Over the past few years (and especially in the past three months), I’ve had multiple people ask me how I started on my intuitive journey, listening to my guides. The truth is, it’s hard to really pinpoint a time, so I’d have to say from birth.

As a child and teenager, I would find myself just knowing things—especially facts and figures, or meanings of words. I was a voracious reader, so through those years and much of my early adulthood, I simply assumed that I had read these things at some point and forgotten that I had learned them.

Then came upheaval in my life in 2009, what I’ve since come to call a “spiritual renovation,” thanks to the wisdom of Rumi. That whole process is far too detailed to go into here, and I’ve been writing a book about it since it first happened. Yes, for those of you who care to do the math, that’s nearly 8 years. (It’s going out to beta readers this autumn, if all goes according to plan.) During that time, I renewed my spiritual practice of praying, and I began using oracles (runes, tarot cards, and the like) far more frequently than I had been.

I had long known that we all have spirit guides, and I had sometimes sensed mine, but now, during and after prayers, when I began focusing on actually listening to divine guidance rather than simply talking to God (i.e., what most of us think of as prayer). During that time, I began “hearing” my guides and actually having conversations with them.

When I say I “heard” my guides, what I really mean is that I received their messages. Typically for me, this is a fully formed sentence popping into my head, a gift known as claircognizance. (I very rarely actually hear their voices, which is a gift known as clairaudience.) To help me know that this knowing was actually from them and not my own mind, my guides also used my gift of clairsentience, which for me comes in the form of physical sensation—feeling their presence in the room, for example, or causing my third eye or crown chakra to tingle or “buzz” (this sensation, I often refer to as the chakra “lighting up”).

I developed those skills for a time, and then life got in the way. My husband got a very demanding job, and I used most of my time to support him. Then we had our first child and really got swept away, and I stopped making time for meditation, religious/spiritual study, or prayer. Though I still managed to have conversations with my guides, they were usually quick and incomplete, typically happening in the shower—the one place and time I could allow myself to relax and get anywhere near a state of receptivity.

It was like calling up an old friend once every six or seven months to try and catch up, but then getting interrupted by the kids after fifteen minutes and having to hurriedly hang up to handle some emergency, like trying to stop the dog, who had “somehow” become covered in peanut butter, from rolling in the carpet to get it off …

Finally, in June of 2016, I was overwhelmed by stress from multiple sources: work, money (lack of), taking care of the kids, not getting enough sleep … In other words, all of the things pretty typical to stress out a mom of two. That’s when I discovered a book called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, and I took his 30-day challenge. As part of the miracle morning, (nearly) every day, I set aside time to sit in silent meditation, in a state of quiet receptivity. And once again, my relationship with my guides strengthened, like that longtime friend had moved back home and actually into the house next door, and we were able to see each other briefly every day.

Even better, I found that when I journaled during or after that quiet time, I could get in such a state of flow that I performed automatic writing. I had done this a few times before when taking notes about what I was seeing and hearing in meditation, so I was familiar with the process and the sensation of my “buzzing” third eye. The more I practiced this automatic writing, however, the stronger the sensation got, and my hands would actually pulse and throb with energy. Here again was my guides working with my clairsentience.

This deepened my relationship with my guides even further, and I liken it to having coffee on the front porch every morning with that longtime friend-cum-next-door neighbor.

So, that’s brings us to the posts I’ll be sharing over the next few weeks, in which I will actually share some of my journal entries beginning in June and July 2016.

 

Have any questions so far? Comment below or email me. I’ll probably turn the response into another blog post!