Sometimes receiving spiritual guidance is very helpful. Yet it can come with many questions too. In this article I am going to help you understand exactly what spiritual guidance is. Plus, how you can receive it on your own.
What is Spiritual Guidance?
Spiritual guidance is when you receive information about your life from the non-human world and your higher self. This information can come from a few spiritual sources. The most common source is your own angels. You may also here them referred to as spirit guides. We all have them, so do not worry that you have been left out. (You just need to tune into them. More on that later.)
You can also receive information from angels who are not your guides and souls who have crossed over. (There are many others but for simplicity, we will stick with these.)
How Do You Receive Spiritual Guidance?
We are all born with the ability to connect with “the other side.” Every single one of us are given gifts when we enter the world. Yet we often end up burying those gifts as part of the process of joining society. As Don Miguel Ruiz says the process of domestication.
It is not just a few who have “psychic” gifts. It is simply a few that remember how to use those.
When you begin to allow your gifts to develop you can start to receive spiritual guidance when you need it. I hear you saying, but I have no clue how to do that, or even what mine are. So, let us dig into the most common ways to connect with the spirit world.
Types of Psychic Abilities
Quick side note about the term psychic. It can have many negative connotations. The image of the old commercials telling you to call a psychic now always pops into my head. It can often feel very slimy.
But that is only a word assigned to label someone who is using their ability to connect to the spirit realm. You could also use the word medium, intuitive or oracle. There are many others besides those.
I encourage you to pick the word that feels the best to you so that you can be open to receiving the guidance. I like the word 'intuitive' the best.
Clair Psychic Abilities - “The Clairs”
You may hear the most common gifts referred to as the clairs. This is because they all start with the word clair. This is derived from the French word meaning clear. The rest of each word, then adds how the person with this gift receives guidance. Here are the most common gifts:
Clairvoyance – Clear Seeing
If someone is clairvoyant, they can actually see angels and spirits. This may also come about by them seeing an image that is related to what is being communicated.
For example, if your guides want you to know that you need more fruit in your diet they will show you an image of fruits!
Clairaudience – Clear Hearing
With this one, the person who is clairaudient can hear the information. This is often in your head, versus out loud. But it can be both!
These first two are the ones most of us equate to getting spiritual guidance from a medium. You go to someone; they hear and see others you can’t, and you then get information.
But there are other ways! Although, they are typically less showy, so not as exciting!
Clairsentience – Clear Feeling
It means the person can connect by feeling or emotion. This is one of my main gifts. To give you an example of how this works, I want to share with you an example.
A friend of mine who is clairaudient. She and I were trying to get information from an entity that was living in my apartment. The entity was having trouble articulating to my friend why he was there and could not leave. I could not hear him, but I could feel him. I felt the pain that he was still carrying from his lifetime and was able to figure out the issue by feeling. My friend was then able to confirm what with him, what I got. (Having friends with opposing gifts is always helpful!)
Claircognizance – Clear Knowing
This is when you just know something. We often refer to it as a gut feeling. But it can also be that suddenly you have information. This is my other main gift. And it is like the information is just there, without having to do anything. Before I realized it was a gift I used to say it was a gift of insight, or that I understood people.
Two others that are less common are:
Clairalience – Clear Smelling
Clairgustance – Clear Tasting
These two are exactly as you would imagine them to be. You smell something or get the taste of something. It could be an old smell from a loved one’s home. Or something that they always ate.
How to Tell What Gift You Have
If you immediately do not know which one, the best way to figure it out is to start to pay attention. Self-awareness is one of the best tools to discover pretty much anything about yourself!
Do you find yourself saying things like “I just knew it” or “I feel like we should stay home” or even “who said that?” These could be clues about what your natural gifts are.
Give yourself time to do this. If you buried your gifts deep, then it could take a while. I buried my gifts really deep. To the point I would joke I never got women’s intuition. I did get it but hid it. It took me a good couple years after realizing I even had one to be able to tune into it. And then another couple of years to develop the three I use the most.
How to Develop Your Psychic Gifts for Spiritual Guidance
For me, the two biggest things have been awareness and practice. The more you use them the easier it gets. Keep a journal of when you receive an intuitive piece of information. Then review it regularly to see if your information was accurate or close.
Do not get caught up when you are wrong. You will be in the beginning. It takes practice like any other skill.
Plus, life is constantly changing. Just because you were given a piece of information that was true. Does not mean it will stay true even 10 minutes later. But that is a completely different article!
Tools Can You Use to Receive Spiritual Guidance
Theses are the tools that can help you tap into your spiritual guidance:
- Meditation – when you quite the mind it is amazing what can come through! You can start by asking a question, or simply focus on listening. Most of my meditations are designed to help you get in touch with your intuition. You can check them out on YouTube or on my meditation podcast.
- Journaling – this is one of my favorite ways to get guidance. In fact, it was the first tool I used to develop my gifts. The free-writing method is the best journaling technique to use for this. Open a journal and just start writing!
- Oracle Decks – these are great to send you in the right direction if you are stuck. (You can find my favorite decks on my resources page.)
- Get Help – sometimes we are blocked on our own. When we are too caught up in the situation or when we are still developing our gifts it can be hard to hear the messages.
- Look for signs – our guides use signs as a way to communicate more information. They may provide new information or confirm something that they already communicated. You can ask for signs if you want one. I will do this when given a piece of information, but I am not quite sure that I received it correctly.
- Pay attention to your dreams. We often do a lot of healing work on different levels when we are asleep. If you wake up from a dream that felt real or it had strong feelings. Spend extra time journaling about that dream. It will often have many messages for you.
The key in receiving spiritual guidance is to practice and allow things to come in that feel weird. Yup when you first start to connect it can be a little discomforting. I spent many hours trying to let myself believe what I was getting was even possible. Our culture is not exactly supportive of things that don’t make sense. Our sense of trusting the universe has been minimized.
But you can regain yours. Allow yourself time and practice. And soon you will be receiving spiritual guidance even when you don’t’ specifically ask for it!
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