K is for: Kismet
This post is part of a series I’m so excited about: “The ABC’s of What I’ve Learned as a Medium and Intuitive Healer.” This is my full-time career, and I am thrilled for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned!
*I say Spirit to mean God, the Universe, the Cosmos - I use these phrases interchangeably for all enlightened beings who help us. I use “greater Spirit” or “Spirit” to mean everything out there, taking care of and managing in here: Them as a group and concept. You may choose to substitute the word “Spirit” with Jesus, Archangel Michael, Allah, Lakshmi, Kuan Yin, The Universe, The Cosmos, or about a billion other names, and it doesn’t matter. Spirit is all this and so much more than we can ever understand. They don’t care what you call them so long as you give them the same respect they give you.*
Kismet & Why We Feel Fate When We See It
Kismet is a word for fate - the idea that an unseen force is guiding one toward a particular outcome. We recognize kismet when we feel it, whether we’ve just followed our inner voice right to our dream job or met someone who feels like we’ve always known them.
What we don’t always realize is these moments have a point, there is a purpose to the feeling that fate is unfolding right before our eyes. The feeling of kismet is a key indicator that we are moving toward our purpose and toward where our higher self is trying to go. We’re here to fulfill their life purpose, to meet their friends and partners, and to further their place in the universe. This lifetime is a role we play and a costume we put on. It’s a temporary avatar for our true self: our soul or higher self.
Which is to say, fate feels like fate because the moments in our lives which feel like kismet are the times in which we are aligned with our higher self and their goals. Many of us fight fate every day - we ignore nudges to move to a new city where our soul’s intended mentor happens to be working as a teacher or therapist, we ignore nudges to apply for a new job where our soulmate is waiting for us. We ignore the intuition that someone is lying to or hurting us, ignore the guidance telling us we’d find more fulfillment if we went back to school or took a class. We’re used to fighting our inner voice, so we’re used to fighting fate.
Every intuitive nudge we receive is trying to move us closer to the life for which we were fated; the life our higher self laid out for us before we were born into this lifetime. Our intuition is meant to keep us safe, healthy, and moving toward the life our soul wanted.
This is important for many reasons, not least of which because so many of us are inclined to misunderstand and misapply what we believe are signs from our spirit guides and higher self, when really, our higher selves give us specific advice which has a clear purpose and would never move us backward. Most of the signs we tell ourselves we see and then apply to fate are simply not the kinds of signs our guides or higher selves send, and more commonly, we mistake the meaning of their communication to mean what we want it to mean. This puts us in direct opposition to our higher self; we become competitors and not allies. We’re meant to co-create a beautiful life by listening to our higher self’s wisdom and advice - they are our intuition. When we ignore our inner voice, we’re ignoring the larger plan, which often turns us away from our purpose, and we feel we’re aimlessly wandering, even if we don’t consciously know why.
Some of this post will be upsetting for many, but I want to be clear that that’s absolutely not my intention. This is important to me because I used to have a very painful life, which got much better when I learned to listen to my higher self instead of fight her. Now I have watched this unfold naturally over years of readings, and I see this misunderstanding of what fate is and how we move toward it causing so much pain among many clients. When I began doing readings for others, I was very much guilty of everything in this post as well, and only through being a reader did I start to learn that the things which we commonly attribute to fate and guidance are not.
We have to learn what isn’t a message before we can hope to interpret what is genuinely guidance from our spirit guides and higher selves.
Signs & Symbolism
Our higher selves and spirit guides love to send us signs and communicate with us through symbolism, and many of the questions I receive often from clients are about signs and symbols from Spirit and their higher self. How can we recognize signs from the Universe? How can we see a synchronicity and know we're being guided? How can we know we’re going in the right direction, headed toward fate and our purpose? These small gestures from something bigger often mean everything to us.
I love having a career in which I get to help people see those connections, feel good about them, and the sense that they're on the right path. I also must say many signs, symbols, and synchronicities are very misunderstood. Symbols are regularly misinterpreted, signs are regularly manifested, and people regularly speak for their higher selves and spirit guides incorrectly: "I know my guides wanted me to call my ex because I saw their initials on a licence plate/saw 11:11 on two clocks/saw two planes cross..." and again, I know I’ve been guilty of doing this with signs, too!
I’m sorry to say, *most* of the time, this isn't our guides and it isn’t our higher self. This doesn't mean they don't send you signs or try to communicate, just that we're likely to misinterpret certain things and believe they mean what we want them to mean. I have seen more pain caused by this than I could possibly explain as we take actions we believe are guided but which are not.
No two people have intuition that works exactly the same way, and no two people receive exactly the same signs or communication, so one cannot use another’s symbolism and expect an accurate message.
A lot of this misunderstanding is, again, coming from a misunderstanding of fate, purpose, and what it is we’re here to do in these human bodies. When we listen to our intuitive nudges for what they actually are, they will always move us forward, never backward. Your higher self is not telling you to call a person who has formerly broken your heart; they’re telling you to move on and find new happiness. If you are miserable, you are much less likely to meet their purpose or fulfill their agenda for this lifetime. They need us to achieve what they came to achieve, but sadly, we don’t often cooperate (though they have good advice which is informed by significantly more information and experience than we have).
I don’t say any of the above to shame anyone, I just truly can’t express how often this comes up among clients, and how much pain it causes when we convince ourselves that we’re fated to stay the same person in the same place indefinitely. Each soul incarnated is the Universe experiencing itself in a new way. You have never been this soul in this body in this location before - what can you do with that which could truly be new? Exciting on a soul level? The Universe experiencing growth and light and beauty? We don’t often think of this! Each of us can move universal consciousness forward or backward, which means everything we do matters. Each of us can contribute a specific energy to this planet which absolutely no one else can.
Calling someone we know has hurt us before and will likely hurt us again - this simply isn’t advice our guides give because it’s unlikely to move the universe forward, and they only care about moving the universe forward. We can further the collective consciousness by showing up to as many situations as our best self and inspiring others to do the same, moving through life with respect, gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion, and this is the only advice your higher self or spirit guides will ever give you. To be the you who can further the planet, contribute your own research, and progress the paradigm. They won’t give us advice which moves us back to a situation we’ve already left because it’s in direct opposition to their goals. They’re not advising us back to jobs or partners which have shown us disregard or disrespect because a person who feels disregarded and disrespected is unlikely to care about contributing to the collective consciousness in any meaningful way. When we feel good, we’re that much more likely to listen to our inner voice, so their advice will always be to go toward that which makes us feel better.
The Tendency To Make Everything A Sign
If everything is a sign, it’s like nothing is. When we see a sign in every 11:11, we tend to follow almost no intuitive nudges, because we get so used to believing signs are around every corner that we believe there will always be another opportunity to catch one. If every butterfly and flower is a sign, we believe that number of signs will always be present, and it induces an accidental laziness. We don’t have to follow intuitive guidance if more will be on the way shortly. We will never be given a pre-packaged, full and pretty picture of a plan to follow. We receive advice in small, manageable pieces, and we’re often meant to take many small steps before we can see the big picture toward which we’re headed. I see this constantly in life purposes! We make our way to them in many small steps, and almost never in large leaps. Generally speaking, large leaps are unsustainable, and one who tries to make them will backslide. Whereas small but measurable success becomes habitual, and moving forward becomes a way of life; a personality trait.
All that to say, if we see small signs around every corner, we tend to need to see a really big one to actually listen to it. And sadly, that really big sign is likely not coming. This is our creating our own pain - believing we need to see a full picture before taking a step forward, when really each small step forward is what’s getting us where we’re going.
Also, when we believe that everything is a sign, we don’t realize that we’re actually putting the signs in our own auric field, creating more of what we believe is a sign but what is really just an external manifestation of what we’re thinking about. In cases like this, there is a lot of difficult unlearning to do. (I don’t say that with any judgment, just in my experience, it’s much harder to recognize the kind of signs our guides and higher selves actually regularly send to us if we are looking anywhere and everywhere and taking signs to mean what we want them to mean.) When someone sees their ex’s initials everywhere, it’s because those initials are so ingrained in their personal energetic systems that if those initials are around, they’re going to see them. We begin to manifest the sign all on our own just by being so attuned to them! I see this constantly, with clients manifesting what they believe to be angel numbers or guided symbols.
Manifesting has more steps than we often realize - one must take guided action to receive what they want. When you ask the Universe for something you really want, your higher self tries to deliver it to you. However, they can’t hand you the exact thing you asked for with a nice bow - it’s not possible if we aren’t on the right vibration (and we’re usually not, when we’re asking for something, or we’d already have it). We live in a vibrational universe, and to receive something, we have to be within it’s vibrational range. So when you ask for something you really want, such as with a dedicated manifesting regime, your work then becomes to get on the vibration of receiving it. If you’re on the vibration of depression, your guides and higher self are completely incapable of handing you joy because you ask for it. But what they can do is give you intuitive nudges which would slowly but surely take you out of the depression and get you within vibrational range of what you’re asking for. This is why it comes in small, intentional steps up a vibrational ladder. If we want money, we can’t ask for it and then stay on the vibration of poverty. We have to ask, and follow every bit of advice from our inner voice which will do nothing but try to get us where we want to go. That action step is what we usually miss, and it’s the most vital one.
Our intuition at its best comes from realism, understanding the kinds of signs and symbols one is actually likely to receive so they take guided action when they receive intuitive guidance.
A lot of clients ask about trusting those intuitive nudges, which really has to come from knowing they’re trustworthy. A lot of the time we don’t trust our intuition, it’s because we know we’re misinterpreting to begin with, and we’re lying to ourselves somewhere in the middle. We can look back and in retrospect, see clearly that every time we listened to true intuitive guidance, we felt better, and every time we ignored it, we felt worse.
Commonly Missed Signs
Physical feelings in the body are the number one most misunderstood or completely missed signs. They are your intuition at its absolute best. Your intuition knows danger long before you do, and it also knows a bad situation when it sees one. Every time your intuition senses something bad coming, you feel it in the body. Usually as a pain in the stomach, and this is especially true when we feel we are in danger or being disrespected in a situation. When we look at a bad situation in retrospect, we can often see that we knew it was going to go poorly ahead of time. We didn’t walk blindly into a bad situation - we received gut feelings which told us how things were going to go, and we didn’t listen. Sadly, we’re very likely to talk ourselves out of true intuition and into false applications of it. “Gut feelings” isn’t just a phrase, it’s very literal! We get a literal pang in our lower chakras when we are walking into something we know will end poorly, and we usually ignore, disregard, or explain that feeling away.
Third eye fluttering is another example of intuition causing a physical feeling in the body, and one we also feel subtly through our energetic systems, if we have a working clairsentience gift. Our third eye chakra, which we can feel in the center of our forehead and extending all the way to the back of the head, is the home of our intuition. This chakra develops in our early twenties, once we’ve had a little time and experience on this planet and should now be able to discern what makes us feel good and what does not. The third eye chakra helps us plan the future with adequate foresight. When we are mis-planning, going against our purpose, fighting our inner voice, walking into a bad situation, etc., we often get a fluttering feeling or even a pain in the third eye.
Perfect words at the perfect time said by another person is one very common and very misunderstood sign. You know the moments when a friend who isn’t usually one to bring you profundity suddenly says exactly what you need to hear, in exactly the right way, at exactly the right moment? That’s Spirit talking through their mouth. You know when you give your friend, partner, child, or coworker the perfect advice, and you don’t know where it came from or why you said it? That’s Spirit talking through your mouth. This is a very, very common way for our guides to get their messages to us in a way they think we’ll hear them!
Somewhat similarly, overheard expressions are more important than we give them credit for. When you walk by strangers and overhear their conversation though you’re not sure why you were inclined to listen, and it happens to have a synchronicity or a message you needed to hear, once again this is very easy for our guides and higher selves to influence! It’s not easy for them to create situations (though they do this too, with more effort and less often), but it is very easy for them to give you the intuitive nudge to eavesdrop or to pay attention to something you heard in passing.
This is also true of songs, tv, movies, podcasts - if you feel guided toward a particular song, movie, tv episode or new series, etc., and don’t know why, it often holds an important message! This is again very easy for our higher self and guides to influence. My guides and higher self communicate with me through song lyrics often, each by playing a song I need right when I need it, or even more regularly, by popping song lyrics I need to hear into my head. They also often guide me to a tv show, movie, or podcast which could teach me something.
External signs are what we want to look for most, and they’re very honestly least likely! When they are used, signs should be personal; they’re unique like you are. I’ve had clients who received signs they were on the right track by receiving personally-relevant imagery, like hummingbirds, frogs, lions, trees, etc. A sign from your guides in this context is likely to be something you already like, appreciate, or have reason and opportunity to notice. I have one guide who makes sure I see sunflowers if they’re around, but this is because they’re my favorite flower and seeing them gives me an instant frequency boost. A sign from your guides and higher self will feel like that. It has a purpose, to tell you you’re on the right track or to make you feel a little better. So signs are incredibly unique and personal! Even if over the years, I’ve had multiple clients see lions or owls as signs, I’ve never had two clients who were supposed to use or interpret that or any sign the exact same way.
Commonly Misapplied Signs
Angel numbers are very misunderstood. And this one is rough, because people love angel numbers and angels love people and angels do have a heavy investment in the day-to-day lives of humans. The thing is, there is NO universal angel number. If you see 1234 and you Google it, you’ll find hundreds of different meanings, some which are legitimate and some which are not. This is because people who can channel angels ask for the meaning of angel numbers, and though they do receive accurate answers, they don’t often realize it was only for them and their personal meaning and what they personally should know when they look at that number, but it is not in any way universal. I’ve interpreted a lot of frequently-seen numbers for clients, and sometimes it’s an angel number, in which case I’ve never had the same angel number mean the same thing twice. 999 for you is not the same as 999 for your best friend, in the case that each of you is actually seeing an angel number. Again, this is not said to hurt, it’s said because people take someone else’s meaning for an angel number and use it to make actionable plans in their life, though they’re often misunderstanding. Also, many people who put up interpretations of angel numbers cannot channel angels because they don’t have the gifts to do so, and information has been passed and muddled and misused consistently. If you see repeating numbers, I heavily recommend working personally with your guides or a reader whom you trust so you can understand your personal relationship to the numbers, whether they’re truly coming from angels, or whether they’re being manifested as previously described. If they are angel numbers, ensure you have the meanings you are supposed to be taking from them.
Similarly, there are no universal meanings for seeing flowers, insects, or similar. Again, these may be signs for you, but if so, it will be extremely personal and what you’re meant to take from it will be personal as well.
This is also the case with dreams, which are very frequently misinterpreted because one is trying to use universal symbology. Colors, items, people, situations, places - these are all being filtered through one’s subconscious while they are asleep, and one’s subconscious is essentially a collection of their belief systems and reactions to those belief systems. Your dreams are very likely to be signs from your guides if you have a clairvoyance gift, but the symbolism will be unique to you, as symbolism is always unique to every psychic. Dreams which are not from our guides are for our subconscious to work through what it’s thinking about, so all symbols are filtered through its personal beliefs and an orange car in Palm Springs for you will not mean the same thing as it means for someone else’s subconscious.
This one is somewhat difficult to explain, but energetic exhaustion is an important sign of who enlivens us and uplifts our life, and who makes us less happy or less likely to work toward our purpose. This doesn’t mean physical energy, you’re not necessarily more likely to feel physically tired when you leave someone who has drained you energetically. But you’re likely to feel an emotional or mental exhaustion, like they have depleted some resources and not given them back. This is a huge sign from your higher self about who and what should be in your life because it’s good for you, and who or what is not and takes energy from you and makes you less efficient, successful, fulfilled, and purposeful.
One of my favorites is when a client kind of just straight up dislikes someone, and says they have “bad energy,” when really their energy is fine and they have a personality which is being found less palatable. Don’t say someone has bad energy without an understanding of what that really means. A lot of people you really like probably have what’s actually bad energy, and a lot of people you hate probably have great energy. We take clashing personalities as a sign from the gods that someone is bad for us and shouldn’t be in our lives, when often, those who clash with our personality have a lot to teach us. It’s learning to separate what are actually intuitive, energetic signs someone is not good for us on an energetic and soul level, and what are personal opinions and feelings about a personality we don’t enjoy much.
Developing A Personal Intuitive Language Which Actually Works
Work with your guides and higher self to develop a language together, so you know you’re not mistaking their signs. One can do this with psychic gifts or divination, but ask, “When I see this number, what am I supposed to take from it?” “When I see lions, what do they mean?” Don’t ever assume your sign is the same as someone else’s, and don’t take for granted that you just know what your guides or higher self is saying. We’re more likely to be ignoring or misunderstanding them, and especially in regard to the areas of life which aren’t going how we want. (If we’re following our inner voice, almost by definition, that area of our life will be going well.) We can keep up the ego and say we know exactly what’s up and continue to manifest things we don’t want, or we can acknowledge that listening to our inner voice is a built-in form of co-creative magic, and that listening will improve our life in every regard. Misunderstanding and saying otherwise does neither Spirit nor us any good and doesn’t move anyone forward.
Notice how intuitive nudges make you feel emotionally. Many are worried they won’t be able to tell their intuition apart from paranoia or anxiety, but those two things feel very different! Getting in touch with your intuition is very much about getting in touch with what you’re feeling, and recognizing the answers you need are always already inside you. It’s an intentional aligning of thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Self-nurture! It’s vital to be nice to yourself as you build a language with your higher self and guides, and recognize they operate at a very different level and on a different vibration than we do, so communication is not and is not meant to be easy. It should take work to learn how to talk to them! Once it becomes second-nature, you will feel so good about the work you put in to get there, and you will believe in your gifts on another level because you took the time to cultivate and understand them.
Look at the parts of your practice which are going well, and use those first. If you can rely on your clairaudience but not your clairvoyance, work in the way you know best and can rely on most, at least until your language is firmly solidified. If you know you won’t trust anything that comes through psychic gifts, use a pendulum or tarot cards or whatever divination you feel confident in until your gifts build up enough to let go of them. (Or use divination forever if it’s what you feel confident with!) I teach many people to use their gifts to their best benefit, and it comes from first and foremost dropping any ideas of what the conversation is supposed to look like. No two people have the same gifts and no two people interpret their psychic stimuli the same way, and practicing as yourself and with the gifts available to you is the only way. When we expect to receive answers just like someone else does, it only hurts. I’ve yet to have two students or clients whose gifts worked exactly the same way or exactly like mine! We’re each a unique combination of experiences from this life and our past lives, and each of our gifts are an expression of that.
Respect other people’s beliefs and gifts and the conversations they are having or believe they are having with the Divine. Ego is rampant among the spiritual community, with everyone saying their exact spirituality is the purest, though we could each learn at least one and likely many things from every other practice. Everyone’s conversation with the Divine is very personal and again unique, and being on the vibration of disrespect only puts barriers between us and Spirit.
Make time for consistent reflection on what has gone well in the past, taking in new knowledge to build a better future, and letting go of what doesn’t work at every step. These three things are the most important, and the three things your guides and higher self want to talk about most often, so the conversation will go best. They don’t want to talk about the same boring stuff that’s always happening, they want to move the Universe forward. If your practice and your conversations with the Divine are about reflection, learning something new, or letting go of something which holds you back, the Universe will be in support and your guides will help you as much as they can.
Try not to get lost in the sauce of daily minutiae - it lowers our vibrations significantly and make it difficult to connect to beings who operate on a very high frequency. Conversations with them are more difficult and information received through any means is less reliable if you’re not in the place to practice.
Work with mentors when you can, no matter what level your gifts are at! I teach students at all levels how to use or further develop their psychic gifts and intuitive lifestyle, and I continue to find mentors who can grow my practice and gifts whenever and wherever I can find them. Everyone has something to teach us when we make it our job to look at it that way!
Thanks for reading! I’m so grateful. <3