Search the Community

MICHAEL SPEAKS 061310 HOW GUIDES WORK Based on the request of Nicholas via the Topic Suggestion Forum: So many people around me talk about receiving information from their guides. Some seem to literally hear their guides and others seem to sense their guides. Recently I have met a healer who seems to follow most of his guides instructions, and I find the idea of that unsettling. I think it would be really helpful to explore this topic and gain clarity about who/what our guides are, how they interact with us, and what tend to be our illusions/delusions about the whole thing. MEntity: The topic of choice is one that presents a challenge to those in physical form, and we will do our best to offer solutions and practices that may be implemented for bridging the gap between the Physical and Non-Physical in terms of relationships. There is a multitude of relationships happening between your Essence and other Essences at any given time, many of which will have no real or obvious bearing on the Physical incarnation at the time. However, there are, for most Personalities, at least 4 Non-physical relationships of significance that have direct bearing on the life, whether acknowledged, or not. The first relationship of the 4, of course, being the one you have with “yourself,” with your own Essence. Beyond the obvious relationship with your own Essence, every fragment will have 3 Guides, one of which is a Primary Guide and chosen as a relationship that arcs across the entire lifetime. Two additional Guide POSITIONS are also always in place, though the fragments who fulfill those Positions may change across the lifetime. There are two ways to understand these three positions: The Primary Guide = LIFE GUIDE, with two additional Guides fulfilling the positions of RELATIONSHIP and EVENT Or PRIMARY GUIDE = INTELLECTUAL Guide, with two additional Guides fulfilling the relativity of the EMOTIONAL and ACTION Positions. ESSENCE would be the Assimilative or Neutral Guide, so to speak. The Life/Intellectual Guide would be directly accessed through the Attitude of the Personality. The Relationship/Emotional Guide is the guide who is currently on call for help with relationships, emotional issues, inspirational needs, etc. This guide is directly accessed through the Mode of the Personality. The Events/Action Guide is the guide who is currently on call for help with decisions, choices, navigation, directions, material issues, health, sex, etc. This guide is directly accessed through the Goal of the Personality. These three Positions, even if the guides change in two of them, will ALWAYS be a part of a lifetime; even your first lifetime will have these because they are populated by peers, and not necessarily by “higher beings,” or more intelligent, wiser beings. These are your friends. The fragment (or fragments) who fulfill the Primary/Intellectual Position is permanent for the lifetime, but the other two positions will have several Essences fulfill them over time, depending on the current life experiences at the time. All of the Positions can be populated by more than one fragment. As Essence evolves, the Guide Positions can tend to become quite populated by several fragments because acceptance of support is regarded as a form of evolution. The Primary, if it is populated by more than one fragment, will have that set of fragments for the entire lifetime. The additional Positions may have a set of fragments fulfilling them during one period of the life, and then rotate out to a new set over time. These flexible Positions can also have one or more fragment supporting a sub-context of Relationships, for instance, while others support another sub-context, so that you are supported, say, in Work Relationships, Intimate Relationships, Public Relationships, etc. However many Guides an incarnated fragment may have, the POSITIONS will always remain the same. This is because those positions are highly-specific to the basic contexts of any physical incarnation, and quite specific to the media (chakras) that are used for communication and exchange between the physical and non-physical. It will never be necessary for you to have tangible access to your guides for you to still receive the tangible effects of your relationship to your guides. In other words, in the same way that the most loving of friends can give you the most profound of support and insight and direction, it will always be YOU who makes the ultimate difference; in relationships with Guides, this is even truer. Your Guides cannot (and will not) interfere with, or intervene in, your life, and their physical impact can only be felt through your actions that fulfill any influence from those Guides. There are times that one's guides might seem to influence the Physical Plane in near-magical ways, leaving a fragment feeling as if there are profound powers in place, but beyond some instances of delusion, there are some unique instances of physical impact independent from you, but they are not exactly what they seem to be. We will elaborate on that another time. Now that we have shared the basic framework of how we see Guides organizing and working with incarnated fragments, we will respond more directly to the subject of accessing your guides more intimately, and the challenges and pitfalls that may be a part of that process. For most fragments, the tangibility and intimacy of a relationship with a Guide will never rise beyond the level of intimacy one has with his or her own Essence, and all forms of guidance will funnel through that relationship. The irony in this is that the more aligned one is with Essence, the less Essence is seen, or experienced, as a higher force, or guide that is accessed as existing beyond the wholeness of self. In other words, the more intimate one is with Essence, the less-obvious the gap between the Physical and Non-Physical, in terms of relationship with Essence and other Guides. Part of the process for gaining that level of intimacy does include a phase through which every fragment will most likely go in which the division between Physical and Non-Physical is quite pronounced and subject to personification, which can be experienced as a fairly profound, tangible relationship with the unseen. Even if Essence has gained that level of intimacy with a previous incarnation, a current incarnation will most likely go through that phase of differentiation before it accepts the lack of division as the medium for intimacy. The Stages of Differentiation in regard to non-physical relationships are similar to, if not parallel to, the stages of Soul Ages: Infant, Baby, Young, Mature, and Old. Keep in mind that these Stages of Differentiation are not specific to any Soul Age, so an Old Soul can be at any Stage of Differentiation described below. Once a fragment has begun to ponder the possibility that there may very well be "spirit guides," and other non-physical influences, it launches into that exploration from an Infant Stage of approach, laced with superstition, fear, resistance, etc. Spirits are seen as vague forces, mythological figures, ancestors, curses, demons, etc. However they are interpreted, they are regarded with fear that either requires protection or great respect. The Baby Stage of Differentiation begins to "hear voices," see omens everywhere, take the relationship in most literal terms, relaying the insights as if coming from instructional forces. This Stage regards these relationships as superseding individual choice, and regardless of Soul Age, will often feel that these spirits hold far more authority over life than any incarnated being. The Young Stage of Differentiation begins to emphasize the relationship to non-physical forces as one that requires sharing that relationship in a way that instructs and guides others, usually with great emphasis on urgency, timelines, looming shifts, etc. This Stage is marked by rallying others to listen to what is being shared, prompting either anxiousness or exciting anticipation, usually regarding upcoming “shifts,” or other looming change on the horizon that requires instruction, intangible experiences, heavy submersion in the imagination as a sanctuary of escape or hope. The Mature Stage of Differentiation is the first time true intimacy begins to occur with these non-physical relationships. The Mature Stage softens the differentiation and begins to blur the lines between self and Guides. That blurring is a confusing stage because what seems so defined, literal, and tangible by other reports coming from "younger" stages of differentiation, now seems illusory, imaginary, suspicious. This is a stage filled with questioning, discernment, and even the clearest of communication is scrutinized and held up for validation. Two things begin to emerge in the Mature Stage of Differentiation: One is the intimacy that we have already described as blurring, and the other is the realization that one has the skill to tap into one's own innate wisdom and resources as opposed to depending on the influences of others. The Mature Stage, ironically then, has most of one's guides turning the fragment back to his or her own self as its own guide. Rather than instructions or influence being given in response to the question of "What Should I Do?" it is met with the response equivalent to "Well, what Do YOU Think/Feel You should Do?" Guides are now seen as positions of support, rather than as positions of force and resource. An Aside: These same Stages of Differentiation can also be found in ones methods for relating to the physical relationships of support in ones life. The Old Stage of Differentiation would find the relationship with one's Essence and Guides to have lost all boundaries, nearly all differentiation, and to have moved into a relationship we might describe as "soft intuition." We use the phrase "soft intuition" because, for the most part, the fragment will have grasped that he or she is supported, loved, and that there are forces and resources at work that will take care of the non-physical aspects of the life so the Personality is free to focus on the living of life. The "soft intuition" is the general tuning in to the self and to guides that allows for alerts, sensations, cues, synchronicity, etc. that help in the various contexts of life. However, as in the Old Soul Age of living, it includes all previous Stages of Differentiation, so that the fragment can, if necessary, call upon Guides for help, insight, force, resource, guidance, etc., but this is usually done from a different angle than ever before, in that even when this support is called upon for more tangible effects, it is understood that those tangible effects will have to come from your implementation of the insights, guidance, influence, etc. There is no urgency, no fantastical representations, no necessity for theatrics, no call to rescue the world, no secrecy, no recruitment, no warnings, no advice or instruction, etc. There is only support, insight, guidance, resource, and force to the extent that one receives, translates, and expresses that through oneself. Understanding these Stages of Differentiation, one can now see how the evolving intimacy with ones Guides and Essence begins to lose the imposed personifications and “magical” power that is brought to the interpretations of those same relationships earlier on. The Stages most susceptible to Delusions would be those of the Baby and Young Stages. The Stages most lacking in tangibility and obvious force would be the Mature and Old Stages. In regard to accessing your Guides: We mentioned previously that your Primary/Intellectual/Expression/Life Guide is accessed through your ATTITUDE; Your Emotional/Inspirational/Relationship Guide through your MODE; your Moving/Action/Events Guide through your GOAL. Understanding this can help you to bring awareness to how/where to look/feel for the relationship that exists between you and your Guide/s. For instance, as you wish to find a more sensory relationship with your Life Guide Position, it will be found most obvious in your primary philosophies about your life. How you interpret your life can be helped by your Primary Guide. If you find you are interpreting your life as something "that sucks," for instance, it can be helpful to call upon your Primary Guide for help in lifting some of the psychic obstructions that block your ability to interpret life more accurately as the beauty that it is. The "tangibility" of that relationship can be acknowledged during or after the help has taken place, but it would most likely show up as a bright moment of insight, clarity, possibility, etc. If that moment is dismissed, it will not have meant that there was no support, but that you chose not to use it or acknowledge it. If you find your greatest distraction in your life is your lack of relationship with others, you can call upon your Relationship/Emotional Guides to help set up your Agreements, secure them, attract them, etc. This help would most likely show up as impulses for attending certain events, running an errand, reaching out, taking a risk, being vulnerable, etc. The fact that you may choose to stay safe in your isolation, or may default to presumptions about your attractiveness based on your patterns of the past, or may ignore impulses, then it is not that you did not have tangible exchanges with your Guide/s, but that you simply dismissed them. And, of course, similar scenarios could be said as examples for your Events/Action/Goal Guide/s. Your Primary Guide/s can most-easily be accessed through ORACLES, such as Tarot, Astrological Transit interpretations, iChing, and other systems of synchronicity that provide opportunities for interpretation, insight, and higher perspectives. Your Emotional/Relationship Guide/s can most-easily be accessed through DREAMS, which may or may not be recalled. Dreams (Astral Plane) provide a meeting ground for all fragments, physical or non-physical. Your Events/Action Guide/s can most-easily be accessed through OTHER PEOPLE. By this we mean that support, direction, help from your own Guides can often be delivered through the help you seek through physical people, which often requires asking for that help, reaching out, letting people know you need them. The changes that can come from that are often the result of support that your Action Guides can provide because of the actions being taken by more people involved. Combining all of these is your built-in non-physical support for any incarnation. Of course, we have much more to say on this subject, but we will say in conclusion to this response at this time, that the ability to discern the validity of support from a Guide must simply be learned from experience. There is no short cut. In other words, you may consult your Tarot and find that your interpretation did not lend the insight and clarity that you thought was so obvious in your reading, but this is not a sign to halt your attempt at insight through that relationship, instead it is an invitation to continue practicing, observing, and learning to differentiate between projection, and true communication. The same could be said of you and any of your relationships. [QUESTION] Would it be correct then to say that as one evolves through the stages, their guides begin to lose importance, as the individual is beginning to act as their own guide? [MICHAEL] We would say that it is no different from the relationships one has in one's own physical life: growing older and wiser does not equate relationships growing less important, but that the relationships grow free from the clutter of dependency, imposition, personification, projection, expectation, etc. Relationships with physical or non-physical beings are often like the process of learning how to boat on the open waters: at first, all of the influences are scary, powerful, and seem to have a direct force upon the boat, directions, and experiences of the ride. As one learns to work with those forces, one develops the tools for directing and harnessing those forces. Eventually, you are taking to the waters with oar, rudder, motor, sails, etc., and all of your choices are your own, using your own tools, going where you want to go, but still moving along with those same forces, resources, and support for your movement across the waters. It is not that those forces are less-important, but that they are funneled through a myriad of tools that you have learned to use so that those forces merely support what you choose to do. We realize this is a limited and potentially-misleading analogy, but if confined to the context we just described, it is valid. [QUESTION] Can the Essences that are your guides be the Essences of Personalities you know within a lifetime? [MICHAEL] It is not impossible for that to be the case, though it is not done very often. It is possible because any given Personality is only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the energy that is Essence, and Essence is not limited to any time frame or geographical location. Therefore, an Essence can be incarnated alongside your incarnation, but fulfill a Position as Guide in a non-physical manner. For the most part, this "makes no sense" to most fragments, so it is rare. Keep in mind that when an Essence fulfills the Position of Guide, the experience for that Guide is quite similar to incarnating, which is one of the reasons a Guide can have a "Personality" and personal history that contributes to its method of support. This is why it "makes no sense" to play both a physical incarnation and act as a Guide in the same life, because that relationship can be fulfilled through one or the other, making both redundant and unnecessary. [QUESTION] Can guides be nonhuman--or formerly human? non-formerly human, I mean? [MICHAEL] Yes, that is possible for specialized contexts within the Positions, and this is quite common among different species that share worlds and star systems. For a species that is isolated, such as yours, the Positions of Guides are fairly restricted to those who know what it is like to live as your species. For instance, the Essence of a Sentient Dolphin can be a Guide for those Humans working with Dolphins, otherwise, a Dolphin as your Guide for living life as a Human is fairly useless. This is not to say that relationships between Sentience of different Species does not occur in non-physical realms, but that the networking is limited to the extent that the networking is reflected in the Physical Plane. [QUESTION] Would you give me an example where I chose to use one of these 3 guides/positions to help me with a problem, issue, situation so that I may be able to recognize their influence in the future? [MICHAEL] Your Primary Guide is who helped you to find us. Exploring the process that led to those moments may be insightful. Your Relationship Guide/s helped you to extend beyond physical limitations to build current relationships related to finding our teaching. Exploring that process can lend insight into that area. [QUESTION] How often do the guides you have 'shift' in and out of their positions - for example, my ET was one of my emotional guides for a while but has reincarnated again and isn't available. I feel that there are those who come and go as well as those who 'stay.' [MICHAEL] The more fluid Positions or Relationships and Events shift and change to the degree that one's life shifts and changes. If one notices an arcing pattern in the realm of relationships, yet is played out from relationship to relationship, there may be one Guide helping with the overall pattern, while others support the individual relationships along the way. Relationship and Event Positions can go through many changes in Guides, but it does not mean that one Guide cannot remain for the entire lifetime in that Position. It simply means that those Positions are prone to change and flexibility, whereas the Primary Position is not. [QUESTION] But guides do 'shift' out sometimes? And another shifts in - as you said, with changing circumstances? eg - a health issue becomes predominant so a 'health' focus guide comes 'online'? [MICHAEL] That is correct. [QUESTION] could you give me an example of how these guide assist me creatively and how do I know it is not imagination when contact is made? [MICHAEL] First we will point out that one's Imagination is the highest frequency tool available to the human body, and it IS the medium through which conscious contact, influence, and exchange with non-physical Guides will be made. Imagination does not equate Delusion. Imagination is a tool that can be used for Delusion or for Direction, and includes the spectrum between. To truly comprehend and sense the validity of exchange between the physical and non-physical one must first embrace Imagination as the very language that will be used for that. As in the learning of any language, practice is important, and differentiation of "voices" becomes easier with that practice. Delusional voices will always exist, and will actually never go away, but one can begin to recognize the hopeful, desperate, projected, forced, urgent "voices" of Delusion vs the soft, intuitive, gentle insights, creative inspirations that come from Direction. We use the word "Direction" for the more positive aspects of Imagination because the positive aspects of Imagination move one forward, while Delusion moves in circles, or remains "stuck." [QUESTION] delusion=ego? [MICHAEL] Ego does not equate Delusion. Ego is simply the self-conscious aspect of the Personality, which can be self-conscious in terms of awareness, or in terms of indulgence or self-defense. [QUESTION] have my guides helped me creatively? [MICHAEL] If you have felt inspired and created something fulfilling, it would be safe to say that this was a result of a healthy exchange between you and your Guides, or you and Essence, or all of the above, so to speak. [QUESTION] This is in relation to what you said about animal guides- if one (like myself, who feels Hawk is my totem) does not directly work with an animal, can they still have an animal guide? [MICHAEL] For the most part, Totems are a form of "template" that is used as a means to personify a relationship with a Guide who is, by incarnational definition, "Human." If it helps one to relate to the Primary Guide by using the symbolism of a Hawk, Bear, Cougar, Dragonfly, Ant, Water, Wind, Butterfly, Lion, Rabbit, Tree, Faearies, etc., then that does not diminish the relationship, it is simply a part of the Differentiation process. All Totems are symbolic. This is not to say that a relationship with those Kingdoms cannot be had, physically or non-physically, but when they are valid, they are simply affectionate relationships, not ones that provide profound life directions. Beyond the affectionate relationship, the rest is symbolic and up for the Sentient Being to interpret. For instance, if one were to have a Hawk as a “pet,” that relationship would be confined to the capacity for the Hawk to live in comfortably with a Human, and the insights gained would require the same symbolism, imagination, and interpretation that is used for the Totem relationship. Hawk Central, or Rabbit Central, or Dragonfly Central, for instance, do not provide individualized support and guidance for Humans, even if their part in the dynamic of Earth Life can be used as symbolic forms for the individual Human to grasp understanding and support. For example: If one were to feel that Hawk is one's Life Totem, then this might be symbolic of how the Primary Guide (of Human Sentience) works in overall Life. This might mean that one's ATTITUDE is aligned with the accepted symbolism of Hawk, and this means that one's philosophy of life, in general, is expressed as symbolic of a Hawk. It would also mean that when one seeks support and exchange with the Primary Guide, it may show up in the symbolic or literal form of Hawk, in the various extensions associated with Hawk, etc. [QUESTION] to clarify from earlier, you could have a Dolphin as a guide since they are ensouled, but non-ensouled "guides" are templates? [MICHAEL] That would be correct. The non-Sentient hive souls can become symbolic for personal uses, and/or develop affectionate relationships, but cannot technically play a role of Guide. We will conclude here, though we will repeat: there is much more to say on this topic should it be of interest to our students.