Improving Your Connection To Spirit
Jeff Street
http://divine-cosmos.net
Divine Cosmos - Reflections on life, self, and the universe.
Jeff Street
http://divine-cosmos.net
Divine Cosmos - Reflections on life, self, and the universe.
Recently a reader of the blog asked me to talk more about how to strengthen one's connection to spirit — one's higher self, spirit guides, and spiritual family. Although I don't claim to have all the answers I decided to share my thoughts on this subject because it's such an important one — connecting to our higher guidance can dramatically help us on our journeys. And with the ever increasing numbers of souls starting to awaken it seemed like this might be very useful.
You Are Always Connected But… The first thing to understand is, even though you may not feel connected, you are always connected to your higher self, spirit guides, and spiritual family — you are never alone. They are always listening, and always answering you and sending you messages. It's just a matter of whether you are receiving the messages or not; whether you are hearing the information being communicated. The communication mode can vary. Some people can literally HEAR the messages — they hear the sounds of words (this is called clairaudience). But this is not the case for most of us, at least not yet. For most people the communication and guidance coming from their higher self and guides comes in the form of intuition — thoughts that come to your mind, ideas that pop into your head, and associated feelings. What some have called "the little voice in their head". Keep in mind that spirit usually communicates to us in a whisper — gentle whispers in our head and our heart; it will almost never shout. Because the messages are so subtle, it is very easy not to hear them, or to dismiss them as your imagination. Many people are so busy, and their analytical minds are chattering away so loudly, that they don't notice or hear the subtle messages coming from spirit. If they do notice, their rational minds are likely to reject or ignore them. Hence, it feels like there's no connection! And indeed there is no FUNCTIONAL connection — but only because you are failing to receive the messages. Another way that spirit can communicate with you is through signs and symbols delivered to you via the outer world. Often this mode of communication is more concrete and unambiguous than the messages coming through your intuition, and spirit uses it as an auxiliary communication channel as appropriate. As usual, you need to be paying attention and trusting what you see and feel for this channel to be effective. More on this later in the article, but first let's explore the reasons why you are not receiving your intuitive messages and what you can do about it. The Top 3 Reasons Why You Aren't Receiving Messages The top three reasons why you aren't receiving the messages being sent to you are; (1) You're not noticing them because you are too busy and distracted (2) you're not hearing them because they are getting drowned out by too much mental noise (3) You're not trusting them and simply ignoring or rejecting them. Let's dive into each of these in more detail and explore solutions. #1 - Busyness and Distraction People often DON'T NOTICE the intuitive messages coming from spirit because they're so busy — and DISTRACTED — by their hectic day to day lives. They're immersed in dealing with issues and chores; interacting with friends, family, co-workers; dealing with any manner of things, and are simply not paying attention for messages from spirit. And these messages are generally very subtle, so you really have to be paying attention to recognize them. We all have busy lives to some extent or another, and we can get very busy for periods of time, and that is to be expected. But if you want to have a good connection with spirit you need to set aside some quiet and alone time, preferably every day. A spell of time where you slow down and relax and allow yourself the opportunity to hear and feel your connection and the messages coming through it. This could be some form of daily meditation if that resonates with you. But any kind of quiet time will work; solo walks in nature, trail running, gardening, whatever. Anything that you enjoy doing that relaxes you and that is relatively mindless will allow the relatively subtle thoughts and feelings of your intuition to be heard. If you can't manage to get some quiet time on a daily basis, don't worry — semi-regularly is just fine. In my personal case, I do not do well with sitting still and quiet, so meditation is out for me. I prefer to take solo walks in nature and in the hills. I don't do these every day, but quite frequently. Getting exercise and being in nature seems to re-energize me and some of my best insights, inspirations and obvious messages come to me before, during and after these. #2 - Mental Noise People often CAN'T HEAR the messages from spirit because their minds are so busy churning away, coping with the problems of everyday life. If you are not hearing the voice of your higher self and your guides it may be that you are never quieting your mind enough to hear it. The constant chatter of our analytical and egoic mind is mental noise that can drown out the incoming messages that are being delivered through our intuition. The messages from spirit are like whispers and can easily be overpowered by our other thoughts, fears and worries. One must make time on a regular basis to quiet the mind so you can hear the guidance and information coming through from your higher self and guides. Any kind of quiet time will work but the less physical sensory stimuli, the better. Of course, meditation can serve this purpose very well if it resonates with you. It turns down the volume on the mind and reduces worry, stress and anxiety which are the major sources of noise that interferes with us hearing our messages from spirit. In meditation you tune out the external world and go inside, which is your portal to the field of consciousness, making it easier to hear the messages from spirit. The eternal essence of all beings is pure consciousness and we are all parts of the one field of consciousness, that's why going within is your connection point. If meditation doesn't work for you then anything that allows you to relax and lets your mind get quieter is good — absolute Zen-like clear mind is not required. Often any repetitive relatively easy mindless task that you enjoy can serve this purpose. Quieting your mind by whatever means on a regular basis is the best first step. This will allow those relatively subtle thoughts and feelings of your intuition to be heard. #3 - Not Trusting Your Intuition Perhaps the biggest problem in receiving the messages from spirit is that we will notice an incoming message but our rational minds will reject or ignore it. We won't trust that these messages are meant for us and are meaningful. This is one of the main reasons that people don't FEEL like they have a connection to spirit. They are NOTICING the messages but are promptly ignoring or rejecting them because their rational mind doesn't understand and trust intuitive communication or deems the thoughts and feelings impractical, unrealistic, silly, or whatever. Developing Trust In Your Intuition To establish a functional communication channel with spirit you must learn how to trust your intuition. This is very challenging for many because of the very rational approach that our culture ingrains in us. You can't expect the communication process with spirit to follow rational rules — the rational model of the world was devised from our study of the material world and we are not dealing with the material world here. Try to keep an open mind and pay more attention to your thoughts and feelings, as well as things that you see and hear around you. Firstly, it really helps to know that your higher self and guides are always with you (in fact, within you) and that their primary mode of communication with you is through your intuition. You must trust that you are being listened to and answered. And you must trust that you are able to know the answers. Don't expect this trust to develop overnight. It could, but it might require a little time. If you set the intention to achieve a better connection, it will come. Go ahead and tell your higher self, guides and spiritual family (out loud or in your mind) that you want to establish a good connection with them. Then all you need to do is start paying attention to your thoughts and feelings and things happening outside. Most likely it will start with small coincidences and synchronicities. Make a habit of looking for these and make note of them. Also, begin to make a habit of asking for what you need. Start with small things that you want to happen that day. The goal is to experience small successes that build your confidence that your communication channel with spirit is open and working. After asking for help with something, pay attention to what shows up. Sometimes the answer arrives as the thing you needed, other times a helpful person will show up, or you might stumble upon some relevant or useful information. Often you will be answered by receiving an inspired idea or thought. Sometimes it will be blatantly obvious that the idea must have come from spirit because the idea had absolutely no precedent in your prior thinking — it just came out of the blue. Trust that these are truly messages intended for you from spirit and let yourself gain confidence and experience in how communication with spirit works. Ask For A Sign of Their Presence One way to build your confidence and trust is to simply ask them for a sign of their presence. They will deliver a sign to you that they know is the best way to convince you — and it might be something very personal — since they know you better than you know yourself. Some traditional signs that are offered by your angelic guides, as silly as they seem, are putting a coin or feathers in your path, perhaps repeatedly. But honestly, it could be anything so keep an open mind and pay attention. Another way they may indicate their presence to you is through repeating numbers. If you are seeing numbers like 11:11, 444, or any other number that is showing up repeatedly and more often or in quick succession in ways that seem improbable, this is very likely a high five from the other side. Repeating numbers are how my guides got my attention initially. After they knew I had noticed the frequent and improbable repeating numbers, then they nudged me to stumble across the book Angel Numbers 101, which explains what they mean. I only had to read the first paragraph of that book, and I realized that this must be what was happening to me. As the book points out, not only will your guides get your attention with the repeating numbers but they can then be used as message codes and allow for an alternate channel of communication that complements and is a fallback to your intuition. Asking for a sign of presence isn't something that you only do when you are initially trying to establish a connection. You can do this whenever your feeling of connection is waning or when doubt is creeping in, and you need reassurance of their presence. They will be very happy to give you a sign of their presence any time you need reassurance. They want you to trust their messages, and they know how important it is for you to trust their presence. I've done this numerous times myself. I occasionally get busy or stressed out and distracted by my work and the world and I feel like I'm disconnected. When I get in that state I just say out loud… "you know you guys (that's how I refer to my guides.. as 'you guys') I'm feeling really disconnected and it would be very reassuring to get a sign of your presence." A sign always comes, and sometimes in the most amazing and delightful ways! That wraps it up for how to master your primary channel of communication to spirit — your intuitive communication channel. But there is an alternate communication channel that you should be aware of. Alternate Channel of Communication — External Signs and Symbols Another way that messages can be delivered to you is via signs and symbols in the outer world. Your guides frequently use this mechanism by presenting to you a picture or symbol, a word or phrase, a song, meaningful numbers, or anything else that serves as a symbolic message. These may appear on license plates, road signs, music playing on the radio, and the like. Unfortunately, most of the time people are not even paying attention to things like this. If they do happen to notice something they'll usually just write it off as a meaningless coincidence. Start paying more attention to the symbols in the outside world and your first impressions of what they might mean. With practice you may perfect recognizing them and begin to trust this symbolic communication channel. Start asking questions and pay attention to what form the answer comes in — it may show up through your intuition as a hunch or inspired idea, but it might come as a sign or symbol. For example, you might see a license plate with some pertinent and meaningful words on it that feels like your answer — trust your feelings and the message. Solidifying Your Connection With trust, patience and practice using the techniques described you will firmly establish your communication channel to spirit, as many thousands and thousands have already done. And many more are coming online every day, one of which will be you. Spirit is delighted when each of us becomes aware of, and then firmly establishes, a connection. It allows them to start guiding us more effectively — and this is what they signed up for and agreed to do for us when we decided to dive into an incarnation in the Earth game. So they finally get to execute their purpose fully, which is very rewarding and satisfying for them! Enjoy. |