I’m a single parent, so I’m very forthright about discussing certain things with my daughter. We recently talked about death and moving on, which she hated.

But it’s a reality… we all have to face death eventually. I wouldn’t want to get hit by a Mack truck tomorrow, having never explained to her that there’s something good to this whole death process. I needed her to at least understand my personal philosophy.

So to make her feel a little better, we made a pact. We decided that if I died early in life, I would come back and tickle the tip of her nose so that she knows I’m okay. We agreed that nose tickling would be less scary than let’s say, seeing me hovering over her bed.

And it occurred to me… nose tickling is actually a metaphor for the way our spirit guides communicate with us.

Though they may not feel it, guides do understand human fear. They know that dropping a book out of the bookshelf would probably scare the shit out of us. I mean I don’t know about you, but even if the book landed on the exact page for something that I needed to see at that exact moment, I’d be uber paranoid and ready to pull out the holy water! Most of us need more subtle signs – myself included.

The guides don’t want us to be all weirded out. Nor do they want to interfere with our free will. So they reserve the big neon signs for major emergencies – like if your toddler is about to jump in the backyard pool.

Otherwise they gently tickle our noses – meaning they softly pop a thought into our minds. Nose tickling is far less intimidating, but it’s also quite easy to ignore.

So what should you look for? Here are three nose ticklers my spirit guides do:

Give me a seemingly random thought while I’m talking to someone about an important matter.

When I first started giving readings I’d start thinking about old conversations I’d had with other people.

Each time during those sessions my client would end up telling me something important that pertained to the topic of my old conversation. The conversations are my nose ticklers. I realize now that if a conversation passes through my mind, it has a message for my client.

Keep showing you the same random word for days or weeks.

I recently went through what I call the temperance phase. In tarot, temperance is the 12^th card in the major arcana. It’s not like a good, good or a bad, bad card. It has an almost esoteric feeling that can be hard to decipher if you’re looking for a cut and dry, “what-should-I-do-now” type of message. And it’s not a word that I would normally use – even on my superfluous vocabulary days.

For a while temperance suddenly started popping up all over the place. I pulled my tarot cards for the day, and there it was dead center… temperance. (Nose tickler.) Not just once or twice, but maybe four times this happened.

“Ummmm spirit guides,” I said, “I know you all want me to see this. But I don’t quite understand the meaning I’m supposed to gain.” Two days later I’m reading a book, and it gives the meaning of temperance – in a way that I could fully understand, nonetheless.

The spirit guides want you to know that you can ask for clarification on a nose tickler. I absolutely do it all the time.

Make you stumble into a conversation that totally applies to you.

I’m not usually an ear hustler (aka eavesdropper). But sometimes my spirit guides lead me into a conversation that I’m supposed to hear. How do I know it’s a nose tickler?

Well it’s usually when I don’t want to hear anyone else’s conversation. Let’s say I’m at a café working on my laptop. I’m in the flow of an article, when a couple sits down next to me and starts chatting. Loudly. Uuuuugh!

In my mind I’m thinking, “Shut up!” I want to move. I want some $300 noise cancelling headphones. Then they’ll start talking about something that has direct meaning to my life. I mean like a dead on center. And the advice given during that conversation is clearly meant for me. Clearly, clearly, clearly!

I find that the conversation nose tickler comes up when I’ve chosen to ignore other nose ticklers. For example, I may have gotten other signs before and fluffed them off. The conversation is like confirmation without asking for it.

Your mileage may vary.

This is just a representative of how my spirit guides talk to me.

Your results may be completely different, and that’s okay. What I want you to do this week is pay attention to everything you believe are signs from spirit guides. If you think to yourself, “Mmmmm, I wonder if that’s a sign…” it usually is.

I know I have several spirit guides, but there’s one in particular who I’ve grown especially fond of over the years. I don’t see him as a person, and I haven’t given him a name. In my minds eyes I perceive him as a point of light, and he’s with me a good part of my work day, when I’m writing.

You see whenever I get stuck, he helps me along. He gives me words and phrases and even entire ideas. He leads me to books I need to read. He introduces me to magazines that seem to have the right article with the perfect advice for whatever I’m working on.

If you were a fly on my wall, you’d hear me periodically saying “thank you” throughout the day. You might even see me jumping up and down on occasion. That’s me talking to my writing spirit guide.

Funny thing is, I never formally contacted him, or even went looking for such a relationship. Over the years I just came to realize that somebody else was indeed working with me. He comes when I need him, he leaves when I don’t.

But this isn’t unusual. I was once speaking to another writer who (without knowing my mystical affinity)confessed that she thought she was being led while she wrote. You can’t imagine the big grin that suddenly stretched across my face. I was so relieved to hear that someone else felt it too.

And that’s the “Aha” about contacting your spirit guides. You don’t necessarily have to go seeking them out in order to feel them working in your life.

Spirit guides are here to help you. They already made a bunch of happy-go-lucky plans with you before you came into your gorgeous body. Having spirit guides silently assist you is no more shocking or out of place than having the steady presence of your guardian angels.

The benefit of knowing that you have these spirit guides is that you move a lot faster through your difficulties. When I know I’m getting help from my writing guide, I zip right through my work. I don’t even have to question whether it’s right or wrong because I know I’m getting divine assistance.

Contacting your spirit guides is easy!

There are two schools of thinking when it comes to spirit guide contact.

School #1 says you’ve got to close your eyes and meditate to increase your energy vibration.It’s been said that spirit guide energy is much finer than our dense human field. So by raising your energy, you’re better able to enter their world.

School #2 says that if you want to contact your spirit guide, all you gotta do is just talk to them. I’m the principal of School #2, and I’m telling you that spirit guides don’t need pomp and circumstance for us to have a regular conversation with them.

If you want to meditate, then by all means meditate.

Otherwise they perfectly understand when you need assistance, even without the meditation and the quieting of the mind formalities. My writing helper is a perfect example. I don’t meditate before I write or even during the writing process. Even if I get writers block I get up and walk around my house. And yet he knows exactly what I need and I know when he’s talking to me.

But that’s just me and my writing guide. When I need help on other issues, I like to initiate contact with the appropriate guide.

Here’s the exercise I use:

1) Decide what you need help with. It can be relationship issues, career problems, whatever. If your kid is driving you crazy, that’s a need. If your dinner recipe is looking more like mush than ‘mmmm, mmmm good’, that’s a problem worthy of help too.

2) Explain your problem. Just say what I need out loud. Like, “I don’t know why Max isn’t listening to me and it’s driving me crazy. Can you help me better understand how to bridge our communication gap?”

If it’s a little deeper, you may want to pull out your journal and write your problem down. No need to be shy or reserved, just state the problem as best you can.

3) Ask, “Who will help me?” Spirit guides come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and energy frequencies. The spirit guide who helps me when I’m writing isn’t the same one who assists me in the romance department. I have at least four different guides (that I know of) who help me with spiritual issues, depending on the nature of the problem. And that’s just the beginning of my spirit guide team.

It’s not unusual to have multiple spirit helpers. But I find that I can solve the problem a lot faster by knowing who I’m working with.

So once I know the problem I need help with, I’ll ask, “Who will help me?” Sometimes one guide will appear. Sometimes it’s more than one. And by ‘appear’ I mean I might feel an energy, or I’ll see an image in my mind’s eye. You may feel heat or vibrations. There might be movie-like pictures playing out in your mind. A name or a flower or a bird might pop into your mind. These all comprise a spirit guides appearance.

4) Observe what happens and remember their appearance. As you experience your spirit guides appearance, be it energetic or otherwise, I want you to remember what it feels like. Is it a tickling in your belly? A bright star? A low hum?

5) Ask that they lead you to a solution. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million times over… the Universe is ALWAYS communicating with us. If you ask for a conversation with your spirit guide, you’re going to get a conversation with your spirit guide.

The problem is that we don’t pay attention when the guides are talking because their language is often so subtle that’s it’s easy to miss or dismiss.

So I ask my spirit guides to make their appearance known when I’m being shown a specific direction.

For example, when I’m writing, I can tell when my guide is helping me because the words appear in my mind a certain way. They’ve got a springy, loving type energy. And it comes through quickly, like a pop. My own thoughts are very different. My own thoughts feel, well, normal.

Now keep in mind, this exercise might take some getting used to. You may have to work at feeling or understanding the difference between your own energy and a spirit guides energy. But once you catch the subtleties, you’ll know when you’re being guided and by whom. And you’ll find yourself working through even the most stressful situations with a comfortable ease.

As with anything else, practice makes perfect.