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These are just some of the emails I've received over the years. It's an opportunity to see that people are interested in Spirit and learning to channel. It might even encourage you to leave a comment or to contact me with a question. I always identify people by their initials, so being recognized here is unlikely. It's a degree of anonymity. I hope you enjoy and relate to some of the questions and answers you find on this long page.
It's Just Taking So Long
An email I received 10/9/2013: I found your blog post last night after another frustrating meditation, and it was so reassuring to hear someone else has experienced what I’m going through. This frustration with my guides has been going on for almost six months, and I feel like my guides are torturing me. Every now and then, when I feel I have finally had it, I receive a small sign (like a zap during meditation, seeing zig zags in my third eye, or feeling a spirit presence), but when I try to communicate, I get nothing. I feel like I have been walled off, and I keep throwing myself against this wall. Only it doesn’t give, and I am now bloodied, bruised, and exhausted. I really need and want my guides’ help.
Have you ever heard of this happening to anyone for so long? I have read books, bought courses, meditated, and bought readings to no avail. The first medium didn’t say anything that made sense and the second said that while she could feel and see the wall around me she didn’t know how to penetrate it either. Do you have any advice? Do your guides have any advice? I know you’re not a professional medium, but I thought I’d ask anyway. Again, I really appreciated your blog post – a lot of what I find on the internet doesn’t discuss this topic.
Thank you for your time.
Best wishes, NM
And, my response: Hi. Relax. You might be trying too hard. I experienced the same thing, and the phase seemed to last forever. Just don’t give up. Also, you are expecting X and may be getting Y. People experience their guide’s presence in many different ways. Turn it into a game. You don’t lose. You don’t win. You’re playing.
Okay, so maybe try something like this. Close your eyes and imagine that you are looking at a ball, or a plant, or a book, or something. Don’t go 100 miles an hour toward it. Just for a quarter of a second, ah, maybe a little longer than that, try seeing it with your mind’s eye. If you have trouble sometimes, it helps to hold an object like you are trying to see in your hand. Look at it with an artist’s eye. Just observe the lines, the spaces, the light and dark of it. And, if you don’t understand what I mean by seeing like an artist, don’t worry about it….just look at it. Close your eyes and see if you can’t “see” it for a couple of seconds. Forget about seeing your guide. Relax. And, don’t be surprised to find a guide shows up anyway, holding out a glowing ball to you.
Right before I finally got the planchette on the Ouija board to move, I gave up. I had the odd thought that I should be as innocent as I’d been when I was a little girl. Which, as I look at it in retrospect, was likely my guide giving me some much-needed advice. I’d been spending so much time trying to get something happening…it was months, and nothing happened. I gave up. I hadn’t spent hardly any time writing, and I missed it. However, to hedge my bets, I left my non-dominant hand on the planchette and used my right hand to type. Not 10 seconds into it, the planchette zoomed across the board. It meandered around aimlessly for a few seconds. I asked if this was my guide, and the pointer moved to “Yes”. Then, very slowly, it spelled out, “S-e-t-h”. I was a great fan of Jane Roberts and Seth, and asked if it was the same Seth. Again, I got a “Yes”. After that, the planchette moved aimlessly across the board and didn’t make any sense at all. Each day after that first success, I couldn’t wait to get back to the board to use it. The planchette moved faster and faster until about a week and a half into communicating, I knew what Seth was going to say before he said it on the board. That’s when I started channeling telepathically. At the time, I thought I was going crazy, but the process was just moving from one level of communication to another.
Here’s a channeling funny for you. I was having problems with a neighbor. The woman had really gotten under my skin, and I was having a hard time finding a spiritual way around the problem. I toyed with the idea of learning how to cast spells to get her to move, but I didn’t do anything about it. Anyway, one day I was wondering (this is really childish) to myself what I could do that might irritate her. The guides said to me, “Dear, you don’t have to do a thing to irritate her.” I thought it was funny.
What I’m trying to illustrate is that giving up is good. Relaxing is better. Stop expecting to see, hear, or feel in a specific way. Everybody is unique, and you don’t know exactly how the first experience you have with your guide is going to be. However, once you make contact, the connection will strengthen so that in the end (and continue to be playful with this) you will be able to paint, dance, write, sing, hum, type, whatever with your guide. The best times I’ve had are with singing channeling. It’s amazing to me to hear what can come out of my mouth when I’m channeling. Could I do the same thing not channeling? Not likely.
Here’s something else you might try. Start writing. Just loosen it up with some journaling. In a calm mood, ask your guide a question on the paper or computer screen. Write it out. Then, give over and let Spirit through. I can’t tell you what it will feel like. You might feel a nip at the back of your neck. They said in “Opening to Channel” that was where Spirit enters. I had a sharp pain, and then it shot down my back. Then, I was fine. Weird. The next night was when Seth finally started talking to me on the Ouija board.
Anyway, just sort of say to yourself, “I’m going to allow Spirit to write through me.” And let it happen.
Here’s something else. Just get a pen and paper. Start drawing a big old circle on the paper. Keep going over it, over and over, go outside the lines, just a big old circle. Slowly, allow Spirit to come over and see if they don’t take your hand and move it over the paper in another direction.
First attempts will probably be awkward. You’ve just got to get used to it. I used to get the shakes, but that only lasted a day or so. It’s a lot of energy. It’s a different energy.
Your guides are there. They are not torturing you. You’re just not hearing what they have to say. Get in the zone. Imagine your vibrations get higher. Aim high. Aim for your guide. The guides exist at exquisite vibrations and light. Just imagine you’re lighter on your feet. Reach and relax.
Here’s something else. Do a guided meditation to meet your guide. Somewhere on the TalkingToSpirit.com site, I’ve got it written out. Make up something to suit yourself. Imagine you are on a path. Really pay attention to the path. What is growing on the side? What is it made out of? Is it dirt? Is it paved? Has it been raining? Walk on the path. It starts up an incline. It’s a little harder to walk, but you stay on the path. Up ahead, there is something blocking the path. What is it? Is it a huge rock? Is it a bunch of branches? Keep going. How do you get past this obstruction? Do you magically appear on the other side? Do you fly over? Do you get a chainsaw and get through that way? Do you climb over? When you’re on the other side of the obstruction, you see something ahead. It’s up a steep hill. The path goes up to meet this thing. It’s a doorway, or a gate, or a portal. You make your way to it. On the other side, you see some guides sitting around a fire. They notice you waiting. One of them breaks away from the group and comes to you.
So, just imagine this. When I did it, my obstacle was a huge boulder. I think I climbed over it. It was somewhat spotty because it was difficult for me to maintain my attention during the meditation. When I looked up at the doorway, I saw a natural opening covered with green. Suddenly, I became a bird and swooped up to the doorway. It reminded me of those tall sugar-loaf hills in Hawaii, with really steep sides. Anyway, I got to the opening, and Seth was on the other side. He had his back to me and was bent over slightly, tending to the flowers in a garden. There was a low stone wall between us. He was wearing a Roman white toga and was balding. He turned and smiled the most beautiful smile at me. He reached out and took my hand. I was so excited, I whooped right out of the meditation. It was shortly after this that I made contact via the Ouija board. Interesting that the Seth I saw in my meditation looked exactly like the Seth Jane Roberts channeled.
Anyway, I hope this has helped. There is no one right way or no one wrong way to make contact. But do make a game out of it. I only learned that once I had finally made contact because I was just as frustrated as you’ve been.
Best of luck,
Love, Pauline
Is This In My Head?
This is an email I got 4/4/2009:
I think I might be hearing my guide in my head, but I can’t have a conversation with them. What happens usually is if I get angry at someone or something there is always a voice in my head which says stuff like think about it from their point of view or not to get angry at them because of some reason. But then if I think of another reason I should be angry it just answers back. It’s really weird. It’s like having a two-sided argument in my head. What do you think? Is it just me or could it be my guide(s)?
And, here’s my answer:
It’s probably your guide running interference for you. It’s a spotty connection, not real strong right now. They can come through because of your heightened emotional state. So, I think the thing to do is to be thankful you’ve got a connection, spotty though it is right now, resolve to work harder at strengthening that connection, and not worry too much about the messages other than to look at your anger.
Guides are there to teach you, not to tell you how to live your life. So, if you don’t get the point of what they are encouraging you to pay attention to right now, don’t worry about it so much. With me, they just continued to say the same messages over and over again until I “got it”.
Your message about trying to think of what is going on in the other person’s shoes? Good one. Good lesson. I think your guide is just trying to get you to shift away from the tornado of being so angry and not being able to see much else, to a place where you can be more objective about it and try to see the source of your anger.
What I’ve learned over the years is to ask myself what is bothering me when I get angry. Like I have my own personal cue of crappy drivers. When I need some personal introspective work and am not doing it, or am ignoring the signs that I need to go spend some quiet time, crappy drivers, I mean drivers who should never have gotten their driver’s licenses, flock around me. They tailgate. They honk their horns at me. They buzz too close. I’m a basket case. Then, it dawns on me, “Oh, shit. I need to go see what psychological or emotional issue is up for me right now.” Takes about 10 minutes, and you feel better.
Or you could journal for a little bit and just pour your feelings out on paper.
But when you make a connection with Spirit, a requirement is that you be the best connection you can be. You will eventually be in a position to help people, and the best way you can do that is to have made a commitment to be the best you can be. That requirement includes paying attention to your own emotional and psychological health.
All of us, all of our lives, work our way through these emotional and psychological issues. Sometimes people take years to do bitty step after bitty step. The thing with talking to Guides is that they step it up to a whole new level.
My advice would be to look at why you are getting so angry. Are you afraid of something? Are you in a defensive position to protect yourself? Go get a self-help book and do your own fine-tuning.
I hope things look up. It’s slow work. People work on their issues a little at a time. It’s just when you’re channeling, you sort of get to work on them more often.
Here’s a channeling funny for you that happened to me. One time I was really angry at a driver on the road. I called him an as*hole. Here comes that voice in my head saying, “Yes, Dear. Everyone has one.”
Thanks for writing.
Love, Pauline
How Many Guides Do I Have?
An email I received 4/23/2017: Can you please give me some basic information about my guides? How many? Their names? Best way to communicate with them?
Thank you, SA
My Answer: Dear SA, It is more important for you to discover who and how many guides you have by yourself than for me to give you an answer. My own experience was that after seeking and finally getting to where I could perceive a place where I thought my guides were they revealed themselves to me. If your spiritual upbringing is of any one of the numerous religions and spiritual practices we celebrate as humans your guides might be seated there. It just depends on what is the most helpful for you to be able to relate to the guides and to learn. If it helps you to imagine a guide as a specific being please do so. It really doesn’t matter. They might reveal themselves later to be a different sort.
Seth once told me that we’ve actually got more than one guide. He said you’d have one guide for when you were a kid. Then, maybe when you are a teenager and a young adult another one steps forward. And, maybe once you are older you get another one. My understanding is we have lots of guides swirling around us at any one time, but there seems to be one who places more prominently than the others in any one age. During the first year of your channeling just imagine that you are talking to one guide. After a year (or therabouts) talk to the other ones and begin the process of branching out.
My own guides have pretty much taken a human form. Other people have perceived their guides as pure sparkling energies.
The names of your guides also don’t matter so much. In my case my guide revealed his name to me right off the bat. I urge people to name their guides whatever comes to mind. Just as a temporary thing. Eventually, if your guide feels it is necessary they will tell you a different name. But, in the beginning you can overcome a major sticking point in the process by finding something to call your guide while you converse with them. These early conversations are you talking to your guide, just as you would talk to a friend. What you are doing is getting comfortable with speaking to your guide even though you might not hear a response from them. So, unless you hear a name from them Sam or Zylar or Bob will do. Like I said, if they want you to call them something else later on they will tell you.
You might keep a journal of your conversations with your guide. This could be an actual notebook where you write by hand or you could use a computer. In this journal you would talk about your day. It would be mundane stuff. It would be your life. You would be developing a relationship with a pen-pal of sorts. In this journal you would address your questions to your guide temporarily named Sam (Somebody just said Samish to me). You would be establishing a bridge from your life to your guide’s life.
A step beyond that would be to become exposed to automatic writing. Get a piece of copy paper and a writing implement, your choice of pen, pencil, marking pen, brush, crayon whatever you are comfortable with. Begin by slipping into a quiet place in your mind. Draw a big circle. Draw another circle on top of the first circle. Keep making circles while you try to loosen up. Raise your vibrations however you can imagine that happening. Reach high into heaven. Reach up. Close your eyes and continue to draw circles. With intent invite your guide to make the circles for you and with you. It will might take awhile, weeks even of devoted practice or it might happen within minutes. You will feel the energies in your hand and arm shift. It will feel like someone else is controlling your hand. This is what becomes automatic writing. When you make the leap from being you, the individual you in the world to being the universal you. The new you that is a part of the world. The new you who is no different from the members in your family, the people who live on your street, the you who is related and part of all the people on the earth. It’s a big step, a major step, but this is what happens to you when you begin to desire to speak with your guides. Your world changes completely and forevermore.
As you make this contact with your guide via automatic writing become playful with it. Allow it to happen. Use lots of pieces of paper and just continue with the circles. And, wait for something to happen. Maybe your guide will deviate from the circle and make a line instead of a circle. Just allow it to happen. If you have artistic inclinations and can draw your guide may begin drawing for you. Just allow it to happen. See where this is going to go. This is your guide now communicating with you.
What you can do at the same time would be while you are talking to your guide in your written or typed journal is to pose a question and then wait quietly for a response. That response might suddenly appear in your mind. Or, you could write the question and then PRETENDING you are your guide write a response. That word pretend is so very important here. It is not lying. It is pretending. It is dancing in your head and then being able to get on an actual dance floor and enjoy yourself. It is practicing a Spanish dialogue in your head, memorizing the steps and then standing in front of your classroom and reciting the dialogue. What will happen is that you will find that answer from your guide coming to you in a less stressful fashion.
The most important thing is for you to make that leap beyond having others tell you what your guides are like and what messages they have for you to doing this yourself.
How to do this? It is different for everybody. It took me years to learn how. I have taught people how to channel in minutes. It sometimes takes longer. It just depends on how far along you are. These are the things I would ask you:
Can you meditate?
Do you read about other channels?
Do you revel in the advice their guides give?
Do you want that for yourself?
Are you ready to change your life forever?
Begin to trust that whatever you need for this journey is going to come your way. You will meet that one person who can help you break through that very, very thin barrier between our ordinary life and a life full of spiritual meaning.
There are so many steps involved here. What happens after you make contact with your guide? For a time, you might go around thinking you can not differentiate between what the guide says and what you are thinking. It got really crowded in my head for about a week when it happened to me. Nobody told me that was going to happen, but it did. At first, I was frightened; then, as time went by, I began to know what my own thoughts were and what my guide was talking about. It is a process. It is a huge process. It is your psychic channeling muscles learning how to move. It just takes time. Be patient. Don’t be afraid. Write to me again when this begins to happen, and I will calm you down.
What next? In order for the information you receive to be “truthful,” you make a promise to yourself and to your guide that you will pay attention to your own psychological and emotional well-being. This is what separates a reasonable, loving channel and a channel that warns constantly of doom and gloom and disaster. We speak through our view of reality, and if your reality is a place of fear, the channeling experience may not be for you or it may be a difficult one.
Please know that 99% of the population is neurotic to one degree or another. It is for you as a channel to take the higher road and do whatever you can to face your own life lessons and embrace them. This is where you might ask yourself, “Why in the world do I always attract those kinds of people into my life? This is totally insane.” Well, your higher self has determined that you have something to learn from those situations. And, until you do, they will keep showing up in your life. Lifetime after lifetime until you learn the lesson. So, in a nutshell? The more you are willing to learn, to become compassionate, and to love your fellow human being, the better your channeling will be.
Thank you for writing. Pauline
How Do You Hear?
An email from TM on 9/15/2015: I’m not a skeptic but how can a medium talk and listen at the same time. So L.I.Medium will be talking nonstop and say “they just told me,” but how can she hear anything while she’s been talking? I am so curious about this. I’m trying to get an idea of how this works. Thanks for any input.
My Answer: In the early days of channeling, it was very difficult for me to talk and hear at the same time. As you do it more and more, it gets easier. It’s like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time and then switching back and forth. At first it is hard, then you get used to it.
One of the guides just said to me, “It is like listening to music and having a conversation at the same time”. On some level, you are hearing that music while you are talking.
I am a huge fan of Theresa Caputo, the Long Island Medium. I did not go to school to learn how to channel and have always looked to other mediums to learn. I have seen that channeling is different from one person to another. One of the things that I do, or more to my liking, one of the reasons I feel am here is to let people know they have the same senses that a medium does and they can talk to Spirit too.
Their sense of speaking to Spirit can be developed. Or, you might already be hearing Spirit and just not realize it. Spirit could start speaking to you in your dreams. Like somebody calls your name and you wake up. Who was that? I wasn’t having a dream. Who was that? You may never know. You could possibly call it Spirit…or Somebody in Spirit and not lose any sleep over it.
Awakening your sense of Spirit could be as simple as creating a new belief. The idea that you can be heard. Spirit can hear you. You might not be able to hear them yet, but they sure can hear you.
Also, the words that a medium hears might be as fast as a flash of lightning or an electrical impulse. It is almost an understanding. Sometimes what a medium hears comes to them as a visual cue, too. Putting it all together, you have the message of Scotland, a hilltop, an old man, a strong man standing there. Involved with the railroad. How, I don’t know. Cottage, farm in the background. Other buildings. Out buildings. Smoke from peat fires. Stings my eyes. Hard to breathe. Moist. Other people. A little boy. His back is bent. He works hard in the fields. His brother gets to go up into the hills to watch the sheep. He thinks his brother has the better job because he doesn’t have to go to school.
Sometimes, for me, it is just seeing things like I just did. Maybe these are your relations from another time.
Thanks for writing.
Love, Pauline
What Do You Do When Spirit Stops Talking?
This is an email I received on 7/10/2011: Hi. I’ve been speaking to my nana in the spirit world, and lately I’ve been getting a feeling I should do a tarot card reading for myself. So I did. It wasn’t a good reading at all. The bad cards came out, so the same night, I asked my spirit guide to bring my nana through. She didn’t come, which she always has done in the past. Something felt really wrong that she didn’t answer me, and a few days later, she still won’t come through. I’m just wondering why they don’t come through. I also feel as though they are trying to prepare me for something distressing to happen. Is that why she won’t speak to me at the moment?
And my answer: You are worrying too much. That’s all. When you make contact with Spirit in the way that you have been accustomed to, this is not the way it will always be. You will, as a sensitive, evolve and develop. Not to worry about it.
So, what is going on with you? Did you realize that you are the one who determines what spirit is going to sound like? We did an experiment once with four people I was coaching on learning to channel. The game was going to be that we would listen to one guide. The same guide. And, that guide would channel about what was going on in our future. We were all set to get really good information. What came through was surprising and not what we expected to hear.
Bear in mind that I live near San Francisco. We get a lot of earthquakes, and everybody has been warned for years that the BIG one is coming. So, one person channeled that we should all get out of Dodge and move as quickly as possible. We should move to Colorado because that was going to be the new West Coast in the United States when the present western part of the country was going to sink and drop off the map. Another person channeled that if our higher self determined that our life lesson was going to be that we needed to be involved in a big earthquake, then that was where we were going to be. Why there? Who knows? Maybe we are supposed to help people.
Two very different channelings, yet from the same guide and through two different people speaking on the same subject.
That was when I realized that it is the person who determines what kind of channeling comes through, whether it is going to be scary or not.
Okay, so what do you do if you feel you don’t have any control over the channeling coming out of your mouth?
You have lots of control. It’s all about choices. For one thing, with alarming or distressing messages coming through, you can take a step back from it and know the channeling you are doing is based on fear.
How to get over fear? Grow yourself. A kid is afraid of nothing. They learn fear as they grow. Unlearn it. Are you afraid of the first raindrop? Run for shelter so you don’t get wet and melt? Try this. Next time it rains, go outside without a coat and without an umbrella and get wet. I know that is simple, but for me, when I did it, it was a revelation, and it was one of the first steps I took outside of my comfort zone.
Allow the fearlessness to come gradually to you. Journal. Pour out your thoughts on paper. The very act of expressing yourself on paper is therapeutic.
Begin to gradually change your world views. Are you as well-balanced mentally as you can be? If you move on the assumption that everybody, the world over, has some sort of neurosis going on, figure that you must have one too. You always figured that you were perfectly okay. Figure now that you are not. But that’s okay. The number one rule is that channeling is distorted by how well balanced you are mentally, or at least that you are making the attempt to be well balanced. So, the important point here is that you make a promise to yourself that you will make the attempt to investigate some aspect of yourself that might need a little healing. I don’t know what it is. You have to discover that one on your own. Remember, that your worldview, your take on reality, needs to shift a little bit in order for you to spot something in your makeup that could use some work. It is a process of being more sensitive to what your needs are.
The thing with healing emotionally and figuring out what is going on with you is to assume first of all that you are not a victim. If you go around saying, “If this had not happened then everything would be different for me.” Or “If they hadn’t done this, I would not now be doing this.” This is the blame game, and if you blame others for your problems, then this is something you can look at. Here’s a hint. Do you ever get really angry about things? Focus on those times and see if you can’t figure something out about yourself.
My signal that I need to get quiet and do some inner work is when suddenly, out of nowhere, I am surrounded by drivers who can’t drive worth a poop. In front of me, behind me, coming at me from the side, the worst drivers you can imagine, and I am attracting them like flies. Ahem. My own personal signal that there is something in my world that isn’t quite right. If I choose to ignore this, it only gets worse.
This doesn’t mean that you are defective. It means that you, just like everybody else, have something to work on. That’s our opportunity here on Earth. Learn all you can.
One of the best things I ever did to help me shift my reality just that little bit that would allow me to channel was to read “The Course in Miracles”. There is a section in it that has 365 lessons; one for each day of the year. Start on the first lesson and begin reading. These are short. They never go much more than one page.
Now, the cards. First time I ever read the Tarot for myself I got the 3 “bad” cards; the hanged man, the tower and the devil. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I shuffled the deck and drew again. Same three cards. Yikes. I shuffled and drew again. Same again. The odds of that happening were incredible. So, since I didn’t know much more about those cards than that they were “bad,” I figured I would read the meanings. Your world turns upside down, things are going to change, and you have the opportunity for great changes in your life.
I finally realized that Spirit was coming through the cards, and since I already held a bunch of “beliefs” about ESP and psychic things, I was frightened. It took years for me to unlearn my fears, to realize that Spirit had just stepped in to communicate with me via the cards, and that was one of the first steps I was taking to learn how to channel.
Your sensitivity to the other side is changing. Take a hint and study more. There isn’t one perfect and right way to lean as far as disciplines go. Lean the way you are drawn. You’re going to learn something from all of your teachers. There is a saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” So, don’t fret. You’re doing fine.
There is nothing to fear, and your Nana and your guide are not preparing you for something bad to happen. When it all settles down again, you’ll be able to talk to Folk in Spirit again, and I’ll bet you will be a much happier person. It’s all about growing.
Best of luck to you, and thank you for writing. Pauline
Trickster
This is an email I received on May 16, 2009. I thought it would probably help a lot of people.
I’d be so grateful if you’d help me out a little bit with this, but several years ago I had a ouija board, which I had successfully gotten to work for only me in a couple of months, and I communicated with Rare, who, mind you is a trickster and loves to laugh about my problems, Grrrr! lol Its been quite awhile and I’ve stopped using the board, but I still feel as if I’m communicating with him through my head.
Like for the longest time, I would have these written conversations with “him” and also even as I write this, He’s conversing through one of my fingers. I’d only spoken this to one person before who tried to explain to me that it was just my over imagination working on me again. Or my depression, very very mild depression, which come to think of it I wouldn’t have gotten through without Rare telling me I was being stupid. (I had conversed with him before they told me I was depressed)
I’m just confused, as if I could be conversing with the trickster through the Ouija board, or if he is just some sort of figure of my imagination. He’s mad that I keep saying he’s fake, but I’m just now coming to this conclusion. I would just like to see your views on this subject and see if I, whom has no privacy in my head at all!!!!!!, do have a possiblity of channeling or whatever it is that’s going on in my head. Thank you so much for your taking the time to read this
And my answer: Good questions! Yes, this is channeling, and for it to move from Ouija, to written, to telepathic, to fingers, and back again is normal. But you are in the early days. If your guide is a trickster, this is not the level entity that you want to be communicating with, fun though it is at times. Think of your spiritual development and how this is tied up with that. Would you fool around with it? So, this is not game time, it’s serious business.
So, what to do now? Make the commitment to yourself and to your guide that you will stop being entranced with the trickster end of things. You’re no help to yourself, nor can you be of help to anybody else, if you allow the level of your channeling to remain in the lower levels. Don’t get me wrong, talking to folks at all levels of the astral is interesting. I do it all the time. But, I also know where the most serious stuff needs to be attended to, and that is with the highest vibrations you can imagine. Aim high. In the beginning, this is important.
Also, it is not at all unusual for the drama to be very high in the beginning. As you settle down the drama tapers off too.
Now, does this mean you have to turn your guide in and get a new one? No. Your guide is bending to the lowest common denominator, which is you inching around in the lower astral planes. If you smarten up, he or she will also treat you differently. It’s like anything else. We view our reality through our belief systems, and if you think all there is for you is fun house spooks, that’s all there will be. Believe me, you have a very nice guide, a very learned guide, and as soon as you show yourself to be ready, they will act with you in a more guide-like fashion.
Now, the bit about being depressed? Tend to that. Right away. Whenever you open up to the spiritual places, you also immediately step up to the more mature and responsible plate of being open to your own spiritual, emotional, and psychological growth and healing. In a nutshell? Opening to spiritual stuff really ends up pushing your buttons, and if you try to ignore the signs that you need a bit of help at times via a therapist, you will really be in for a rough and tough time. It’s like when you open spiritually, you don’t end up doing it to be self-serving so much as you do it to help other people, and you can’t help other people unless you are healthy in your head and heart.
So, get a move on and have your depression looked at. Thanks for writing. Love, Pauline
Tips for Channeling
Here is an email I got on 4/9/2009: I have been reading your ‘How to channel blog’ for a while now, and I want to thank you very much for all the useful advice you give on it. In this last post you wrote about the voices in your head, you mention this person has a spotty connection with their guides and suggest they strengthen it.
My question is, how? I have read, S. Roman’s book and done the exercises, and I don’t know if there is any more I can do other than just being persistent and wait. I am up to the point where I can sense my guides around me, but so far I haven’t been able to hear them or connect in any other way. Do you have any other exercises you could suggest? I do the children’s rhyme sometimes, and I also talk to myself quite a bit, but I don’t know how else I can play with them. Any advice?
And here is my answer: It sounds to me like you’re on the threshold of being able to communicate with your guides. With me, when I was at that spot, I took the bird shot approach and just peppered my efforts with all sorts of ways to connect. At the time it didn’t seem like any of them were working. In retrospect, they all contributed a little bit.
When I spoke of a spotty connection, I meant it’s sort of on and off at times, which happened to me in the beginning. Just early days, that’s all. It does get stronger.
So, the one thing you can hang your hat on and count as the number one sign that you are making it is the fact that you sense your guide every once in a while. I realize that you’ve likely got more than one guide, but for the time being, focus on the idea that there is just one to meet. It’s sort of like being at a party. If you’re talking to one person, you can devote your attention to them. If you’re talking to more than one person, your attention is divided. So, for the purposes of the next while just pretend you’re talking to one guide. The other one will not be offended in any way, and later on, once your connection is really firm, you can talk to everybody. But, in the beginning just to one quide.
However, many times these guys will talk and refer to themselves as we. Seth explained to me it’s sort of like a choral effect…many guides joined together into one guide’s voice. Just figure it’s one guide even when they say we.
And here are some suggestions:
1. If you are not already doing it begin keeping a private journal. It can be on your computer, it can be in a notebook. It can be in both places. The point is to just pour your heart out. As you move into a space where you are going to be talking to your guide you are also moving forward with your own emotional and psychological growth. Keeping a journal can help over some of the bumps. It’s not so much that you have to read what you wrote, it’s just the idea of getting it out.
2. Try having a pretend conversation with your guide on paper. You can write both parts for awhile and maybe at some point it will feel like what you are writing is almost like having your thoughts flowing alongside of somebody else’s thoughts. It’s a strange feeling, but that’s how it was with me. After I got used to it the two thought streams separated and I can tell easily when a guide is speaking and I’m not just thinking something. As a warning, too, when you’ve gotten to the 2 side by side streaming thoughts stage? Sometimes the guides will say startling things, things you would never say in a million years. This is to further point out to you that you are not thinking this, but a guide is speaking just to help you begin to tell the difference.
· YOU: Hi. I haven’t heard from you this morning.
· GUIDE: You did not initiate a conversation. We had nothing to say.
· YOU: I thought you would at least say hello.
· GUIDE: (silence)
· YOU: Are you there?
· GUIDE: Of course.
· YOU: I can’t sense you right now.
· GUIDE: You are communicating verbally via the written word.
· YOU: Oh,
· GUIDE: Do you understand?
· YOU: No.
· GUIDE: (silence)
· YOU: Are you there?
· GUIDE: Yes, did you think I was going to disappear?
· YOU: No, but I thought you would have more to say.
· GUIDE: You need more time being quiet and listening.
· YOU: Thanks.
· GUIDE: You are welcome. Our blessings.
So, even though it is a pretend conversation, somehow the guides came through. Just pretend they are there.
3. Something else to do is that sometimes it is effective when you are working so diligently on something to step away from it. For instance, at one point I bought a piano. I can’t play. I tried to learn. It was impossible, but I felt I needed some sort of outlet more than my journaling to express myself. I might not be able to play well, but I please myself. Sometimes it even feels like I’m channeling. Just relax enough and let Spirit take me away. Anyway, after 20 minutes at my piano, I come away totally refreshed and thinking a whole lot better.
4. Mostly ,it just takes time. Everybody is different. I know I stalled out many times. And, once the actual channeling began, I was doing it in a way that was not the recommended choice in Sanaya Roman’s book, “Opening to Channel”, but it was right for me. So, I used a Ouija board. It took me 6 months of work for it to even move, but once it started, it was like gangbusters. For 10 days, I communicated with Seth via the board. Then, as each day went by I got faster and faster until my hand was flying over the board. There was no way anybody could tell what letter was being indicated anymore. That’s when I began to anticipate what was being said and it all morphed nicely into the telepathic sort of method I use now. It was the way I did it. It might not be the way others do it. But, the board was the vehicle to breaking through for me. Maybe something like that will work for you too. Interestingly, the Ouija board started working on 2/12/93. A week and a half later was when I first heard Seth’s voice in my head. That was 2/22 – the number sequence I had begun seeing some 5 years earlier when I had my first psychic awakening. See how long the process can take?
5. Read about other channelers to see how their guides speak to them. Read John Edward, read Sylvia Browne, read about how JZ Knight channels Ramtha, read Messages from Michael, read the Seth books that Jane Roberts and her husband wrote. Just read anything you can get your hands on.
6. At one point I learned how to draw. I needed to be drawing on the other side of my brain more to get myself ready for channeling.
7. Try getting some Tarot cards or a bag of Rune stones and see if that isn’t the way to get your foot in the door.
8. One of my steps was to begin reading, “A Course in Miracles”. I only ever got half way through but I’m convinced I needed to change the way I was looking at the world for the channeling to begin happening for me.
9. Always remember that learning how to channel, to connect to Spirit, puts you on the fast track for your own psychological and emotional growth and well being. Which just means that where you had worked slowly on emotional and psychological issues before now they come at you like gangbusters. That’s what the purpose of the journaling is for to help you through that. It won’t be a stage that is ever over, it’s just that it would have been easier for me to know it up front. That’s why I tell people early on in the game now. Just realize there’s no shoving problems under the carpet and hoping they’ll go away anymore. To be the best you can be means being a mature, responsible person and stepping up to the plate when it involves this sort of growth. Don’t be afraid to get a self-help book or even to seek out a therapist. I’ve been told transpersonal therapists might be your best bet, but anyone will really do. They can tell when folks need a little help.
10. And, I guess the best advice of all would be perseverance and patience. It’s almost like you’ve got to pay the dues and prove to yourself you are willing to do the work for the life-changing event of channeling to take place.
11. And, finally, don’t work so hard at it. Try to have a balanced life going on. It really is just going to take time.
Thanks again for writing, and I’m glad the blog is helping you.
That Voice In My Head
This is an email I got on 4/4/2009: I think I might be hearing my guide in my head, but I can’t have a conversation with them. What happens usually is if I get angry at someone or something there is always a voice in my head which says stuff like think about it from their point of view or not to get angry at them because of some reason. But then if I think of another reason I should be angry it just answers back. It’s really weired. It’s like having a two sided argument in my head. What do you think? Is it just me or could it be my guide(s)?
And, here’s my answer: It’s probably your guide running interference for you. It’s a spotty connection, not real strong right now. They can come through because of your heightened emotional state. So, I think the thing to do is to be thankful you’ve got a connection, spotty though it is right now, resolve to work harder at strengthening that connection and not worry too much about the messages other than to look at your anger.
Guides are there to teach you not to tell you how to live your life. So, if you don’t get the point of what they are encouraging you to pay attention to right now, don’t worry about it so much. With me they just continued to say the same messages over and over again until I “got it”.
Your message about trying to think of what is going on in the other person’s shoes? Good one. Good lesson. I think your guide is just trying to get you to shift away from the tornado of being so angry and not being able to see much else to a place where you can be more objective about it and try to see the source of your anger.
What I’ve learned over the years is to ask myself what is bothering me when I get angry. Like I have my own personal cue of crappy drivers. When I need some personal introspective work and am not doing it, or am ignoring the signs that I need to go spend some quiet time, crappy drivers, I mean drivers who should never have gotten their driver’s licenses flock around me. They tail gate. They honk their horns at me. They buzz too close. I’m a basket case. Then, it dawns on me, “Oh, shit. I need to go see what psychological or emotional issue is up for me right now.” Takes about 10 minutes and you feel better.
Or, you could go journal for a little bit and just pour your feelings out on paper.
But, when you make a connection with Spirit a requirement is that you be the best connection you can be. You will eventually be in a position to help people and the best way you can do that is to have made a commitment to be the best you can be. That requirement includes paying attention to your own emotional and psychological health.
All of us, all of our lives work our ways through these emotional and psychological issues. Sometimes people take years to do bitty step after bitty step. The thing with talking to Guides is they step it up to a whole new level.
My advice would be to look at why you are getting so angry. Are you afraid of something? Are you in a defensive position to protect yourself? Go get a self-help book and do your own fine-tuning.
I hope things look up. It’s slow work. People work on their issues little bit by little bit. It’s just when you’re channeling you sort of get to work on them more often.
Here’s a channeling funny for you that happened to me. One time I was really angry at a driver on the road. I called him an as*hole. Here comes that voice in my head saying, “Yes, Dear. Everyone has one.”
Thanks for writing. Pauline
What About My Wife?
Here’s an email I got on 3/25/2008: I’ve enjoyed reading your sites. But I am curious if your husband supports your efforts of channeling? I am interested in doing the same, but I think my wife would think I’m nuts or something. I’ve been reading and reading about the subject but have not really shared my interest with my wife. She is more religious than I am and I’m afraid that I would offend her all the while feeling like she would think I’m nuts or something. Just curious of your view point?
Here’s my answer: By all means, tell your wife what you want to do and why. Try to include her in what you are doing. And, you do want her support.
The road to channeling of reading, meditation, and thoughtful, introspective thinking can help everyone, whether they actually channel or not. It’s the idea of getting more in tune with your inner self, having more confidence in what you do and in what you think, that are the benefits that come from the path to channeling. Also, there is the desire to be more on your own path of spiritual development.
And then there are the nuts.
What also happens is that people have expectations of what channeling is and that’s where the nutty ideas come in. I can certainly see how a spouse, especially one who is religious would be alarmed at what her husband was doing.
If you think that the channeling will not take away from anybody’s, yours or your spouse’s faith, and can convince her of it too, then I would think things would be okay.
It’s in the early days of channeling where the odd things happen. That’s when I advise people to sort of keep their mouths shut and try real hard to keep one foot on the curb of rational thought. That’s when God comes to you to say there is a fantastic sale down at the local hardware store and if you jump in the car RIGHT THEN you will be able to have the buy of the century. Those are just the early warped days of channeling. It’s not true. It is your guide speaking to you, but it is also you with a whole boat load of preconceived expectations and ideas of what the channeling process SHOULD be. It’s once you get accustomed to the new energies, to the new talking, address your own psychological growth issues (and everybody, absolutely everybody has them) then, things begin to settle down.
But, it’s not just a simple thing of, “This week I’m going to learn how to channel”. It’s a life changing experience. And, you could alienate your wife in the process. You do not want that to happen. Once you make contact with Spirit there is no going back and unmaking contact with your guide.
There’s also a stage (and I went through this too) of where you get all sorts of helpful advice from the guides for everybody and you feel you must share. Folks tend to not like that. You’ll learn caution and when to keep your mouth shut. This cautionary note would hold for anybody whether they are married or not. Can you imagine going to your boss to say, “You know, my guides said if you were to stop dragging your dog around the lake with you every time you go out to jog the dog would be a lot happier.” Right. See what I mean?
I wouldn’t say the various religions are so keen on having parishioners going about channeling. That’s what the priests, ministers and rabbis are there for: to interpret God’s laws. Not you. They just don’t seem to like it. There is a place for it, but I haven’t tried real hard to find it. (One of the guides just said that’s when you go make your own church.) I did know a priest once who I told about my channeling experience. As he and I talked over time I remember once he said to me that I sounded like his spiritual advisor. That’s as close as I’ve come to any sort of acceptance by a member of the clergy. It was brief and now I’ve lost touch with that priest. I’ve never sought out another one. But, that brief interchange did much to give my confidence a boost.
My husband is supportive of my efforts now. He was a little anxious in the beginning. There was a real tense moment once early on when he said I had to chose between him or my guide. I stood my ground and said I was going to have them both. Even then I realized that there was no way I could unmake the connection to Spirit and there was no way I could live the rest of my married life under a cover of silence from Spirit.
So, I learned a little discretionary caution. Everybody is going to have a different experience. It’s been 15 years that I’ve been channeling. Even though it was strange trying to find a place for the new me in my married life I did. And, I’m glad for it. I’m more outgoing now. I’m a little bolder. I’ve had to do my own psychological work, which, by the way does not stop. You work on it a little…a year or so goes by and then you work on it some more. This is an absolute must for anybody doing channeling. You don’t want to end up like some nut mowing down innocent civilians in a misguided effort to save the world. So, your own psychological health is an area of constant observation. My relationship with my husband is solid. It weathered my journey into channeling. It wasn’t always easy, but we came out the other end of it even happier together, more accepting of each other than before.
What you could do, if after all that I’ve told you if you decide the upheaval in your marriage isn’t worth the trouble of learning how to channel move into the introspective writing mode where you begin to meditate a bit, where you pray, where you balance your life with useful and healthy activities (jogging, gardening, exercise, yoga maybe, stuff like that), where you begin keeping a journal for writing whatever you want to write about and where you do a self evaluation to see if there is anything along the lines of psychological healthy making things you can do to help yourself, including your wife in these activities too. Check out Byron Katie at her website The Work of Byron Katie. “Loving What Is” is a terrific book she wrote. Absolutely terrific. It’s not channeling. It’s supporting spiritual and healthy life for yourself and your wife.
I hope this helps, and thanks for writing. Pauline
Email about Ouija Board
Here’s a terrific email I got 9/8/2007: I have been studying the metaphysical side of life for many years now. I’ve read Edgar Cayce books, Jane Roberts book with Seth as well as other books. I have made great progress. A few months ago I bought a ouija board. It took several tries with my teenage children to get the board to work for us. Now we have it down perfectly and have some wonderful, positive experiences. My concern is for my teenage daughter. I don’t want her to be doing this on a weekly basis with me as I’m afraid that some of her traditional religious friends will find out and begin judging her in a negative way causing her to lose her friendships.
So, I’ve begun to try to use the board myself. I haven’t had much luck, and the spirits I have talked to about this say, I have too many doubts, and I need to relax. I asked one spirit if I should meditate more, and he said as long as I “don’t fall asleep”. I had to chuckle at that one, because the day before I was trying to really meditate, and felt myself falling asleep as my hands were on the planchette!!
Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated. Yes, I always open the gate with positive prayer, prayer for protection and call upon those spirits who are within God’s light and love to communicate with me. We haven’t had any problems with so called “evil” spirits.
And, my answer: When I decided to work the Ouija board by myself it took longer than 6 months to get it to happen. My problem, too, was that I needed to relax. So, good advice from Spirit.
One suggestion would be to, in the beginning anyway, speak only with your guide. You are like an open window and no matter how hard you pray you are the lady standing at an open window hollering out into Spirit Land, “Come talk to me! I want to talk to you!” Anybody could drop by and, evil or not, they can sometimes be distracting, confusing or obscene. Even your own guide when they crank up the energy level can come through in a distorted manner. When I say, “crank up the energy level” I mean it. It’s like your guide is speaking with a five year old in the beginning. “Let’s take it easy on her.” Suddenly, you got promoted to the 10th grade. They take off the kid gloves and start talking organic chemistry and algebra to you. You gotta be prepared for that. So, when they say, “A,B,C” to you at the 5 year old level that’s what you hear: A,B,C. But, when the energy level gets hiked up and they start saying, “When in the course of human events….” you start hearing, “Hey, Bro, take a few minutes to chill and we’ll talk to you about a bunch of dudes fighting a war a long time ago.” Different.
Also, because the folks in Spirit Land are invisible you really don’t know if you are speaking with your guide or with somebody who says they are your guide. You’ve just got to have faith that it is your guide, no matter how weird they might sound. You state the intention: “I am only speaking with my guide now” and that’s it. If your guide tells you that he is really Santa Claus in disguise then you say, “Okay.” and don’t believe it, know that you are a raw newbie and Spirit has an odd sense of humor sometimes and move forward. It will eventually even out. Just state the intention: “I am going to speak with my guide”. (or guides). This is good advice for the first year or so while you are getting used to it. After that you can talk to anybody.
Also, part of what’s going on is that your beingness as a human being is distorting what you are hearing. There is no way you are going to get around that. Also, it takes time to become accustomed to speaking with Folk in Spirit. I ball park it with a year’s time. Generally, people who channel settle down into nice solid channeling about a year after they start. That first year is La La Land. It was during that time that my guide said to me: “There will come a time when human beings will not need to eat.” Right. I bought into it. Until I spoke with a friend who is a psychotherapist who told me, “Pauline, you have an eating disorder. Listen to what your guide just told you. This is not right. You are filtering stuff through your issues with food.”
Also, talking to Spirit is not a one way street. You gotta give something up. And, what that “something” is becomes your nice safe, stable psychological standing in life. They pull the pins out and you begin dealing with your piled up psychological issues. Don’t tell me you don’t have any. Everybody does. Usually we deal with them quietly when we’re ready to deal with them and life goes along smoothly enough. When you’re talking to Spirit you step onto the fast track and you, because you are in a position now to help others, can strive to be in the best psychological shape you can be. Being willing to deal with psychological crappiness as it arises in your life makes you a better channel, because that’s what you are doing when you talk to Spirit. How do you know you’ve got psychological issues to deal with? That’s when what you’re channeling goes south and starts sounding really weird. Or, you attract every crappy driver in town every time you get in a car. Or, stuff just starts bothering you. Or, you start having nightmares. Just deal with it and you’ll be a better channel.
Also, people have “issues” that are not healed completely the minute they decide to tackle tough psychological issues. Just be willing to do a bit of work on them. Deal with as much as you can now. Figure that you’ll be a happy camper for 2 or 3 years and then you will be stronger and better able to deal with the next stage of whatever issue is there for you. And, that’s not just for folks who are channeling. That’s advice for everybody. Just deal with what’s in front of you until your life settles down and is good again. But, don’t figure that it has gone totally away. It’s good for now and when you decide (higher self and sub-conscious self) the time is right then you can deal with some more. You don’t have to do this, but I feel that it just becomes a better channeling experience if you are willing to do something about your “stuff”.
Beyond being able to relax, I’m thinking you can release some of the fear you’ve got about the whole experience. I’m talking about the prayers, and the protection, and your reference to evil spirits. Just think about it some. Your guide will help too. You are the lady standing at the open window into spirit land. There are axe murderers out there just waiting to talk to you. And, there’s nothing you can do to stop it other than to take your hands off the board. And, even then it might be too late, because the board is the first step in channeling, especially if you are wanting to handle it on your own without others to help. The next level is telepathic and it is very difficult to turn that off. So, are you going to be frantically emailing me as to how to shake an axe murderer spirit who wants to get friendly with you? No. That’s 5 year old stuff. You’ve got to morph into the adult and mature person who can look an axe murderer in the eye (so to speak) and say, “Hey, what’s life like now for you?” and not be afraid.
It all has to do with getting a new perspective on life. I know. I had to do the same thing.
I agree that it’s not such a good idea to have your daughter fiddeling around with the board right now, especially with your views as to being safe and only attracting the “best” spirits to speak with. She’s just not mature enough.
I had to laugh about going to sleep when meditating. I do that too. My husband calls them power naps. Thanks for writing. Love, Pauline
Talking to Spirit Dogs
An Email from a reader on 9/6/2007: Is it possible to get in touch with the spirit of my dog who passed away, and how – doesn’t matter how long and hard this road would be – I would be prepared to take this journey.
My Answer: People (including me at one time) think that being able to communicate with Spirit is hard. It’s actually not that hard if you are willing to sort of change what your expectations are of what the experience is going to be like. If you think the hair on the back of your neck is going to rise and crackle in the wind, if you think that you’re going to be hearing ghostly sounds, cupboard doors slamming in the kitchen, lights turning on and off mysteriously, it won’t happen. That eerie stuff is the Hollywood part of what communicating with Spirit is. The real part of communicating with Spirit is quiet.
However, there are a few levels of intensity to it.
Basic level One that anybody can do is to just talk to Spirit. In your head, silently in your heart, mumbling quietly, or shouting into a canyon; however you want to phrase the communication, Spirit can hear you. Also, animals who have passed are as much Spirit as your great-grandfather who has passed on. It was one of the amazing things that I learned when I “broke through” to channeling was that animals can communicate with us in our own tongue and folks who lived as a person speaking a language different from our own can talk to us just fine. It’s like we have so many different languages and ways of communicating while we are human, but when we are Spirit there is just one way. Anyway, whoever you want to speak with in Spirit can hear you fine. If you want to sit quietly and get into a meditative state of mind that’s fine. If you want to talk while standing in line at the grocery store or sitting in your car at a stop light, that’s fine too. Now, the difficult part of this communicating with Spirit is that you can’t hear them. That’s the part that might take longer. Actually, the guides are saying it’s only difficult if you choose it so. That’s guide talk. If you can be content knowing that your dog can hear you, that your relatives who’ve passed on can hear you and you’re okay with not being able to hear them, that’s fine.
Level Two has to do with opening to Spirit, being willing not to bend Spirit to our ways, to your expectations. If Spirit is going to communicate with you in a non verbal way then the hawk who circled around your house this morning was Spirit saying, “Hey”. Spirit can also communicate via tools of divination: a deck of tarot cards or a pendulum.
A really good way to communicate with Spirit is by writing. Have in mind who it is that you want to speak with and begin writing. You write your part of the conversation and then you relax and pretend and begin writing the other side of the conversation. This is where you need to lift all the rules and just allow the experience to flow. No judgments. No being frightened. You walked into this. You want to communicate with somebody on the other side. Release your expectations of what is going to happen and just let it flow. If you’re in a really good space just let your hand go limp on the pencil or pen and “help” things along by roughly drawing a circle. Just doodle. Less than doodling. Just scrawl out circles and see what will happen. And be patient.
Anyway, with more control on the writing instrument ,you could just “trust” for a few moments that the answers you receive to your questions are going to be Spirit speaking with you. Animals can do this fine too.
Communication with Spirit can also occur during your dreamtime. Just be open to the idea that dreams are a terrific place for Folks in Spirit to come and visit. Many times my pets who have passed on come to me in my dreams. I’m not always aware of them right then, but in the morning when I awaken I remember that they had come to be with me in my dream and every time it is special. If you can possible learn how to dream lucidly and have a dream where Spirit can be with you then, that would be the primo of all wonderful dreams. But, a normal dream is much more usual and is certainly special.
Also, my understanding of the process is that Folks in Spirit are not in pain anymore. They aren’t upset, or angry, or vengeful. One of the guides once said dying was like waking up from a dream. They said everybody suddenly understands everyone else. There is no hate anymore.
Mostly, what works is being playful with the process. Trying different things to see what you’re comfortable doing and what appeals to you. It’s like phones. They all work, but there sure are a lot of different models.
Thanks for writing. Love, Pauline
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