SGS - Spiritual Guidance System
"Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul."-RIP Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
I decided to write this blog post because it is very easy to dismiss guidance we receive (regardless of the 'source'). If you are anything like me, you may have a strong rational brain, one that likes to override spiritual and emotional “stuff” with logic and mental reasoning. But over the years I would say that my SGS has strengthened to the point where I have accepted that I get messages-- in several different forms-- and I do my best to follow that guidance. I think that we all are guided, but we do not always recognize it and we often have different ways we "receive" that guidance. So I am going to review the ways in which I myself have received guidance, in hopes that you too may recognize when you are receiving it in your life. I believe we can all engage more in our abilities to becoming more and more receptive, as well as work on our willingness to follow the path we are being guided upon.
Intuition
You are thinking well, duh! Right? Well no, it’s not always obvious. How easily can you distinguish between of what you are thinking is a thought, a feeling, a desire, or an intuition? How do you know the difference? For me, I know its intuition when it feels in my body (generally in the heart area) to be a deep or profound truth. Recently I came across what I thought was a brilliant quote about Intuition: it is a knowing—without knowing how you know. Intuition is exactly that, a deep sense of knowing. Actually, it may start off as a small niggling of knowing, but the more you tune into that, the certainty grows. Intuition can be so strong, that sometimes you feel certain enough to stand up for it, without any evidence. So right there, you have a part of yourself that has overridden your mental acuities. That is a good place to start to hone in on that ability to feel and trust that level of guidance, because it only grows from there.
Spirit Dreams
So there are regular garden variety dreams, some which seem incredibly real and intense with emotion, but those are not what I am talking about. There are some dreams that cannot be described as anything other than mystic experiences. I have had dreams that I was fully conscious of the fact that my soul had crossed dimensions or peered into the realm of spirit. I have had mystical dreams involving nature and transcendent experiences. I have the sense that some nights souls meet, I don't know what we do exactly, but we're probably just hanging out in that realm just to connect.
One time a few years ago, I had an incredible Bear medicine experience that came through a dream. But before the dream occurred, for three nights in a row we had a bear mother and 2 cubs eating from our garbage cans. The cans were positioned on the outer wall of my bedroom (where I slept with my head to the wall where the bears were happily rummaging through our cans outside). The first night I didn't hear nor see them, but woke up the next morning to a garbage laden driveway. The second night I heard them, got up and went outside and stood at my door to see them. Mama bear was chill and barely acknowledged me while baby’s scampered passed me, up one of our big trees. The third night, I got up again, and this time the mama and I simply acknowledged each other in a “hey there” kind of way. But that night I had a profound dream experience with a grizzly bear while standing in an open field way up North in the Tahltan Territory at the Sacred Headwaters (where I've never been in actuality, but was there and 'knew' the land). We were being approached by an incredibly large grizzly and I was paralyzed with fear—incredible intense fear! and I realized that the only thing that could save me was love— I had to switch the fear to emanate love as big and as intense as I could. Radiate L-O-V-E I said over and over as the bear approached. So as the grizzly sauntered up to me, I beamed love at him and he pawed my head—gently! I fell to my knees in ecstatic joy (and relief) and laughed till I cried as the grizzly also dropped to the ground to roll around next to me. The bear was actually affectionate with me and in a weird way we instantly fell 'in love' with each other. An incredible exchange of pure love energy and awe of each other. In my entire life I never felt anything like that. Now on the outset that would seem like a really cool garden variety dream… except… I'd never experienced anything so powerful, and there was a transformation that happened within me as a result of it. I also felt for the next week or ten days or so, that there was some veil lifted between my reality and the spirit world so that energy was accessible to me… this led me to experiencing the two other ways of receiving messages which happened more frequently during this highly connected time and ever since.
Visions
For me visions are not anything like hallucinations, stories or dreams. There is no action, its not like you are watching a movie. For me they come in a flash like a fuzzy picture, you get a sense of a “scene” that is accompanied by that deep intuitive knowing that what you are seeing is the truth. Its not always a crystal clear image, its more like a simple image filled with an essence of what you know to be true. I have had reoccurring visions where sometimes I see from the vantage point of seeing myself as if I was looking at myself in a picture, and the same vision from the vantage point of being myself looking out at the scene around me. I am sure there are many ways in which people encounter visions that may seem like daydreams, but once again— if they are not accompanied by that deep acknowledgement of the truth, deep in your bones, then it is likely just a daydream and not a vision. That is my sense, but I could be wrong because I don’t have that kind….
Messages
Sometimes I just get told. Outright, like someone you don’t see is just saying what you need to know. Ive had this experience in ceremonies of all kinds, in dreams, in meditative states, and in nature. Sometimes, I just flat out get messages. One of the clearest messages I received was that I need to sing my Haida songs at every opportunity possible. That was a strong and clear message, and when I sat with it, more came through. There were three key reasons I was instructed to do this: the first was that the ancestors are blessing and being blessed simultaneously through the song, in a way its like a spiritual reciprocity— I bless them, they bless me in high honour of the song. The second was that through the song some vibrational energy was being transmuted that can positively effect the energy field and allow for the listeners to receive and effect change/transformation within themselves. (At that point I knew they were powerful, but didn't know why they were so powerful). The third was personal, for me.
Throughout my life I have also received answers to things I wanted to understand better in a series of three. For example if I'd been mulling over an idea or question I will come across the 'answer' from three separate sources such as a book, a person and a documentary-- all three pretty much reflecting a parallel answer. Many synchronicities have revealed themselves in this form, a rapid succession of wisdom being revealed.
I see all types of messages as blessings, and feel like the closer you get to walking the path that your soul intended that your SGS gets stronger and clearer. At times I have wondered if they are mere delusions! However, delusions are generally defences against things we don't want to see or face, delusions are when we convince ourselves—very strongly— of one reality to avoid another. SGS kinds of messages often guide us in directions that are ultimately good for us (although they may stretch us, push is in ways that feel scary at first). In spite of my trust in this process, I still have a problem with my mental faculties getting in the way. I still make decisions for myself that stray from where my SGS wants me to go. Im still staying on track, but Ive made a lot of work for myself in the meantime by getting sidetracked. So I am still working on not being led by my bossy mental faculties, and trust my guidance more and more. Like my hero John Trudell says, “Im following the lines”, if the spirit world is laying them out, I will do my best to follow.