5 Tips to Recognizing Spiritual Guidance
Humanity was blessed with the gift of logic. This logic keeps us away from danger. It’s the alarm system that stops us from running towards fires and urges us to hide in the basement when there’s a hurricane ripping through our town. It’s also the same “alarm system” that keeps us from attending events that remind us of past experiences, or befriending those who fit the mold of a stereotypical “dangerous” person based on social proof. Are you seeing the problem of over exaggeration here? The logic’s role is to protect us. The problem, however, is the logic can perceive anything as being dangerous or harmful, especially if it’s in regards to something unknown or different. “But what if it’s a hazard?!”, questions the logic.
It can be difficult to differentiate between the logical guidance, concerned only with mere survival, and spiritual guidance, which leads us towards soul expansion. Each of us will truly feel the difference of both in our bodies, but that will require a conscious effort to tune into your body anytime you’re feeling guided or persuaded to do or not do something. The energy surrounding any thought will sit differently in the body. That’s all fine and dandy, but how exactly do I begin to recognize that a thought or impulse is fueled by spiritual guidance?
1- Start setting daily intention to become familiar with your unique sensation of the “ding ding” ping!
A “ding ding” ping will feel like a wave of intense inspiration of good-feel momentum. It can almost feel intimidating or overwhelming sometimes. When this wave of your ding ding ping comes, you have a few short human-moments to decide if you’re going to ride the wave or let it pass by. Spiritual guidance will always feel empowering and “good feeling” intuitively, even if the human action required to follow through on the guidance may be perceived as painful or uncomfortable.
For example, your intuition may be guiding you to say “no” to an invitation that you must respond to, and have in the past always, said “yes” to out of guilt. Although the action-step of saying “no” can be perceived as being potentially painful, assuming other people’s feelings will get hurt in the process, the initial ping to say “no” would feel like liberation. It would feel like weight lifted off of your shoulders. It would feel authentic and honest. Your body would take a deep sigh of relief. Perhaps you are being guided to say “no” to things you would normally say yes to in order to spiritually begin establishing stronger boundaries, or break the pattern of giving your power away to other people.
2- Begin to notice how your human mind responds immediately after a “ding ding” ping comes through. Think of it as data collection to come into greater understanding of self.
Often times at first, the mind will go completely bananas immediately following a “ding ding” ping of inspiration or divine guidance. It often responds in this way because follow through on intuitive guidance is not the norm. The left side of our brain, concerned with survival, wants to keep things the same at all costs, regardless of the outcome. Changing things could potentially bring an end to the usefulness of the left side of the brain, and so the logical mind often fights and protects itself as though it were in battle, protecting the sovereignty that is its life.
Collecting personal data on how your mind responds to intuitive guidance is a proactive approach to staying grounded when the mind goes into a tizzy. Give yourself the permission to follow-through on pings that are non-threatening at first to collect “evidence” for your brain in the future that intuitive guidance is not an enemy.
For example, maybe you get a ping to paint a birdhouse (personal example!). Instead of rationalizing reason why painting a birdhouse is a waste of time, costs money, was not a part of the plan, probably won’t attract birds anyway, is super “childish”, etc., grant your inner child the space to paint a birdhouse anyway. Why? Because it feels good to right now. Then, asses how you feel afterwards and throughout the process of following through on the creative guidance that came through. As you continue to scaffold and grow in your trust of spiritual guidance pings, these mini-experiences can be reflected upon as a safety net to calm the scared logical mind when larger pings begin to come through. It becomes a reminder that you are safe and divinely protected.
3- Recognize that spiritual guidance is often completely illogical by nature. Assuming it, or needing it, to be otherwise would mean a part of you is hesitant to surrender to its call (and rightfully so!)
Messages received intuitively are meant to be felt through, not thought through. If your mind is constantly trying to make sense of, or justify the validity of spiritual guidance when the “ding ding” ping comes through, that is a subtle cue that more work needs to be done around the safety of your inner child. There is a part of you that is afraid to let go and doubts that you can survive in an energetic place of uncertainty, and that is okay! Bring awareness to the shadow work that is yearning for your loving attention.
Photography by Garth Joseph @oneteamnodream
4- If the mind and spirit begin to play a game of wild catch with the “ping” ball, throwing and filtering the message that came through back and forth, walk away.
In these times, you can use a creative visualization technique to capture the energetic vibration of the message in present time. Imagine placing the intuitive “ping” message in a protected jar of white light and placing it on a shelf. Set an intention to capture the initial “whoosh” that came with the message or thought you are assessing, and allow the white light of protection to store the feeling safely until you have restored energetic balance. Commit yourself to coming back to this intuitive guidance or message that came through once you have re-grounded your energy. When you are ready, imagine yourself coming back to the shelf, picking up the jar (protected by white light) and receiving the message again, as though it came through the first time with an open mind and open heart. How does the message feel?
5- Note that once you begin to establish a strong trust with the intuitive side of you that is open to receiving spiritual guidance readily, not all calls to divinely inspired action will feel warm and fuzzy at first.
As we continue to energetically expand and ascend, your spiritual guidance system will serve as your next-step compass at all times. Once you establish trust with the side of you that accepts messages and intuitive guidance to creatively flow through you (meaning, you follow through on the “pings”), that trust becomes a platform of safety to begin shadow work. According to the Four Noble Truths of Buddhist teachings, it is first mentioned that all of life is pain and suffering (since we are living in a “maya”, or an illusion according to yogic philosophy). However, the Four Noble Truths also state that there is a way out of the pain and suffering. (Thank goodness for that!) In order to get to the promised land of inner peace and stillness, we have to walk through the pain, the suffering and the shadow aspects of self. The healing that takes place as part of the process of acknowledging, accepting and loving all aspects of self brings us closer to liberation. When this process of unraveling the layers of self begins, your trust in the divine will truly be tested.
Living with the perspective that our bodies are merely vessels through which spiritual guidance and inspiration flow requires a commitment to unlearn old thinking habits and relearn new feeling habits. It requires sincere devotion to expansion, inner work, acceptance of all things and embracing the unknown. Always start with where you are! Where you currently are along your spiritual path is exactly where you’re meant to be. Slow and steady wins the race. There will always be more to learn, more to experience and more versions of yourself to expand into. There is no end. Enjoy the process that is the journey back home to self. Embrace every moment Within the Journey to coming back home, to you.
Sending you infinite love and light along your journey. <3
-Katherine