Spirit guides are one of the most talked-about—and most misunderstood—aspects of spiritual development. In this episode of Spirit Sherpa, Kelle Sparta and Joey C explore what spirit guides actually are, how they communicate, and how to begin building a conscious relationship with them.

Kelle shares personal stories from her own spiritual journey, including how guides helped shape major life decisions, why guidance doesn't always make sense in the moment, and how intuition and spirit communication work together. She also explains the different types of guides you may encounter, the role of spirit families, and practical exercises you can use to start recognizing guidance in your everyday life.

Whether you're new to spirituality or looking to deepen your connection with your guides, this episode offers a grounded, practical framework for understanding spiritual guidance without fear, dependency, or superstition.

What You'll Learn

• What spirit guides are and how they support your spiritual journey
• The difference between intuition and direct guidance
• How spirit guides communicate through thoughts, feelings, and experiences
• Why guidance sometimes appears as delays, detours, or unexpected changes
• The different types of spirit guides and spirit family connections
• How to begin communicating with your guides
• The role of discernment in receiving spiritual information
• Why self-care is essential during periods of rapid spiritual growth

References Mentioned

• The Titanic examples used to illustrate spiritual guidance
• The Twin Towers / 9-11 examples used to illustrate divine timing
• Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) analogy for spirit families and reincarnation
• Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty as an example of transformational opposition
• Renaissance Faire community and Grail Ritual story
• The concept of the "Express Train" spiritual path
• Grounding vs. Centering practices

Resources Mentioned

• Kelle Sparta Discovery Session
• Kelle Sparta website: https://kellesparta.com

 Hey now, all. I'm Joey C. Welcome back to another episode of Spirit Sherpa. This is the show that helps and encourages you on your journey to unlock your magic mojo. With me, as always, is the spirit doctor, Kelle Sparta. Hey, Kelle. Hey, Joey. How's it going?

It's going good. We're gonna talk about something that I'm actually really excited about, and that's guides. Hmm. With the name of the show being Spirit Sherpa, we talk a lot about guides and helping people through journeys of difficult-to-reach places. But in the spiritual sense, when we talk about guides, we're talking about something a little different there, right?

Yeah. What are guides? Guides are entities that are on the other side of the veil. Think of them as your spirit sherpa- ... from the other side, you know? Okay. I mean, I'm the one who's here talking to you and giving you some advice on stuff around magic, but they're the people who are on the other side. So, you know, like your guardian angel.

Okay. Your guardian angel is sort of a guide, right? Mm-hmm. So they'll make sure that you don't go in places that are gonna be dangerous to you. Uh, but your spirit guides are actually your interface with the spirit world. And so when you learn how to talk to them, when you learn how to connect in with them, and you learn how to communicate with them, then they can be incredibly useful.

I actually have an open channel to my guides at all times at this point. I haven't always, but, you know, after 20 years of practice, they talk to me, I talk to them, and it's all good. But what you have to keep in mind about guides is that they are on the other side of the veil, and so, you know, as we talked about before, they have a broader perspective.

They see the future, they see the past, they see the interconnectedness of things, and they understand how things work. So they may tell you to do something that seems like this might not be the best choice. Yeah. You know, it's like, "Why would I not go to this meeting?" or, "Why would I not do this thing?" But then later you discover that it was a very good choice.

I mean, if you, if you look into the history books, there are a ton of people who had tickets for the Titanic who never got on the boat. There were a ton of people who were meant to be in the Twin Towers that morning and didn't go- Mm ... or were running late, so that they didn't make it. Those are people who were being guided.

And then there's a certain percentage of people who are just not gonna make it in any given case, but the percentage of people who didn't make it in those situations is much higher. Right. And, and that's the reason. How do people know that they're being guided? You mentioned that you have an open channel.

You, you recognize when you're receiving a message from your guide. How can people sort of tell that difference? So sometimes it's, it's something as simple as you're being delayed, right? Okay. If you're trying to get somewhere and there are people cutting you off and slowing you down and stepping out in front of you in traffic and whatever, there's probably a good chance that you're supposed to be late, and you'll show up exactly on- time the other person is running late and they're hoping that you're gonna be late too, and they're manifesting that and slowing you down or something like that.

The moment of confusion, the stepping onto the train in the wrong direction, having the moment of just this clarity of I really don't wanna go. So here's an example, and e- even now sometimes they'll do this to me. Wednesday this past week, I was supposed to be at an all-day event that I really didn't wanna go to.

And normally, if I really didn't wanna go to something, I would just take it off my calendar. But I was like, "No, I don't wanna take that off my calendar. I don't know why, I just don't wanna take it off my calendar." So I had the whole calendar day blocked out, um, because I was supposed to be going to this thing.

And I really didn't wanna go. And even up until the day before, I was like, "Ugh, okay, I've got this thing tomorrow. I'm gonna go. It's in my calendar. I, I'm not supposed to take it out. I don't know why." Morning comes and I had decided the night before that because of traffic I was gonna go, go a little late because I didn't really wanna be there anyway, right?

Right. So I'm like, "Eh, I'll be there a little late. It'll be fine." Turns out a friend of mine was, uh, ended up having a major meltdown that day. Mm-hmm. Just, just completely on the floor in a puddle. And I spent six hours on the phone with him that day. Mm-hmm. Off and on throughout the course of the day. I would not have had that time if I had not left that on my calendar.

Yep. I would have had other things booked in. Sometimes it's just that that shows up. It's just this, this feeling of, "No, I don't wanna do that. I don't know why, but I just don't wanna do that." That's an interesting thing because it, it then leads me to believe that one of the important pieces of connecting with your guides is not only sort of acknowledging that the messages are coming through, but also recognizing that those things that would be frustrating elements of your day might be intentional and purposeful.

And it sort of changes your perspective. Don't get frustrated about it. Look at what the potential cause is of this or the reason behind this is, and it may be for your benefit. You know, take an example of let's say you were doing that interview, and it wasn't the Twin Towers. Yeah. It was somewhere else, but you got on the train going in the wrong direction.

You're late for the interview, and therefore you don't get the job. And you're thinking, "Oh my God, this is horrible." Well, what you don't know is that if you had gotten the job, you would've been miserable. Right. Or you would've missed the opportunity to get this other job that made you meet the love of your life.

Yeah. So sometimes we think that our guides did us wrong because we haven't seen down the path yet. Mm-hmm. Right? And it's like, "But you ... Oh, I really needed that job." Right? It's our guide saying you'll understand in time. Right. Yeah. I tell people, I'm like, "The first five years I started really talking to my guides, I spent a lot of that time cussing them out."

Yeah. Telling them, "Fuck off. I'm not doing it. No, I'm not going there. You know, I'm mad at you," whatever. Right. And, and after five years I was like, "You know, I always end up doing what they want, so there's no point in telling them to fuck off." And eventually it all makes sense, so there's no point in yelling at them.

Right. Just, you know, be with what is. Yeah. But I spent five years just going, "Ah," all the time. Yeah. But I was, I was really angry too. It's, it- So it didn't take much to piss me off at the time. I hadn't, hadn't really worked on my anger yet. Well, and that's- So ... and that's a part of it, right? That's part of- Right

that personal journey is, is- Exactly ... you know, draining the well of rage. Exactly. Yeah, because then we start to see things differently. Yeah. Are there different types of guides that are out there? There are. You know, there are guides that are with you for a specific purpose, and then there are guides that are with you for your whole life.

Mm-hmm. There are spirit family guides, people that you, you travel into different lifetimes with, who decided ... You know, somebody decides to stay back and, you know, hold the, hold down the fort on the other side while everybody else goes and plays in the pool, and, and they're serving as sort of the lifeguard.

Yeah. So sometimes there's that. You have to keep in mind, though, that your guides, some of them have never been incarnated. So when you have guides that have never been incarnated, you have to be very clear with them, and you have to be conscious. Because what happens is that you end up in a situation where they don't realize that you have to do things like sleep- Hmm

eat, pay your bills, you know, things like that. Yeah. And so one of the things that happens as we go through this process, especially if we're on the express train, if ... I, I haven't told the story yet about the express, express train, have I? I don't think so. Okay. I'll, I'll tell that in a minute. But especially if you're onto the express train, you really have to pay attention to how much they're downloading at once, because they will actually teach you things in your sleep.

Mm-hmm. And then you end up getting exhausted because you're actually working in your sleep. People don't realize that they can just ask for a night off or a week off or a month off from the education. Right. And that they should, in fact. The- they're like, you know, I see this a lot with beginners, it gets all stuck in the, "Well, I'm behind, and I'm supposed to be, and da, da, da."

It's like, you know what? If you're gonna blow up, you're gonna lose a lot of time. Right. You're better off to take a couple days off- ... or a week off and get a full night's sleep and come back to it fresh and, and be ready to go, than to allow yourself to get to the point where you hit a complete meltdown, and you're a puddle on the floor, and you don't have any way to pick yourself up, and you're g- you lose a month- Right

because you're toast, right? And that's similar to the, what you talked to us about when you were telling us about growing your channel to receive energy. You gotta do it in the right, the right timing. Yeah. You can't do everything at once. Yeah. There's, there's ... Good self-care is super important. And unfortunately, the people with the deepest containers often have crappy self-care.

So, uh, you know, that's, that's part of the process too. So okay, I promised I'd tell you the story- About the express train ... about the express train. Back when I first moved into the magical house- Act- no, actually that's not true. I wasn't even in the magical house yet. It was before I moved in I was still living in Connecticut, and I was commuting an hour and 15 minutes up to spend time with my friends in the, in the magical house.

So the magical house al- was also the Renaissance Fair house, the Renny worker house. Right. And so the Renaissance Fair workers would come home and stay in this house in between the days of the Ren Fair. One night we slept 30 people in the house. Wow. Yeah. It was a six bedroom, four bath, three story Victorian, so we had people everywhere, don't get me wrong.

Yeah, I was just gonna say that's still pretty cozy. But it was v- we had m- people everywhere. But it was th- you know, 3:00 in the morning, and we were doing a grail ritual, which is where you have a big chalice with something to drink in it, which is often wine, and you have somebody who's facilitating, and you have this circle of people who are all putting energy into something that you're looking to create.

And so we had 30 people in the circle, 3:00 in the morning, which is the witching hour. It's the time when the veil is thinnest between the worlds. And we are all putting ... We're all magical people all putting our intent into this, this chalice, so a big, big working. That's a lot of energy coming through.

It's a lot of energy. And my shaman and I were the first two people to drink out of that chalice. And- Chasers ... so you make a wish and you drink. And so ... Or set an intention and drink. And so he and I both set the intention for the exact same thing without telling each other. We were doing our, our wishes silently, right?

And we both wished to be on our spiritual path. And our lives just went boom. Because be careful what you wish for, for you will surely get it, right? And, and, uh, i- he was in the final semester of his engineering degree, and he was halfway through the semester and lost his funding. Oh, so he was pushed into his spiritual path- So he was-

hardcore ... kicked out of school, right? 'Cause he had no funding. Now, y- who, who hears about losing financial aid halfway through the semester? Right. Doesn't happen. That never happens. Doesn't happen. Right? Never happens, but it happened to him. And I, I don't even remember all the things that happened to me, but, but it, it was so significant that we actually, uh, we had this thing that, you know, it, it

When you're on the express train, it's kind of like being on a rollercoaster. It's supposed to be fun, right? Whee. Yeah. Right? Whee. And so we, we got to the point where we would call each other up when something happened, and there would be this weak little, "Whee." You'd answer the phone, and you'd hear, "Whee."

It's like, "Oh, God, what happened now?" Yeah. And it was just this thing we did for several months after this happened as, as our lives just blew up one thing after another because it's always- always break down before breakthrough, right? Yeah. And so yeah, that was a big time express train moment. And, uh, when you're on the express train, by the way, you can't ground Or you shouldn't.

Mm-hmm. Because you're, it's as though you're on a train going 90 miles an hour and you're trying to stick a- Try to stake in the ground, yeah ... rebar through the ground, you know? And you're just gonna get ... As it, as it throws you through the train and, and eventually stops you. Yeah. So you, you can't ground when you're on the express train.

You have to center instead. Center is finding the, the grounding point within. Okay. It's, it's, it's in the literal center of your being, and it's the connection point between you and the universe, and everybody who exists, right? So when you're ... If you, if you do what we did and, and, you know, blow your life up, uh, center, don't ground.

That's an interesting, uh, difference there. I think ... I don't think everyone appreciates that who's doing this, 'cause you often hear people say, "Well, you gotta ground. You gotta ground. You gotta ground." But sometimes centering is better. Well, sometimes centering's the only option. Right. I mean, I'm moving right now.

I can't ground. Yeah. I got, I got nothing to ground into. I'm moving. Yeah. When you're moving, you're, you pull your roots up. You have to. Right. How do you move if you don't? Yeah. And, and when you say moving, you mean literally moving. Literally my- You're changing homes. I'm, I'm moving my home from Boston to Virginia.

Right. So to Richmond. Yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm physically moving my, my house. Right. And so, you know, when that happens, you pull up your roots. Right. You can't build roots in a place that you, you are re- moving from. Correct. Yeah. Oh, interesting. You mentioned a little while ago, um, something that, that is interesting to me, and I think it would help the listeners if we talked about that for a minute, and that's spirit family.

Um, you said, you know, there are people, there, there are, are souls, beings, spirits that s- that stay, some come, we ... What is a spirit family? So a spirit family is, uh, people that you reincarnate with over and over again. And so, you know, one day I'll be your mom, next day I'll be your sister, next day I'll be your lover.

Or not day, but life, right? Right. Lifetime. 'Cause that would be a weird, weird week. That would be a very weird week, yes. Next life I will be your brother or your lover or your sister or your mother or your child or your whatever. Yeah. A best friend. Yeah. You know, whatever. So we will incarnate with each other in, uh, various and sundry formats.

So it's, it's basically a m- similar ... We, we referenced D&D earlier- Right ... in the episode last time. Um, and, uh, you know, it's the same idea. You're going into a role-playing game with the same people- Right, same- ... over and over again. You're just playing different characters, right? That's very cool. So spirit family is, um, is sort of that, that collection of people.

And you, you had mentioned that sometimes ... So we incarnate with them over and over again. They're the same players. But in sometimes, um, in the D&D reference, some of them may stay back and be the- Yes ... the game master. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, some of them may play the villain. Mm-hmm. Right, because, uh, uh, part of this journey we're on in coming back and doing the work that we're doing over time is not always to, um

The, the people we meet who are our nemesi, I, I'm, I'm, I don't know if that's the, the plural, but I'm making it the plural. I believe it is, yes. Our nemesi. They're also important in the journey and the work that we're doing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, um, you know, if you watch Sherlock- Mm-hmm ... uh, you know, Moriarty defines Sherlock in a lot of ways, and that's the same concept for us.

The people that we fight against often define us more than the people who support us. In any good work of literature, your hero cannot be a hero without a villain, so we need balance in, in anything to keep our interest. Yeah. Well- I don't know if that's relevant here, but it just sort of struck me. Yeah, we are on the ultimate hero journey.

Yeah. Hero's journey here. And I mean, sometimes your spirit family is just somebody who you meet in passing who creates a pivot point, you know? Mm-hmm. You look back and you go, "This one person said this one thing to me at this one place, and I never saw them again, but it completely changed the way I saw everything in that moment."

Yeah. There was an agreement in place before you came into this life for them to be there and to say that at that time. And, you know, that moment where you have that , "Ooh," you, you meet somebody and you're like, "Ah." Yeah. Right? There's that "ooh" moment, and that's somebody you have incarnated with before. So let's transition now- Okay

into Ask Kelle. Do we have ... Have you received any questions from people, uh, about spirit guides or guides in general? Yeah, I've gotten a lot of questions about spirit guides over the years. Um, mostly how do I talk to them is really, really what it is. Exactly. You know, they're like, "I don't know when to tell, you know, how to tell if they're talking to me or whatever," right?

And the answer is that, that oftentimes your spirit guide sounds like you're talking to yourself in your head. And so, you know, test it out. See if doing what that thing says, assuming it's not violent or, you know, dangerous, uh, is a good idea, right? Mm-hmm. So, you know, test it out and see, see what happens, right?

Uh, the other thing that we can do is we can practice with our guides. So you can just sit down and invite your guides to, to communicate with you, and you can say, "Okay, get my attention physically." Mm-hmm. And then just sit and wait and see what happens. Maybe your ear itches. Mm-hmm. Maybe your nose itches.

Maybe your eye twitches. Maybe you get a shooting pain down your thigh. You know, who knows? But that's, that's how they're gonna get your attention. May- and then say, "Okay, well, get my attention, uh, through sound." And maybe you'll hear something in your head or out loud that freaks you out. But, you know I know people who hear it out loud.

Um Maybe you will ... And then say, "Okay, get my attention visually." And, you know, maybe you'll see something flit in the corner of your eye or, you know, whatever. Um, or you'll close your eyes and you'll see something and in your mind's eye sort of thing. Um, and you just go through the senses and give them an opportunity to show you how they're trying to get in touch with you.

Mm-hmm. And then just note that and get more present in your life and more conscious in your life, and then you'll start to hear them better. Yeah. You mentioned hearing it in your head. That's what some call intuition. When we talk about in- being intuitive, that isn't always coming from us. Right. And that's the differential that, that we need to make here when we're talking about guides.

Yeah. So intuition is just having a sense about things. Mm-hmm. And, you know, as I was telling the story about my friend and the day off and, or the day I was supposed to be going to the event, that was really more intuition- Mm-hmm ... than, than my guides because it was just me going, "Eh, I don't wanna do that."

Right. "I don't wanna do that. I don't know why, but I just don't wanna do that." That's intuition. Right. Right? That's you picking up. When you think of somebody you haven't talked to in ages and they call you five minutes later- Yeah ... you know, that's intuition, right? Yeah. When you, um, uh ... So I remember being in an airport, and I'd just gotten, uh, an oatmeal at Starbucks, and it came with brown sugar.

Mm-hmm. And I don't use the brown sugar. And I was like, "I should take this with me." And I was like, "Why would I take that with me? That's ridiculous." And, and I was like, "No, I should take it with me." And so I took it with me, and then I got on the plane, and there's these people from Brazil on the plane asking for brown sugar for their coffee, which of course nobody had on the plane.

Mm-hmm. But I said, "Here, have some brown sugar for your coffee." Right? You know? Yeah. And, and so, you know, sometimes it's, it's just, you know, that. Yeah. But that's your intuition, right? Whereas your guides are more telling you which direction to go in and what, what to do, and, you know, take a left here, take a right there, you know, wait five minutes to leave.

Yeah. You know, that sort of stuff. Okay. All right. This is very cool. Now, in terms of things that you have, what can people sort of leverage from your portfolio to help them with their journey around this aspect? Well, actually, what I wanted to, to mention today is I have what I refer to as a, a discovery session.

Mm-hmm. So if you're on your spiritual journey and you don't know what the next step is, if you are on your magical path and you don't know what the next thing to do is, and you're looking at this wide array of stuff and your complex life and you're trying to figure out, what the hell do I do now, and you're, you're just, you've got this sort of overwhelm from everything that's going on around you, and you're trying to figure out what's the right path to whatever it is that you're trying to do- Sign up for a discovery session.

Okay. They're free, so I'm gonna encourage you to really, really do that, because that'll give me a chance to provide you with some support. And what I wanna say is this: it is not a sales pitch for me. I am going to listen to what it is that you have to say, and then provide you with advice on where to go from there.

And that advice may be one of my programs. It could just as easily be referring you to one or more other things that are out in the world, a book, a seminar, a workshop, a, an, a, you know, a, a coach. Um, I had a woman call me the other day asking for some help for her and some help for a friend of hers, and I actually referred both of those out to s- to different practitioners, because it w- I wasn't the best person.

Could I have done the work that she was asking for? Yes, but I was not the best person to do that work, and I wanted her to have the best person. Right. And so I referred her. So, you know, just know that that's really where I'm coming from with these, is just to sort of help you figure out what's next.

Mm-hmm. So people can sign up for these discovery sessions on your website? Yeah, on my website. At the very top, in the, in the top of the banner it says, "Book a session." And if you click that button, it'll take you through, and one of the very first things you see is, is book a discovery session. Awesome. Okay, that's great.

That's a really useful tool, folks, uh, to be able to get in touch with Kelle and start to define sort of the path that you're, would be best and most helpful for you to walk on, on where you are in your journey. Very cool stuff. Okay, that is all the time we have, uh, for this week, but thanks everybody for coming.

Um, be sure to join us next time as Kelle adds another chapter into your beginner's guide to energy, magic, and the spirit world. I'm Joey C here with Kelle Sparta, and you have been listening to Spirit Sherpa. Bye everyone. Bye.

Spirit Sherpa is the sole property of Kelle Sparta Enterprises and is distributed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. For more information about this licensing, please go to creativecommons.org. Any request for deviations to this licensing should be sent to [email protected]. That's [email protected].

To sign up or to get more information on the programs, offerings, and services referenced in this episode, please go to kellesparta.com. This episode of Spirit Sherpa has been produced by Honu Voice Productions.