Wouldn’t it be nice if you could share in the wisdom and learning the other side has to offer … from this side? You can, and probably already do, even though you might not know it! Spirit guides are with each of us all the time. Some people are very aware of their guides, and can even tell which guides are present. Some people only sense a spirit guide’s presence in times of need or stress, while others sense the presence of their guides a good deal of the time.

Spirit guides are here to watch out for us, help us understand life lessons, and help us find joy and wonder as we journey through our earth plane existence. And often, contact serves for the spirit guide’s progression as well. Spirits can learn by helping us through our experiences, too.

Although your spirit guides are with you all the time you aren’t always aware of their presence, any more than you’re aware of the presence of your shadow. Just as familiarity blurs the details of your regular commute route or daily activities, the continuous presence of your spirit guides sometimes makes them just part of the psychic scenery.

Whether or not you know it, your spirit guides are always with you. They communicate with you on a higher level. Some of the information they have to share is instructional, helping you to discover the learnings of your lessons in this life. You might “hear” or “see” this communication, and be as consciously aware of it as you would be of a dialogue with an earth plane friend. Other times you simply take an action or make a decision that turns out right, and you might marvel at having done so. Do you feel as though someone is smiling at you then, giving you a pat on the back? Thank your spirit guides!

A key concept with spirit guides is “guidance.” Guidance is something that is optional. It is additional information, a different perspective, that you can use or not use, as you choose. You are not required to follow a spirit guide’s advice. What you do with the information your spirit guides provide is entirely up to you.

Spirit guides aren’t with us to live our lives for us, or to keep us from making poor choices and mistakes. Ultimately, you are responsible for your own life and the path it takes. Spirit guides are extra resources for you to tap into, and to draw from in considering the many elements of information that go into the decisions you make. It’s up to you to use or discard that advice, according to how it fits with other advice and information. You, and you alone, are accountable for the course of your life.

Do you sometimes feel that your spirit guide is some sort of a heavenly protector who watches over you and keeps you from getting into harm’s way or into trouble? You might even refer to this protector as a guardian angel (although technically speaking, a guardian angel is an entirely different entity). You might have spirit guides that function in this way. They stay with you, surround you with light and energy, and help you find your way safely through the day and to your destination.

During your existence on the earth plane, you develop a certain expertise. (If you’re truly talented, you might have several areas of expertise.) You might be an artist, a banker, an accountant, an engineer, a carpenter, an attorney, a doctor, a writer. When you pass to the other side, this expertise goes with you. As you evolve on the higher side, your first order of business is to complete whatever personal matters need attention. After that, you can use your expertise to guide people on the earth plane.

This is the help that comes to you through your spirit guides. They have expertise in areas that are important in your life, and come to offer guidance in those areas. Often, your spirit guides help you to move toward achieving your life’s mission.

Most spirit guides were once people who walked the earth plane and now have an expertise that they can share with you. They can offer help with just about any need you might have, from the mundane to the spiritual. You might have one spirit guide who offers advice about matters relating to your professional life, and another that gives you a boost when you’re involved in physical activities. You might even have shopping guides!

Rita has a particular spirit guide that has been with her for a long time and is with her when she paints, yet when she does spirit drawings she can feel that other spirit guides come in to guide the process. She can see the shift in the style of her drawings, and then she knows a different guide is at work. When she paints her own spirit guides, she can feel them guiding her work to create the images that unfold on her canvases.

A spirit guide might have a heritage that is very different from yours. Yet if you look closely, you’ll find that there is some sort of connection. Perhaps there are elements of the spirit guide’s heritage that allow you to look at things differently than your own heritage and culture permit. Our spirit guides help us through the processes we need to complete so we can make the changes and experience the growth needed to make our own life paths unfold. Each of us is so unique! Some people don’t want to go any further than their neighborhood, while others want to travel around the world. Spirit guides give us inspiration for journeys that we want—or need—to take.

A spirit guide has a particular skill or expertise to offer you, which is why you have different spirit guides at different times of your life, and even during different activities. Occasionally a spirit guide might be a friend or a family member who has passed to the higher side. But most of the time, your spirit guides are not the folks you’ll find in your family album. The only time a spirit guide might be a relative is when this person has an expertise that you need. If you’re a painter and your grandfather was a plumber, your grandfather doesn’t have much to offer you about painting—even though you might very much enjoy his spirit visits. A spirit guide comes to teach or assist you. A loved one comes to fuss over you, to tell you to eat your oatmeal and button your coat!

Sometimes you might believe a relative has come through to give you some help. Think this through carefully before accepting it. Did this relative have expertise in the area he or she is now offering assistance with? If Aunt Martha couldn’t balance a checkbook on the earth plane, she’s not going to become a financial whiz when she passes to the higher side! If you have someone coming through, whether directly or through a medium, who says she’s Aunt Martha, coming to give you financial planning advice from the other side, don’t feel that you have to accept the advice. Sometimes the signal isn’t quite clear; this either isn’t Aunt Martha, or it is but she hasn’t come to help you plan your financial future. Sometimes a visit is just a visit. Ask the spirit to clarify his or her identity and purpose.

It’s fun and exciting to meet your spirit guides. Most of them are just as eager to meet you. Even though they’ve been a part of your life for who knows how long, they’ve operated in the shadows. Everyone enjoys recognition, and spirit guides are no exception. In fact, many spirit guides will go out of their way to help you figure out who they are.

Rita was painting a picture of her spirit guide when a friend came in and asked, “What’s his name?” Rita struggled with fragments of words and kept coming up with “Frangelico, Angelico, friar,” with words going back and forth, until finally “Fra Angelico” came to her. But this didn’t mean anything to Rita or her friend, so Rita just pushed it to the back of her mind.

Three weeks later, Rita heard her father’s voice say “Look it up!” This had been his constant message during his presence on the earth plane, so it came as no surprise that it was his message from the other side. So Rita went to the encyclopedia and found an entry for a Fra Angelico, a painter who lived in the fifteenth century. All the information that she had told her friend about this painting monk was verified in the encyclopedia.

End of the Day, November 1989, oil on canvas. Rita’s painting of her spirit guide Fra Angelico.

Being the skeptic that she is, Rita dug deeper for more information about Fra Angelico. At the Worcester Art Museum’s research room, Rita found an article written in approximately 1850, critiquing Fra Angelico in the same way that Rita’s work had been reviewed just a few months earlier! In both cases, the critiques stated, “Master of hands and faces but not enough painterly quality. Too interested in telling the story.” For Rita, this verified that Fra Angelico was indeed her spirit guide; the chances of something like this happening at random are pretty incredible.

Most people have a dominant guide who is present nearly all of the time. When Debbie (Rita’s co-author of this book) and Rita talked on the telephone for the first time, Rita immediately “met” Debbie’s spirit guide, even though Debbie was unaware of his presence. An energetic and powerful presence, this guide is a Native American in full, colorful dance attire. He dances with great energy, and it is this energy that gives Debbie her “Never say die!” approach to life. Now that she is aware of her spirit guide, Debbie feels his energy and his presence—especially when flying downhill on her bicycle! Debbie looks forward to getting to know her “Feather Dancer” and to learning what lessons he is here to help her learn.

You might, like Debbie, become aware of your spirit guides when a medium introduces you to them. Or you might already have a sense that a presence accompanies you through the activities of your daily life, or even a clear vision that you can already identify as a spirit guide. Whatever the case, your guides are with you to help you get the most from your life. Your guides are your spirit friends, and you can initiate communication with them just as you might pick up the telephone to call your earth plane friends.

Who are your spirit guides? Here is an exercise that can help the guides disclose themselves to you. You might want to read through it several times. In that way, you can go through the steps without interrupting them to see what comes next. It’s not important that you follow each step exactly. What matters most is that you are comfortable, relaxed, and open to the experience and whatever information it reveals to you.

Now it’s time to put on your analytical thinking cap. Who is your spirit guide? What is his or her link to you, and what lessons is this guide in your life here to teach you? What information did your spirit guide share with you? Get your pen or pencil, and write down your impressions while they’re still fresh in your mind. If you need more space than we’ve provided here, write your responses on a separate sheet of paper.

Rita’s spirit guide Fra Angelico is an ever-present teacher who helps Rita refine and improve her technique and skill as a painter. She can ask Fra Angelico for help, or he can come through with inspiration. Spirit guides are with us to teach and help us learn. Your spirit guides can help you enhance the abilities and talents that you have, and even discover those that you didn’t realize you had, but they cannot give you what you don’t have. It is always your role and responsibility to develop your gifts and aptitudes and make the most of them.

You, too, can seek the counsel of your spirit guides. In the mediumship classes that she teaches, Rita uses the following exercise to help her students learn more about their spirit guides and the lessons they have come to teach. (The first three steps are the same ones you followed to establish contact with your spirit guides.)

Now, while your lesson is fresh in your mind, write down the images that came to you. This is often very much like interpreting your dreams. Images and concepts might be symbolic and representative rather than literal and direct.

The help that spirit guides give us is invaluable. It can take us to levels of understanding, skill, and ability that would take much, much longer for us to achieve without their help. Often, this interaction is a two-way street; that is, spirit guides benefit, too. They are progressing and evolving on the higher side, moving along the paths of their soul-missions just as we are doing the same in the paths of our physical lives. Teaching and learning are flip sides of the same coin; it is impossible to separate one from the other. In teaching us, our spirit guides are also learning for themselves.

Your spirit guides bring much positive energy into your life. All you have to do is plug into it, and its many advantages are yours for the taking. Keep your heart, mind, and spirit open to the energy, and it can be the ground swell that carries you to new heights. Their lessons and advice can be enlightening. And they can be fun, bringing you much joy. Let the energy be with you!

The Least You Need to Know