For more on how to listen, enjoy, and trust your intuition, check out the Clear Channel Course here.

Fire Your Spirit Guides

June 2022

At the most recent group meeting for the Clear Channel Course, it was decided that the frequency of calls would change from fortnightly to weekly. Participants shared that it could be fun to meet more often, and that weekly calls might help to build momentum as they work through the course. 

So, the next call is scheduled for Saturday 11 June at 10am AEST (Friday 10 June at 5pm Pacific Time). The focus will be on relationships with other people and how to strengthen intuition through various interactions; this corresponds with Week 3 of the course, but you don’t need to complete the Week 3 activities in order to join. Details for each upcoming call will be posted on the course homepage a week beforehand. 

As mentioned previously, these calls won’t be recorded or shared on the course website. To hear what was covered in previous group calls, you can access each of the 10 recordings from 2021 on the Live Calls page of the Clear Channel Course. 

During the last call, we covered questions and experiences related to Week 2, which focuses on beliefs around intuition and spiritual presences. We spent a bit of time speaking about spirit guides, and I shared a story on this topic which I’ve included below. 

Fire Your Spirit Guides

At a meditation class several years ago, an instructor told us that we can sometimes feel guided in life, but clarified that, “There’s no such thing as guides.” Having recently been taught to tune in to spirit guides for the purpose of doing psychic readings, and having only recently incorporated the idea of such guides into my belief system, I asked the instructor if she could elaborate on this point. She stated that certain non-physical (i.e., spiritual) presences may be accessible and helpful for us at times, but the idea of spirit guides is just a new age concept, and they do not exist. 

It seemed like a blurry distinction to make, between the belief that there are helpful spiritual presences who can guide you in life but who are most definitely not “guides”, and the belief in helpful spiritual presences who can guide you in life and are … well, guides. About six months later, I had the opportunity to ask the founder of that meditation school for his opinion.

He smiled and said, “Of course there are guides!” He explained that the highest spiritual goal, however, is not to become reliant on guides, but to become aligned with our highest truth and be guided by that. To use his words, we should “get to the point where you can fire your spirit guides.” 

Real or Not Real?

There are two possibilities here. One is that guides don’t exist, and the other is that they do. If they do exist, then that may lead us to another question – are they worth having around, or should we “fire” them?  

Let’s first consider the possibility that spirit guides don’t exist. Is there any value in the belief that guides exist if they’re not real? Is it harmful? I would argue that it might be delusional at worst, but probably not harmful. As I’ve shared in the audio lesson for Week 2 of the Clear Channel Course, even the sceptical part of me accepts that believing in guides can have some positive consequences, despite the fact that they may not exist. It’s impossible to prove either way, so it makes sense to choose whatever belief is likely to be more helpful. I don’t see either belief (i.e., that “guides exist” vs. “guides do not exist”) as essential on anyone’s journey to greater spiritual fulfilment or stronger intuition.  

When I was studying for my final high school exams, I came across a useful book by former army officer Sandy MacGregor called Students’ Steps to Success, which encouraged the use of visualisation to relax. It encouraged me to get to my “special place” whenever I needed to, a place where I could go inside my consciousness even if the outside world was crazy and chaotic. I would visualise being on top of a high snowy mountain, with clear blue skies and endless trees and pink flowers below. That mountain helped tremendously during my final year of school, even though it wasn’t real.

In other words, holding a concept of something that does not exist might still be beneficial anyway. 

Okay, now let’s say hypothetically that spirit guides are real. And not only are they real, but they’ve seemed quite helpful so far in guiding us away from trouble and towards what makes us happy. Could the decision to fire them from the job of guiding us be just a tad unwise? A little rash? Do we really want to let go of those who can hand us a metaphorical cheat sheet in life?  

I’ve previously compared guides to coaches. There are clear benefits to having a coach when learning any skill. Is it necessary to fire a coach once you become proficient at something? Coaching is not just for amateurs, as even the best players in sports, business, arts, etc tend to have a coach, even when they appear not to need one. 

Some years after learning that it might be good to fire my spirit guides, I spoke with another meditation teacher who acknowledged the benefits of turning to guides, assuming they exist and are accessible: “Use them as long as you have to.” 

Give Your Guides a Break

I’m certainly not at the point where I want to fire any spiritual helpers. For now, I’ll continue to hold the belief that there are guides, and that it’s worth keeping them in the job of guiding me, as long as they are willing :)

Maybe it’s best not to fire our spirit guides at all, but to just give them a break. What if we could achieve enough trust in our wiser self and demonstrate the capacity to follow our truth consistently, so that guides no longer have to concern themselves with actively guiding us? We’re not telling them to get lost, we’re just reassuring them that we’re doing okay. Similar to how a parent or teacher might treat themselves to a holiday after a previously dependent child/student finishes school and starts living well on their own, maybe it would be nice for the guides to take a well-earned break. Let them feel proud that after following their advice for a while, you can now figure things out on your own.  

And if guides don’t exist, then perhaps I can still treat those imaginary guides to a special vacation or island party, while I sit atop my beautiful, imaginary, snowy mountain surrounded by pink flowers. 


P.S. To get in touch with the part of you that can receive spiritual guidance, consider booking an intuitive consultation through the Clear Channel Course 


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