Beware These 2 Sources of Inner Guidance
Ch 4 in Listening for Guidance: A Little Known but Life-Changing Spiritual Practice
The whole point of Listening for Guidance is to get help with the decisions of life. But life’s decisions can be both big and small. For purposes of deciding whether to take action on any one piece of guidance we receive, the size of the decision is a critical factor.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are Amazon affiliate links. This means that at no additional cost to you, I will receive a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Thanks for helping me keep my writing free for all readers!
Here’s an example. In Living the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron relates that she frequently asks Guidance, What shall I write about? For a relatively small, lower-impact question like this, the choice to follow guidance is easy and doesn’t engender an agonizing crisis of faith.
But other times, for the bigger questions, we naturally want to feel more certain of the source of advice before following it. For example, you might seek guidance on a question like this: Should I accept this job offer, even if it requires me to live away from my family for an extended time? You aren’t going to leave your family on the basis of advice from just anyone, are you?
The fact is, when we begin listening for guidance, there are five potential sources of inner guidance we might be hearing from. Only three are benevolent. Be on the lookout for the other two; they can get you into trouble. Fortunately, there are ways to tell the difference.
The Five Sources of Inner Guidance
When I look at documented experiences of Listening for Guidance (aka Two-Way Prayer aka Writing Down Your Soul aka Letters from Love), I can identify five sources of inner guidance practitioners have reported.
Higher Power: God / Christ / Allah / Spirit / Source / The One / The Universe / Love
Other benevolent beings: angels / ancestors / departed friends / spirits
Our deepest inner voice: intuition / inner knowing / inner wisdom / the voice within / The Authentic Self
Our self-serving internal chatter: The Ego/ Internal Family Systems parts
Non-benevolent beings: satan / demons
When I talk about Listening for Guidance, I’m talking about connecting with one of the first three sources. We may, in fact, choose to address our initial question to a specific source.
For example, when I started this practice in 1990, I always addressed my letters to “Father” (i.e., God). In recent years, I have changed this to “Lord” (but it’s still God). So I’m always speaking to my Higher Power. This is what Mark and Patti Virkler teach as well. But not everyone takes this approach.
Elizabeth Gilbert, in her Substack, shares about writing to Love. Julia Cameron writes about seeking guidance from departed friends, anonymous spirits, and, when she is “bold enough,” to God/Higher Power. Janet Conner describes the practice as “a conversation between you and your soul… your beloved divine voice.”
Regardless of which of those sources you perceive your guidance to come from, anything in those first three categories can guide you forward to a positive future and help activate your creativity.
Does the Source Really Matter?
You, dear reader, might reasonably ask, How can I tell which of those sources is where my messages are coming from? A common point of view is that it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s one of the first three.
Here’s how Two-Way Prayer proponent Father Bill W. answers this question in the handout How to Practice Two-Way Prayer:
Sometimes people ask me, “How do you know it’s really God’s Voice you’re hearing? How do you know it’s not just you?” My answer is I really don’t know – and in the end, it really doesn’t matter. If it’s me, it’s the best part of me I’ve ever found, and it’s the part I need to start listening to more and more. It’s the small, still Voice that quiets the raucous “ego voices” of guilt and shame, anger and fear, addiction and self-destruction. Those are voices I’ve known and listened to all of my life.
At 20 years sober, it was time for a major change to my program and not just a little tweaking around its edges. What I discovered through Two-Way Prayer was yet another Promise of the [AA] Big Book coming true: “When we draw near to Him, He discloses Himself to us!”
As I have explored this question for myself (and asked God about it), I have been led to a similar conclusion. My answer differs in one small but important respect. If you’re only receiving messages for yourself, it doesn’t matter if your source is #1, #2, or #3. But as soon as you start hearing messages for other people, they had better come from your Higher Power.
It’s kind of like the old telephone game we played as kids. The more hands a message goes through, the less accurate it becomes. Angels and spirits are messengers. And I wouldn’t want to deliver a personal message I had heard from another messenger. I would only want to deliver a message I had heard directly from the Source. Doesn’t that make sense?
Four Categories of Message Content
Back to my earlier question: How can we tell which of those sources we’re hearing from?
Most importantly, how can we tell if it’s just our Ego, or even worse, as Mark and Patti Virkler teach, a satanic source? And if it is one of the latter, how should we respond?
In many cases, the source will reveal itself to you, but not always. In the absence of other information, the primary clue to a message’s source is in the message itself.
Message Type #1. If you hear a spontaneous negative, dismissive, critical, overbearing, or judgmental message, stop immediately. If the voice is telling you to do something illegal or immoral, stop immediately. Your divine communication has been hijacked by Source Category #4 or #5. That’s not the voice we’re listening for.
Message Type #2: If the messages you hear are spontaneous, affirming, loving, encouraging, wise, healing, clarifying, non-judgmental, and/or non-demanding, you're good to go. You’ve connected to Source Category #1, #2, or #3.
Those are the two obvious message types. The next two are a little less obvious.
Message Type #3: If a message sounds like it's coming from a fortune teller, beware. This may be your Ego intercepting communications, seeking to relay the message it thinks you want to hear. And what Ego thinks you want to hear may or may not be the truth.
Reliable messages (Type #2) sound like advice, not fortune telling. They give you options to consider. Such messages leave intact your agency, your free will, your decision-making power.
Why worry about it? You might be asking. Well, here’s the danger.
Fortune-telling messages can rob you of your agency as you sub-consciously (or consciously) adjust your decision making to be aligned with the outcome you expect. (Think about how you might respond if your inner voice said, Your partner will break up with you soon.)
So you can see how this type of message gets tricky when you’re trying to determine if it’s God-given prophecy, or mere fortune telling. More on that in a minute.
Message Type #4: If a message advises you to undertake a task you just aren't 100% sure about, once again, beware. (E.g., You hear a call to leave your partner and children to become a missionary.)
Here’s my recommendation. Before accepting the validity of either a Type #3 or Type #4 message, you need to seek confirmation.
So what is that? What’s confirmation?
Four Ways to Confirm a Message
Confirmation (aka validation), in general, is finding another source (preferably outside of your own brain) that confirms the truthfulness of a message.
Here are the four main sources of confirmation.
Confirmation Source #1. Check the message against your internal moral compass. Even better, if you respect a religious tradition, look to your sacred writings. (E.g., Christians will want to look to the Bible.) If the message contradicts your closely held values, ignore it.
Confirmation Source #2. Check with a trusted advisor. Or two. This might be a family member, close friend, mentor, or spiritual advisor (e.g., a minister or rabbi). Ask them to pray or meditate about the truthfulness of the message and report back to you.
Confirmation Source #3. Watch for synchronicity. I.e., are doors opening to assist you in following the guidance? This isn't as reliable as checking with advisors, however. Sometimes you see what you want to see, synchronicity-wise.
Confirmation Source #4. Sometimes the only way to gauge the validity of a message is just to wait and see what happens.
What good is waiting? you might ask.
Well, when you're just beginning to listen for guidance, waiting to see what happens will help you learn the difference between valid and invalid messages. It will help the guidance-receiving part of your brain learn to filter out interference.
Early on in my experiences with guidance, I had a major issue with a fortune-telling-type message. I had to wait and see. I learned. You’ll get to read all about it when I begin serializing my first memoir here on Substack in a few weeks.
Wait… Isn’t This Risky and Dangerous?
This need to get confirmation for messages is one reason why some Christians, especially, would prefer to avoid the practice of Listening for Guidance entirely. They’re worried about opening themselves up to false prophets, which is specifically warned against in the Bible. But that's throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Receiving positive, helpful messages of love and support from benevolent sources of inner guidance is truly one of the best gifts you can ever receive. I can’t imagine where I’d be without all the guidance I’ve received and taken in my life. (Once again, memoir coming soon!) I wouldn’t want anyone to give that up just because they’re worried about cracking the door for negative influences to sneak in.
Knowledge is power. Now you know the risks. Just be careful.
What If You Aren’t Buying Any of This?
If this all sounds like a bunch of woo-woo nonsense to you, let me tell you what those in the Oxford Group told skeptics back in the 1930s:
Run the experiment.
That’s it. Just try it. What have you got to lose? You don’t even need to tell anybody you tried it.
On the other hand, maybe you want to wait to read the next chapter before you try to hear something. I’ll be tackling the question of what to do if you don’t hear anything.
Note: This post was updated on June 13, 2024, with a new introduction and a few minor tweaks.