. Sometimes, those prayers will be answered by a deeper part of your soul that has the answers you’re looking for. Whether the answers come through intuition, immediate clarity, visions, synchronicities, or signs, it’s an indicator that you are connecting with your guides.
Be present with your experience
You’re unlikely to connect with these deeper realms of information if you’re doing things. The problem is that we’re always so occupied that we rarely set aside time to really listen. By sitting with your experience of consciousness, you create space for more messages to come through because you’re actually paying attention.
Mindfulness is key because it brings you into the here and now, where you’re receptive to subtle signals and messages. I suggest meditating regularly to strengthen your connection with yourself. To learn how to be more mindful, check out the resource below.
Pay close 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. You may hear an inner guidance that nudges you in the right direction.
Surrender to them
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.
To connect with your spirit guides, let go of control. This means that you need to prevent yourself from trying to control the outcome too. When there is no resistance and you’re in a flow state with the universe, you’re much more likely to tap into your spirit guides. Here’s an article about how to do this.
Plant medicines and shamanic ceremonies
Personally, most of my major spiritual experiences have happened with plant medicines, and during shamanic ceremonies. Plant medicines can be extremely powerful tools to connect with the master within, and to gain 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 (not taken a course!), and know how to hold the space when working with these medicines. Combine plant medicines with the other suggestions here, and it creates a potent cocktail to tap into your spirit guides.
Practice spiritual modalities and energetic healing
As you explore deeper levels of your spiritual journey, you’re going to start exploring various modalities too. By practicing a spiritual craft, whether it’s energy healing, mediumship, astral projection, or so forth, 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 you’re using now.
Connect with your spirit guides
Remember that you are your own master. It’s 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 own consciousness, and your spirit guides are aspects of your own consciousness. By practicing going deeper into yourself, this is where you will start to experience your guides (not when you’re looking outwards).