You are here to shine your light, to be a beacon. You are not here to chase people down and force your light upon them.

Some will be attracted to your light, and some won’t. It is not your job nor your responsibility to seek followers.

Just be a beacon, and those who want to step into the glow of your light will.

There is nothing for you to do. Your job is to be. Be who you are at your core. Remember who you really are, and be that person.

All of your actions will stem from your inner light.

When you are in alignment with all that you are, then all your actions will be so aligned. And those who are attracted to your light will receive benefit.

As you struggle to define yourself, to figure out what you’re supposed to do, try to remember that much of this world was crafted by those who have forgotten their higher selves. What you see in the world today is in many ways a contrast to what it could be.

The more you can remember who you really are, and the more you can align yourself with that person, the more change you will see in the world, because it will be a reflection of your higher self.

The world today is a reflection of the light we are casting. Is your light casting fear or is it casting love?

As you beacon, so shall the world be. So be a beacon. But be a beacon of your highest self.

Awaken to your light. Remember who you really are. And love.

Answer: When I connect with a deceased person during a reading I am always connecting with the persona that my client would recognize. So if Aunt Clara is coming through for my client, I’m connecting with the personality that was Aunt Clara in life. I am not connecting with Aunt Clara’s higher self.

I have never been looking for a deceased friend or relative and was presented with a person’s higher self instead.

So when does a person slough off the persona from their previous incarnation? I believe it varies by person. Sometimes a person “hangs on” to their old life because they are still emotionally connected to their living loved ones, or they are waiting for someone, like a spouse, to die so they can move on together. At some point every spirit lets go and merges back with their higher self.

I’ll bet it’s possible for a higher self to still come through as a previous persona, but I have never had that experience with a spirit.

No medium can guarantee contact with a specific deceased person. What I’ve noticed is sometimes I’ll bring a spirit through and my client will say, “Yep, he comes through every time I do a reading with a medium.” That’s a spirit who is still connected, hovering, and hanging around their loved ones. I’ve also had situations where a certain spirit never comes through no matter how many readings a person gets with a medium, and I suspect those spirits have disconnected and moved on.

Answer:  Both your higher self and your spirit guides are there to help you navigate your way through life, but they do serve different purposes and roles, so let’s talk about who you should consult and when.

A reminder that your higher self is your true essence, your soul, who you are when the veil that shrouds life is pulled back and you remember exactly who you are and where you came from.  Your higher self is the part of you that is most conscious, the operator to your avatar.  It’s like if life was a video game, the incarnated you is the character and the higher self is the gamer sitting behind the scenes eating pizza and drinking soda while influencing and guiding the character through the game of life.

Your spirit guides, on the other hand, were chosen by your higher self to help keep you on track as you navigate the maze of your life.  They are celestial beings who may or may not have ever been incarnated as humans, but are qualified to guide you.  Their job is to follow the boss’s orders and get you from point A to point B with as much learning, growth, happiness, and joy as possible.

I like to think of the higher self as the CEO of your company, and the spirit guides as managers.  Your higher self is the visionary, the leader, the one calling the shots, and your guides implement the strategies and directives set forth by your higher self.

So who should you consult when you need advice, help and answers?

In general, you would consult spirit guides when you want to know what’s coming up on your path.  Should you go left or right at the crossroads?  Should you study abroad?  Should you move to a new city?  Should you date the guy you met in your history class?  And so forth.  Your guides will be able to help you see where each path leads so you can make a good choice.

Your higher self, on the other hand, is a good person to consult when you want to remember your connection to Source, when you want to remember your message and why you incarnated, when you need love and support, and when you want to feel strong and empowered.  It’s not that your higher self can’t help you make a decision, but that’s really what the guides are best at. 

Commune with your higher self, consult your guides.  That’s my motto.

The reason I commune more often with my higher self than my guides is because at the moment my life is flowing totally easily and effortlessly in the direction I want it to go, so my guides are kicking back, taking a smoke break, and patting themselves on the back.   I enjoy meeting with my higher self in my garden because it’s peaceful and I like her energy.

I suggest you connect with both your higher self and guides, just understand where each is focused and how each can help you best.

My higher self came to me in a dream last night.  She handed me a box filled with puzzle pieces and told me to put all the pieces together.  So I got busy working on that.  The pieces were in the shape of North American states and territories so I was able to know roughly how to put them together.  As I got close to finishing I said to her, “Oh I get it.  I see what’s happening here.”  She said, “No you’re not done.  Put all the pieces in place.  All you’re seeing is the small pictures on each piece and you’re assuming much.” 

So I kept going until every single piece was in place and then stepped back to see the big picture and was amazed by what I saw.  I understood it all so clearly.  The pieces lost their borders and all I saw was one big picture.  She said, “The details are important.  Every piece carries its own impact on the whole of the puzzle.  Every piece must be in the right place in order for you to see the big picture.”  I said, “This is awesome.  I can’t believe what I’m seeing here.  I’ve got to share this with everyone.”  She said, “No, this was only for you.  It’s part of your job to get all the pieces where they belong so that the big picture is revealed to everyone.”  I was feeling a little disappointed as it all seemed so easy. I just wanted to show everyone the big picture.  I knew they would all understand if they could just see what I was seeing.  She said, “Everyone needs to be a part of this puzzle.  Every piece must understand how integral it is to the Whole.  Everyone on Earth needs to understand how they fit into the big picture.” 

Reluctantly, I took apart the puzzle and put all the pieces back in the box.  I heard something jingling at the bottom of the box and pulled out a key ring with four keys on it.  She said, “Those are your tools.  You are to awaken people to their unique contribution to the puzzle.  You must help people understand how important they are to the Whole, that no piece is any greater than another, that everyone has a reason for being here.” 

So then I started asking questions about people I personally knew and asking what purpose they served in the Whole.  She gave me some specific answers.  I asked her how I was to go about doing all of this.  She said, “Keep doing what you’re doing.  Appreciate what you can do and your own unique contribution to the Whole.  The piece of the puzzle that is You is complete and whole; you need only share it with the world.”  She showed me images of myself doing a workshop.  It felt like I was teaching.

She said, “People cannot see the big picture when they try to be something they are not, when what they share with others is not their true self, when fear and fear of judgment cause people to alter their frequency and project something other than what they truly are.  This does not serve to show people the Whole.  It fragments the puzzle when a piece wears a mask hiding its true identity.  When this happens, the picture is fuzzy, muddled, and inaccurate and people react to the Whole with an inaccurate understanding of its true nature.  Remind people of their unique contribution to the Whole, help them find the courage to be who they truly are, and reconnect them with Love.”

The last thing she said to me was, “When you realize that all that is required of you is to be yourself, you will find your life flows easily and steadily.  You will merge with the Whole, and your place in the big picture will be revealed.  Do not try to be another piece. You are who you are for a very specific reason. Embrace it, use your talent and skill, and show people the unique contribution you make to the Whole.”

When I woke from this dream I immediately came to my computer to write it down so I wouldn’t forget it.  It was a powerful dream for me.  I felt humbled, charged, and hopeful for humanity.  Let’s get busy putting this puzzle together, people!  Show the world your piece!

Answer:  It takes time, practice, and discernment to know when you’re in contact with your higher self or just your imagination, or even another entity masquerading, as you say, as your higher self.  Until you have a solid grasp on your higher self’s energy and can instantly connect with and recognize it, you’re going to have to go through a process to ensure you’re making a proper connection.  Here are some ways you can make sure you’re connecting with your higher self and not somebody else.  The same is true for your spirit guides as well.

Raise your vibration
What state are you in?  Are you feeling loved, blessed, joyful, and grateful?  Good.  That’s where you want to be ideally when you commune with your higher self.  If you’re feeling fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, shame or guilt, it’s going to be harder to reach the frequency you need to be on to accurately connect with and hear your higher self communicating with you.  You don’t want to end up on a low frequency.  So before you begin, raise your vibration.  Watch a funny movie, tell someone you love them, give a homeless guy some money, go hug your kids, etc.  You don’t have to stay in this state forever, just get there before you connect.

Open your chakras
I really can’t stress enough how important it is to get your energetic body pumping and buzzing with balanced chakral energy.  Without opening your chakras, talking to your higher self is going to be like turning on a radio but pressing the mute button, and wondering why you can’t hear anything.  Boost the volume.  Open and spin your chakras from your root to your crown.  Feel the energy in those areas.  You can still connect with your higher self without opening your chakras, but it’s much harder and you have to listen that much more intently.  Give yourself a fighting chance and open those suckers up.

Find your sacred space
Next you want to create a sacred space where you and your higher self can meet without interruption.  In your mind, imagine going up into space either by climbing a long staircase, going up an escalator, flying, or taking a spaceship.  Doesn’t matter, just feel yourself climbing, going up as high as you can.  I like to walk up a staircase and breathe deeply while doing so.  Count while you climb.  When you feel like you’re high enough (this is you raising your frequency), create a space where you and your higher self can be alone.  It could be a garden, a white room, a living room, a temple, a cloud, etc.  Just enclose it in protective white light and indicate to all who are around that this is a private space for just you and your higher self (or guides).

Practice communicating
Now ask your higher self to come to you in this sacred, private space.  Your higher self will probably appear to look like you but that’s not always the case.  They are just energy – a frequency – and will present to you in a way that will make you most comfortable.  Start with the small stuff.  Offer your higher self a cookie and some tea, make small talk about the weather, just get a feel for each other.  Then ask your higher self what he or she most wants you to know.  Or ask him or her questions.  Have a conversation.  Try not to filter or evaluate the conversation while you’re having it.  Just have it.  You can always run it past your logic later.  The longer you talk the stronger the communication will become.  If you start questioning if you’re really talking to your higher self it might knock you out of this wonderful vibrational state you’ve gotten yourself into; it’s akin to accidentally pulling out the plug on your radio.  Connection over.  So just stay with it until you’ve got the information you want.

When you’re done communicating, thank your higher self, give him or her some love, and exit the sacred space.  Go back down into your body and close your chakras to a nice comfortable level.

Check the results
If you connected with something masquerading as your higher self you’re going to get information that will just feel wrong.  Entities who try to screw with you are seeking to put you in a state of fear so they can feed off of you.  They’ll tell you what to do, how to do it, when to do it and whom to do it with.  They will try to strip you of your power. 

If you’re really communicating with your higher self you’ll get encouragement and advice, and you’ll be challenged to make your own decisions.  You’ll also feel like you’re talking to your true self.  There will be love, not judgment.  There will be compassion and empathy, not anger. 

See what happens when you commune with your higher self.  If you like the results and are feeling more and more empowered, you’re on the right track.

Keep going back
Once you’ve connected with your higher self’s energy, it will be easier to find it again.  Keep going to that sacred space.  There will also come a point where you can access your higher self’s energy even if you’re feeling sad or scared because you’ll know what he or she feels like and can discern their true energy from others masquerading as your higher self.  You’ll get to a point where you can talk to your higher self in line at the grocery store, on a date, or on the phone with your mother. 

Your higher self wants to be known to you.  He or she is there to help guide you and keep you on track.  Your higher self is your heart, mind, and moral compass.  Get to know him or her and you’ll know yourself much better. 

Here’s to the beginning of a beautiful, empowering relationship!

You can do both and they will hear you both ways.  When you think a thought, it creates energy.  That energy can be received and understood by guides, angels, higher selves, God, anything with a consciousness.  You can cast your thought to one specific energy, like your higher self, or you can cast your thought out to the Universe, like, “I am ready for love, Universe.  Bring it on!”

A lot of people think they need to be in a specific building, praying to God in a certain way.  That works, but it’s not necessary to be in a building, on a certain day, praying in a certain way.  Our guides on the other side can hear our thoughts whenever we think them. 

If you want to hear them back, that’s another story.  They don’t communicate using vocal chords and mouths to your ears.  They will respond energetically, the same way they received your communication.  So if you’re not able to tune in to their frequency, you won’t hear their message. 

But there are other ways of receiving their response or communication.  For one, you may get an image in your head, a form of clairvoyance.  You may hear a thought come back to you like, “Yes, my child, you are indeed loved.”  That’s clairaudience.  You may get a warm tingly feeling in your stomach or chills up your back.  That’s clairsentience.  Alternatively, you may get signs, symbols or synchronicities in your life, which is their way of letting you know they received your message.  Interpreting them isn’t always easy, but you do the best you can.  You can consult an intuitive, someone whose job it is to receive energy from the other side and interpret it for you.  These people, such as myself, have trained themselves to receive and interpret communication from the other side.

Who should you address yourself to?

If you need help immediately, like your life is in danger, call upon the angels.  Specifically, Archangel Michael would be a good choice.  If you need healing, call on Raphael.  If you want to commune with God, Source, Oneness, Love, direct your thoughts to your version of God.  If you want to make something happen in your life, like you want to change careers or find a new relationship, I would address yourself to your spirit guides.  If you want to remember who you really are and consult with the highest version of yourself, talk to your higher self.  If you’re curious about what it’s like on other planets or in other dimensions, ask a high vibration celestial being to communicate with you.  If you’re, uh, more attracted to the dark side, you can ask for a low vibration being to assist you.  I’d watch out for that though.  They don’t always play fair.

How do you talk to them?

Some people use meditation.  Quiet your mind, open your chakras, breathe deeply, and ask them to appear to you in your mind.  Talk to them telepathically and see what they say.

Some people like ritual.  Light some candles, turn on the fountain, add some relaxation music, chant, hum, sing; however you feel like connecting, connect. 

Some people like prayer.  Sit quietly or kneel, go into your heart and/or mind, and commune silently with your God.

Some people do well with journaling or automatic writing.  I especially recommend this technique for the left-brained folks who don’t go in for the woo-woo stuff.  Just write down some questions in a Word document, and type back the answer you see, feel, hear, or just know.  Or the answers you think you just saw, heard, felt, or knew.  Rationalize it later.

You can communicate with the other side in dreams too.  This was a method I preferred growing up.  I would program a dream or ask for a message dream on a certain night and pay close attention to what my dreams were about.  If I got myself a lucid dream, I was good to go!

There are many ways to communicate with the beings in the ether.  Try different methods until you find the one you like best.

How do you know if your guides are communicating with you or if you’re just hearing things or making things up?

Practice for one thing.  Keep communicating and acting on what you get.  See if it turns out like you thought it would.  That will strengthen your communication.  I also find that the deeper into meditation I go, the stronger the connection.  You want to get yourself to the point where you can discern the difference between your ego, logic, intuition, and guides.  It’s not likely going to happen on your first attempt unless you’re already a pretty advanced intuitive and just didn’t know it.

You can talk to your higher self, guides, angels, and God out loud with your voice if you want.  That sends the same energy as doing it in your mind.  Sometimes it feels better to hear your prayer out loud.  You can put some oomph and inflection into it. 

Knowing that the Universe receives your thoughts and wishes, I encourage you to send love and gratitude out whenever you can.  That tends to be returned in kind.  And I encourage you to watch the negative thinking as you don’t want to accidentally manifest something unfortunate for yourself.  The universe responds to our thoughts. Guard yours well or they will become your destiny.

Get Clarity
First, you have to identify what you want.  Simply identifying what you don’t want isn’t enough.  You don’t want to say, “I hate that I’m always late.”  Instead you’ll want to say, “My ideal self is punctual.”  Who is your ideal self?  Ignoring who you are right now, just make a list of the qualities, character traits, and attributes of your ideal self.  It’s not about what you think you can attain, it’s about what you want to attain. Here’s an example list which is obviously not exhaustive:

Honest
Compassionate
Attractive
Healthy
Courageous
Punctual
Cheerful
Courteous
Professional

Read this list of values to help you determine your ideal traits.

You can’t reach your ideal if you don’t know what you’re reaching for.  So make your list as exhaustive as you need to in order to feel like if you were all the things on your list you’d be really happy with yourself.

Take An Inventory
Now look at your list and put a check mark next to all the attributes you have already.  If you’re already honest and compassionate, check them off your list.  Whatever attributes are left are the ones where you’re currently challenged.  Those are the ones you’re going to work on attaining.

Adopt New Habits
Pick one or two attributes on your list and start working on them.  If you want to be more punctual, for example, start giving yourself an extra 15 minutes to get where you need to go.  Even if you’re early, it’s better than being late.  If you want to be healthy and you don’t currently have good health, begin adopting a few habits that will lead you to greater health.  For example if you don’t currently exercise, start walking 5 minutes a day, and gradually ramp it up to 10 then 20 and then 30.  When you’re able, increase your exercise and continue to challenge yourself in this area.  Work on your diet too until you’ve achieved the state of health you desire.

I don’t suggest working on more than 2 or 3 attributes at the same time because that involves a lot of change and you don’t want to get discouraged.  Instead, plug away steadily on a few at a time.

Be very conscious of the attributes you’re working on.  It helps to tell others what you’re working on so they can help reinforce your changes.  If you’ve decided to quit smoking you may need to tell the other smokers in your life what you’re doing so they can support you.

Delete Attributes and Qualities That No Longer Serve You
While you’re adding qualities and characteristics of the ideal you, start deleting the old attributes that no longer serve you.  Does your ideal self drink coffee?  Does your ideal self hang up on her mother when she argues with her?  Does your ideal self ignore homeless people?  Does your ideal self start his day with 6 Krispy Kreme donuts?  Drop any habits that are not going to be part of your new package.  Dropping an old habit is not the same thing as adopting a new attribute.  You have to consciously delete old programming and consciously create new programming.  Simply dropping bad habits won’t instill good ones.

Repeat Until You Reach Your Goal
After you’ve instilled a new character trait or attribute, check it off your list and pick another one to work on.  Pick an attribute you want to delete and work on deleting it.  Keep working on your list until you are exactly the kind of person you want to be and you no longer have habits or character traits you don’t want. 

It really is that simple.  Out with the old, in with the new.  One day you’ll wake up and realize you’re exactly the way you want to be.  It will feel awesome!  You’ll be totally congruent with yourself.  It’s like being in vibrational harmony with yourself.  It may take years, but it’s definitely worth the effort.