Connecting with your Guardian Angel

It is so exciting to make the first real connection with Spirit! Learning to connect with your Guardian Angel is a simple, safe and beautiful way to truly begin communicating with Spirit. As you open to your Angel, you build a foundation for all of your relationships in Spirit – relationships based in love and trust.  We can all use more of those types of relationships, right? In fact, the more loving and trust based relationships you build with your spiritual supporters, the more you will be able and ready to bring these positive qualities into all of your relationships. The key to your success is in trusting yourself and what you perceive. Chances are, your guides and angels led you to this article to assist you in making a closer connection with them. After all, they are hovering close to you, ready and willing to take your relationship to the next step!

Ready to connect? Here we go!

The very first step in opening to any Spirit is to allow for the possibility; allow yourself to have an open and lighthearted attitude and trust that you do indeed have Angels ready and willing to connect with you! When connecting with any Spirit, it is important to remember that YOU are a Spirit too! You tune into your own Spirit best when you laugh, enjoy beauty and good-spirited fun. When you open your heart like this you are connecting to your own Spirit. So the first step is to admit to yourself that indeed yes, you too are a Spirit and therefore you are capable of connecting to any other Spirit, whether they are in a body or not!

The next step is to feel your Angels special, unique vibration. Feeling someone’s vibration is simply feeling his or her unique energy – the energetic signature that makes them, them. You know how the people you live with feel to you – their energy. I am sure when you have your back turned and you are doing the dishes, you can feel when someone you love walks up behind you and I’ll bet you can even make a very solid guess on who that person is, am I right? Right. So trust that you have the ability to sense energy. When tuning into your Angel’s energy vibration, it is best to try at first when you are alone, in times of quietude, like first thing in the morning in the shower or as you get dressed or last thing as you lie in bed at night falling asleep. In those moments when you have no distractions around you, quiet your mind and focus on your heart: feel it beating and take a few deep breaths.

Then, simply open your awareness. What do you feel? Chances are you will sense something quiet, warm and loving near you. Everyone’s Angels are different – they have their own unique personalities and character traits. Some Angels prefer to take masculine form, other take feminine form. TRUST what you sense. Accept it. Allow your self to just feel that energy. Try to describe it to yourself. Take a moment to let yourself imagine what this angel would look like if you could see it. TRUST what you feel. TRUST what you sense and TRUST what you see!

Feel like you have a sense, even if it’s a small one of what you angel feels like to you? GREAT! The next step to getting to know your Angel is to find out his or her name.

Yes, you can do this.

All you have to do is ask. Just ask. Say, “Guardian Angel, I am so excited to get to know you. Can you please let me know what name you would like me to call you?” And wait. It may take a day or so. But it will happen. A name will make itself apparent to you. Open your eyes and ears and a name will present itself to you. How does this happen? How do you receive a name from Spirit? How do your Angels tell you?

Angels, like other Spirits, communicate in “Spirit speak”, which means that because they don’t have voice boxes to use to call out to us, they need to be creative and use elements of our physical lives to present their information to us. So, they will be creative. There are many different ways Spirit will communicate to you and it depends on the Spirit and their preferred form. You will get to know how you Angel best likes to connect with you, but here are some common ways Angels like to communicate:

  • Repeated number sequences
  • Songs you hear randomly & repeatedly
  • TV & electronic media
  • Billboards, business names
  • Book titles
  • License plates
  • Road signs
  • Feathers, Coins, Stones, Flowers that repeatedly come across your path (these are signs, look for more posts on signs coming up!)
  • Cloud formations

So when you ask for a name, open your eyes and ears and expect to be surprised. The name will come to you – whether you randomly hear it a few times in one day on the TV, songs or an overheard conversation. Maybe you ask your Angel to guide your eyes, and you see a name in a book title, or a business card comes your way with a name. Maybe you will look at the car in front of you at a stoplight and see a bumper sticker or license plate with the name. Maybe it will come to you in a dream. Maybe a song will get stuck in your head that has a name in it. Chances are the name will appear to you more than once  - likely it will be 3 times in a short period of a day or so. Or it could be one time in a very unusual way (think a blimp flying over your house, or a name shouted from the rooftops!).

Ok, so you get a name. How do you know this is the one they intend? Maybe you got it wrong – maybe you misinterpreted. (You didn’t misinterpret it-trust yourself!) But if you want confirmation all you have to do is ask for it. Say to your Angel “Ok, I got the name Bruce. Can you please give me some confirmation that this is the name you mean? Then open your awareness and wait.

Pay attention to what comes across your path – pay attention to what you see and hear.  Keep in mind as well that most often Angels like to pick names that will be easy for us to use. This means they probably will not choose ornate or very unusual names. Don’t be surprised if your Angel’s name is Julie or David and not something like Oronilia.

Here’s how I first connected with my Guardian Angel:

I began by asking my Angel to step close to me as I was falling asleep. I told it I wanted to have a long and loving relationship with it and could it please come close to me so I would recognize it’s vibration. Sure enough, I could sense a soft, subtle yet warm and loving presence by my side. Then when I wanted a name, I stood standing in front of a large bookshelf in my house that had many book titles and author names visible on the book spines. I calmed my energy and asked my Angel to please guide my eyes to their name. I just relaxed and didn’t try to “do” anything, just look. The first name I saw was David. I asked to please show this again. My eyes went to another book who’s’ author was David somebody. OK! I had a name. Unfortunately, I had kind of a bad connotation to this particular name – it reminded me of someone I knew and didn’t particularly like. So I asked for confirmation the next day, just to double check and see if this was indeed the name. The next day I was out and about and I came across the name David randomly – on a sign, in a store and on the side of a truck. OK! This was it – my angel’s name was David. AHA! I asked and I received. Funny, but it’s that simple!

This is really what you can do to discover your Angel’s name. Just ask, and they will be creative, inventive, sometimes even humorous in giving you the answer. The key is in opening your awareness and just noticing what you see around you, what you hear other people talking about, even things you see and hear on TV or in the print media. You will get an answer. Then, ask them to confirm it.

This is the foundation for how you begin opening your awareness and connection with any Spirit. The first step is in accepting that you are a Spirit too – just one who is presently residing in a physical body. Then open your awareness and start noticing. What you see, feel, hear and come across in your daily life.  Angels will find the best way to get your unique attention – they will send you their signs in the ways you are sure to notice.  And above all – TRUST yourself! What you feel is real.

Welcome to connecting with Spirit!

If are interested in finding our more abou Angels, check out Doreen Virtue http://www.angeltherapy.com.

with love,Ashley

 

 

Meditation as a doorway

When people are new to a spiritual path, one of the first recommendations you hear is "meditate". Everyone is resistant to this. What is meditation and why are we resistant to it? Why is meditation beneficial? Is it beneficial? Does everyone have to do it?

First let me say that there are no shoulds. I know amazing healers and mediums that meditate, and I know awesome one who do not. I can really only speak of my experience and how meditation opened the doorway for me. We are resistant to meditation because we are conditioned to be fully focused on our physical lives and tasks. We spend much if not most of our time doing things -working, driving, shopping, cleaning, taking care of people, watching TV, using our phones, etc. etc. The invention of the smartphone completely caters to the nonstop drive of the mind - finding anything to distract itself. Not to say work isn't done, or there aren't productive things that you do during the day, but the main point being that there is not much emphasis put on quieting the mind. We are taught to live fully in the mind-to consume as much information and fulfill every urge and desire of the mind. In our culture we do not encourage reflective time to quiet the mind and look within for more. This is what meditation is for me.

Meditation is time dedicated to opening your inner awareness; your heart, your Spirit and letting your mind sit in the back seat. It is time to train yourself to let your Spirit come forward and talk to you. It is time to discover yourself as a multi-sensory being, instead of relying and existing in only the "what you see is what you get" mentality that so often dominates every day life. Meditation is about opening the inner doorway, finding the world that lies behind your eyes. It is infinite, and you are an integral part of it all.

After my brother died, my best friend bought me a series of distance Reiki treatments to assist me in dealing with my profound and insurmountable grief. I have to admit I was skeptical. How could someone far away (her in Denver, CO and me in Philadelphia, PA) affect any kind of change whatsoever in me? But she did. As a matter of fact the immediate affects after one treatment were so deep and powerful that my perceptions about the whole spiritual healing thing were changed in one swift moment. I wanted to know more - how was it possible to feel so different so fast? What had happened and how could I keep this awesome change going? I had felt so stuck in my life and this one treatment had opened a doorway for me. I wanted to know how I could keep this going-I wanted change and I wanted to understand more.

The first thing my healer recommended to me was that I begin meditating, 2 times a day for 10-15min each time. She told me that my Higher Self, my Spirit, my soul, needed room to work in, room to begin to bring my Spirit into my conscious mind and awareness.

I found some time alone in a room where is could shut the doer and be left alone. I chose to do it late at night after I put my son in bed, after I hung out with my husband so I could feel free and easy about taking some time to myself. I didn't use any music or

candles or anything. I just closed the door, set the intention to myself to meditate, as in "OK, I am meditating now" and closed my eyes.

Instead of focusing on closing my thoughts out, I focused on opening my awareness to the energy I was sensing around me. I could feel a light, high presence with me; I could feel waves of energy around me. It was all kind of mixing together, but I could feel there was more than just me there. I could sense there were other energies there, giving me energy, trying to connect with me by letting me know they were there.  What did I do? Was I scared? No, I was not. One of the first things I felt when becoming aware if Spirit was the gentle, loving energy of these beings. One of the primary barriers in connecting with any Spirit is fear, but once you realize that 99% of the time the Spirit that is around you is completely loving, high and from the Divine Light, the more you can relax and trust you are safe and protected, because you are. But you can learn to protect yourself in meditation and any time at all.  Look for upcoming posts on psychic protection. Also, check out this awesome resource here)

My first connections in Spirit were angels then came power animals, archangels, deceased loved ones and spirit guides. I began to see past lives. I have seen the Other Side and how our deceased loved ones continue to live on. I have seen temples and the Akashic records. All of these experiences have shown me how infinite and loving the universe is and how much spiritual support we have. Meditation was my doorway. The more I let myself enter the world that lie begin my eyes, the more I was able to release fear and doubt, connect with Spirit and let my own Spirit take the driver's seat in my life.

One of the things I recommend when meditating is to have a notebook handy to record the feelings, sensations and experiences you have in your meditations. Writing it down right after is important as often meditations and connecting with Spirit feels like a dream space-at the time it is super clear, but the memories fade fast! Writing it down will record your experiences so you can refer back and see your development, but also writing it down serves to bring into the physical world what you have experienced in the Spiritual. World. Writing it down anchors your experience and allows you to really digest it, absorb it and accept it as real, because it is.

Meditating is setting aside time to connect to your Spirit. By setting aside this time for your self, you are affirming that you trust, value and respect your self and your Spirit. This very act and intention serve to open you to the truth within and will help you attune yourself more with your own Spirit and by default, other Spirits like Guides, Angels and Loved Ones.

There is no one right way to meditate. The important thing is to set aside the time and have the intention to quiet your mind and look within. You will surprise yourself with what you find!

With love on your journey,

Ashley

Introducing Angels

As I began opening to Spirit during my meditation time, Angels were the first Spirits I felt a strong connection to. I had always heard about guardian angels, and once I began actively meditating and opening to Spirit, I felt connecting with my guardian angel was the logical place to start. After all, I read that guardian angels are assigned to you for life and are with you all the time, through every situation and event! Even if you are just sitting around reading, cooking or watching Netflix, they are there.

We are all capable of connecting with our Angels.

In readings, very often a client’s Angels will come through clear and brightly, acting as the first line of connection with the Divine, with all kinds of specific guidance and information for my client. Angels are such an ingrained part of our culture, they have been depicted in art since before the Renaissance and they are mentioned in the bible more than 300 times. They are the only celestial being that all three of the major religions accept. This is because Angles are intimately involved with us. They are assigned to us by God. They are present and oversee our individual evolution, and they oversee the evolution of the human race. There is a hierarchy to the Angelic Realm, and the study of Angles is so involved there is actually a formal name for it, Angelology. But we don’t need to go into all of that here. What we can focus on is how this is meaningful to YOU and your personal Spirituality.

I often suggest connecting with Angels as one of the first steps in connecting with any Spirit, as Angels are high, loving and with us all the time. Their vibration is like a higher pitch on a tuning fork – it connects to you right in your heart and lifts you like a beautiful piece of music does. Angels hover close by, ready and eager to connect with you. Chances are you have already had instances where you connected with your Angel, but just didn’t realize it. Have you ever felt a warm, comforting presence near you just as you were falling asleep, or right as you are awakening? Have you ever had a near miss- an accident that could have turned out much worse, but you were in fact spared? Do you find yourself drawn to Angels – seeing them in clouds, coming across them in movies, on TV or in books repeatedly? These are all signs from your Angels – showing you they are near and ready to connect with you.

Angels are great to work with as you open to Spirit as they gently introduce the world of Spirit to you – not only do you feel their high clear vibration which helps you to later identify other types of Spirits likes Guides and Loved Ones, but because of the hierarchy of Angels, and the sheer numbers of them you can ask for specific Angels to help guide you in your opening. You can even request protection Angels who will protect your energy and physical body.

Start paying attention to the times and places you feel you may be sense, feel , hear or even see your Angel. Here’s a hint: When you think you might be – you are!

with love,

Ashley

Dance and mediumship: What's the connection?

I believe in the power of self-transformation. My experience with self-transformation began when I was 12 when I saw the movie Flashdance. At the time, my family was being ripped apart by a contentions and acrimonious divorce including a child custody suit that had me and my brother in and out of court appointed therapists offices and meetings with the attorney for children going through family court.

In the midst of all of this turmoil, I saw Flashdance. If you have never seen the movie (WHAT?? You’ve never seen Flashdance? Shame on you!) it’s about a woman who works as a welder by day and pursues her dream of being a dancer at night. In her dance routines and performances, this woman let her true self come out – she lets her dancing express who she really is. I felt the power of this. I too wanted to express my inner self – there was more inside of me that just had to come out.   I saw this dancer working hard to achieve her dreams and creating dances that were honest expressions of her inner strength and desires. I begged for the Flashdance soundtrack, which I received for my 12th birthday. I began making up dances in my living room, performing them for my brother and my mom. I finally persuaded my mom to give me dance lessons at a local studio and I began my journey as a dancer.

In the space of the dance studio I could go within; every dance exercise was an opportunity to align myself with the higher vision I had of myself as a professional modern dancer with a clear, articulate and musical body that had the capability to show my deepest feelings and dreams. I did everything I could to become this vision I held.  I took classes, I choreographed my own dances, and I saved my allowance and bought clothes that I thought made me look like a dancer like leg warmers and off the shoulder sweatshirts. I auditioned for and was accepted by the highly regarded professional training program at the School of Cleveland Ballet. Since my mom was now working full time to support my brother and I, there was no one to drive me to the classes held afterschool in downtown Cleveland. But, I figured out how to take the city bus, transferring at the bus hub downtown and driving through the city’s downtown to arrive at the school in time for my afternoon and evening classes.

My work ethic and ability got me into a summer college dance program at the age of 14 where I was the youngest student, taking classes and learning from visiting guest choreographers from New York City, and performing alongside adult college students. During my senior year in high school I auditioned for NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, one of the top three ranked professional training programs in the country and I was accepted. On scholarship.

I went on to perform for 15 years as a professional modern dancer in New York City working with different companies, rehearsing and performing nationally and internationally.

My journey as a dancer is a continually unfolding one. It is centered on holding a higher vision of myself, and having the faith and dedication to become that vision. Dance gives me an opportunity to reach beyond what I think and know I can do into the realm of possibility and transcendence. It is my link with the true power within and to the Divine light we all hold inside. People connect to dance because it is an expression of what we all hold inside and know about ourselves: it is also the unique and singular expression of who we are, in this time, in this moment.

As the late, great founder of modern dance Martha Graham said:

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” 

 

My work as a dancer and as a medium are expressions of that truth.

The effort to continually improve myself means finding new territory within to explore – the work is never done and it truly is the journey that is the joy. Working hard as a dancer means tuning into your body everyday, finding new ore efficient ways to perform the same basic movements; focusing not just on the mechanics but also on the musicality and self expression in every exercise and piece of choreography. The most fulfilling thing about all the hard work is continually fine tuning my technique and opening to new possibilities within myself.

This is the same in my work with Spirit.

As a medium, my work ethic translates into me working to provide as much evidence as possible about who in Spirit we are connecting to. It translates into me reaching above and beyond the first presentations given by Spirit to find greater meaning, closer connection and a deeper level of contact and communication. I strive to not only connect you with those in Spirit, but to delve deeper to discover the reasons why this specific person, guide or angel has chosen to connect with you and what they can illuminate about your past, present and future choices in life. Spirit does not make the effort to appear without good reason and intention and I work to give Spirit as many avenues as possible to get their message across.

My dedication, purpose and faith in the possibility of transcendence are at the core of what defines me as a medium. Not only do I know from experience the incredible accomplishments and transformation that hard work coupled with inspiration brings, I also know what it is to not just be satisfied with what talent naturally gives but to reach deeper to find what lies beneath talent and gift to the truth of the Spirit within.

As a medium, I work as a conduit between my clients in the physical world and Spirit to bring through messages of empowerment, transformation and guidance for how my clients can be true to themselves – to help them explore their lessons, to find their transformations, to guide them into the highest expressions of themselves that they can reach in this lifetime.

Let’s work together to connect to your Divine light within. Let’s connect to your unique team of spiritual supporters consisting of Guides, Angels and deceased Loved Ones to uncover and release your potential, your true path and purpose for this life.

 

Love,

 

Ashley