About Guides
by Ronnee Ruselle
Over the years, many people have asked me about their guides. I have written some basic information here that may help you to understand the role of your guide/s and their connection to you.
A guide is a spirit. We generally accept a spirit to be the soul of a person who has passed away, but a guide is much more.
Spirits who have passed away and are what is generally termed 'earth-bound' still have a connection to the physical world so they do not get to feel the beautiful energy that is experienced on the other side. Guides are on the other side, but they are able to come to us and assist us through our lessons in this lifetime so that we can achieve as much as we can.
Because the other side (I'll call it home) is such a beautiful place of love, healing, compassion and care, the love energy is felt when you communicate with a guide. In essence, guides are love energy. Oh, they still have their own personalities, but they do not suffer from personality flaws that come with a physical existence. No greed, anger, impatience, fear or anything of the kind.
What are Permanent and Temporary Guides?
While we are in this lifetime, we will be guided by one or more permanent guides and we may also be assisted by temporary guides. These are my terms for them. What I call a permanent guide is one who is with you from birth till death. I have not met anyone with more than 3 permanent guides.
There can be any number of temporary guides. They will come for as long as they are needed and will leave when their service is no longer required. There is no typical period of time for this. I have spoken with guides who were around a person for days and even up to most of a lifetime.
Is it better to have more guides?
No. It makes no difference at all. The number of guides and the type of guides you have are determined by your needs in this lifetime, your compatibility with them etc. The person with 3 guides has no advantage or disadvantage over the person with one guide.
Why do we need guides?
When we enter into this lifetime, we have goals to fulfil. Guides are our aids or helpers. They do only what the name suggests - they guide. This means that they do not live the life for us. They do not give us the answers or tell us what to do and they do not interfere with our choices. They give us a direction to head in and try to help us stay on our path. As far as what experiences we have on that path and how we handle the situation; that is up to us. The guides may choose to assist us with things at times, but generally they prefer a hands-off approach as the more they do, the less we learn. This is because we learn through our experiences, decisions, choices, so it stands to reason that if we're given the answers, we're not making those decisions etc. that allow us to learn.
How are our guides chosen?
From what I've been told by guides over the years, there can be at least a couple of ways that our guides are chosen. We can ask them to guide us or they can ask us for the honour. To them, it is considered to be an honour to help another person to attain enlightenment and as that is our goal here in the physical plane, they are proud to help us. We may have met them previously ourselves, they could have been suggested to us by another person or they may approach us and ask to help us.
The reasons we select certain guides depends upon a number of factors:
Personality and similarities - I have found that the guides of people directly resemble the person they guide in some way whether that be through personality, experiences, likes and dislikes - it can be in any way, but there is always a similarity between the guide and the person they are guiding. Obviously this must be one of the considerations we take into account when selecting guides. It makes sense that the guide would need to be able to understand us and connect with us on some level that requires some compatibility.
Our Lessons - In our lifetime we can face any number of challenges. Our lessons are what we hope to learn and the guide or guides helping us will be chosen according to the types of lessons we wish to learn and what we hope to achieve.
What we need - Apart from being able to understand us and guide us, our guides can also fill a role of supplying extra support when needed. For example, a very shy person may have a guide around who is very outgoing and may push that person at certain times to take a risk in order to bring good opportunities to him/her. It could be that a person who suffers a lifetime filled with emotional pain may have a guide who is very good at healing emotional pain and that guide will help to ease their suffering so that they can continue on their journey or a guide who is very protective may temporarily stay with someone to protect them from a dangerous situation.
So guides will be chosen to be compatible with our personality, strengths, weaknesses, experiences, decisions and lessons just to name a few. Ultimately, although we may know some reasons for why we choose a guide, only our higher selves know all of the reasons. They often will not go into detail about the subject.
How do they help us?
How our guides help us is known mostly only to them. They will inform us as to what areas they help with so that we can communicate with them in relation to certain situations, but generally that is as far as they go with telling us the specifics of how they help us. They may protect us, heal us, educate us, lead us to what we need and who we are to meet - anything to do with 'guiding'. What they don't do is follow our orders, make our decisions for us, stop us from having experiences or rescue us from our own stupidity. They will guide and direct you, but they will not force you to follow their advice. The final decision in any situation is always yours and they will always respect that.
How do I get my guide to communicate with me?
Most of us don't hear our guides. Being able to hear guides requires a particular talent for clairaudience. This is not necessary for connecting with your guides as that can be achieved on a range of levels. In most cases, the lack of direct contact with our guides is deliberate. We are here to learn our own lessons and get through life using our own wisdom, courage and judgement. It's too easy for people to try and 'lean' on their guides, making the incorrect assumption that the guides are there to lead them by the hand and answer all of their questions, save them from making mistakes and protect them from all pain.
Over the years, I've met many people who seem to think that we are meant to communicate with our guides and so they look for that communication. My advice would be to avoid that because it causes imbalance. Only your guides will know when and if they are to communicate directly with you. Trust me when I say that if they choose to do so, you will know instantly and without doubt that you have been communicated with by a guide. I've met far too many people who are desperate to hear their guides and instead they are listening to trickster spirits who do sound quite convincing. I even know psychics today who sell guide messages which are not real, but they have not learned how to determine the difference. Even people I know who have communicated with guides often make the mistake of confusing a guided message with information they have picked up from energy or spirit communication.
The safest thing is not to make assumptions. If it's a guided message, they'll make that very loud and clear otherwise following your instincts will be your best way of connecting with your guide and following their direction. Personally, I did not seek to connect with my guides when they originally came to me and I hardly ever seek them out. They come to me when they feel the need to and they will come to you too when the time is right and if it is truly needed. It is for them to judge when it is needed, as they will have the advantage of knowing what it is that your soul seeks to achieve whereas your memory will not help you to know this.
Should you need to know whether your guides are around you, remember the moments of emotional pain when you suddenly felt peace and the moments of doubt when you suddenly had answers. You will know that they are around. Remember the moments when you feel as if you're practically pushed into a situation that turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.
If you wish to communicate with your guides, then simply talk to them. They hear everything you say, feel and think. Ask for proof that they are around you if you wish and wait to see what happens. Don't assume anything. You may be unsure as to whether something is a hint so ask again and keep asking until you're sure. The trouble is that you will not know from which direction or method the answer will come.
They won't necessarily show you proof in a determined period of time. You won't know when it will happen so don't disappoint yourself by having any expectations. They will wait until a moment that you cannot mistake as being their confirmation and that could take any length of time, but it will be necessary in order to make it clear for you. It may help to know that the guides told me that there is no such thing as coincidence. I found that fascinating to say the least, but we still must be aware that all it means is that there are reasons for the things that happen around us, we must guard against assuming to know what those reasons are until we have some evidence. In other words, if you're unsure as to whether something is a guide 'message' then ask for another until you feel certain.
What reasons would a guide need to visit?
The reasons vary, but in my experience, there are a few main reasons:
Comfort - I have known people whose guides make themselves apparent in some form or other to confirm that they are around to give that person comfort in times of need or upset. It's a wonderful show of support. This can be through a feeling of love, a wonderful dream or even some sort of experience outside of yourself such as being led to a special message.
Duty - If you have a role to play such as I do where the guides may use you as a tool to connect with the people they guide, then you most likely will have visits from other people's guides. While this seems like an amazing and wonderful thing (and it is), it can also be invasive being told to drop what you're doing and grab a pen - hardly at all the dreamy experience that people imagine (chuckle) but nevertheless an honour.
Last Resort - Sometimes a guide will need to make himself/herself known to the person they guide if you don't listen to them. They have many ways of communicating with you and if you constantly ignore the signs that are being given to you, the guides may be nice enough to bring your attention to them so that they can help you avoid unnecessary pain or anywhere up to 10 years of wasted time going down the wrong path before returning to the correct one. Sometimes they will draw your attention to situations of possible danger.
What ways can a guide communicate with me?
There is no limit to the ways a guide can communicate. They could:
- give you ideas and thoughts
- lead you to things and situations that are needed
- give you a sudden 'feeling' or desire to do something
- give you messages through tools such as tarot
- communicate with you in your sleep
- connect with you through meditation
- lead you in creative avenues
- communicate through your gut instincts
- speak to you directly whether you hear them with your ears or with your mind just like with your own thoughts
I'm sure there are more, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.
Can guides share past lives with us?
Yes, they can. They could also be guiding you for the first time with no previous connection to you.
Are all guides family members?
No. Over the years, I have found no more than one or two people who had family members that they knew guiding them and they were as temporary guides alongside the existing guides. So family members can join your guides for a time and help, but mostly they just come for a visit and then return to whatever they are doing on the other side.
It is possible for a guide to have been related to you at some point in a past life, but not always of course. They could have been your teacher, friend, lover, dog, enemy - who knows? The list is endless, as you could perhaps imagine. You can have family members from your current ancestry visit you or guide you. These would be people you never personally met. With one client, a guide was of aboriginal descent and claimed to be an ancestor of the client. The client was completely unaware of the ancestry and found out later that it was true. I had another client whose guide was a great, great grandfather and his name, description etc. was confirmed through family records. This has not been common though in my experiences.
Are there different types of guides?
Yes there are. I am sure that there are an enormous range of guides. The guide 'type' is related to the role they are playing or the duties they are performing. I will give more detail as to the different types in another article soon as that is a large amount of information on its' own.
Basically, following your instincts and recognizing the hint to 'move on' in life etc. will help you to follow your guide's directions thereby staying on your path and avoiding pain. Of course we need pain to learn, but we would also like to avoid any extra pain that is not necessary so listen to those instincts and you too will have a wonderfully close connection to your guides and suffer less pain than you otherwise would need to.
I hope this information helps. Should you have any questions that you feel should be included, please feel free to email me or to ask on the forum.