down because I was feeling so overwhelmed, but when the time came, I looked up and there was Dad, sitting on his coffin with his legs crossed—and he winked at me. He had a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other and he looked cheerful and calm, and that gave me the courage to go on. I stood up and started talking about all the good deeds he had done in his life, and the sort of person he was, and in my head I could hear him say, ‘Go on, that’s my girl!’
Not everyone is able to see spirits at a funeral but many people have described to me a sudden feeling that the dead person is close to them, or hugging them, or has an arm round their shoulder. Maybe they can smell their perfume or hear a familiar voice inside their head, and at that point they get a sense of strength and know that they will be able to cope with whatever happens next.
Family members on the other side will not watch and listen to every single thing we do, but they always know when we are thinking about them. Some will become our guardian angels, who can come to help us when we are straying off our life’s path and to give us comfort and guidance at different stages when we need it. There are many different ways they can communicate with us—and one of the most common is actually hearing their voice in our head.
Lock the Doors!
Anne was a woman in her mid-40s who ran her own little florist’s business. She loved the work, because it allowed her to express her creativity and she got to spend her days surrounded by the beautiful colours and scents of flowers, but most weeks she only just scraped by and sometimes she had trouble finding the rent. Here’s a story she told me about her visit from an angel.
It was the day before Mother’s Day and I had done a roaring trade for a change, as dozens of customers ordered hand-tied bouquets to be delivered to their mums. At six o’clock, I closed the shop, put all the takings into a canvas bag and walked out to my car to take the money to the bank. They had a late-night deposit slot where I could put it in, ready to be counted the next day. I threw the canvas bag onto the floor on the passenger side of the car, where it was clearly visible, and set off through the rush-hour traffic.
I was just coming up to a set of traffic lights when I felt my skin pricking all over and heard my mother’s voice in my head. ‘Lock the doors! Lock the doors!’ it said.
Without thinking, I pressed the central locking knob and there was a click. Seconds later a motorcyclist in a blue helmet with a black visor yanked at the handle of the passenger door and rattled it angrily. When it wouldn’t open, he pounded on the window so hard I was sure he was going to break the glass. Fortunately the lights changed at that point and I put my foot down and drove off as fast as I could to the bank, looking anxiously in the mirror in case I was being followed. When I got to the deposit slot, I drove round several times to make sure the motorcyclist hadn’t come after me before I dared to get out of the car.
I was very shaken. If the takings from the shop had been stolen by that motorcyclist my business would probably have gone bust. I needed the Mother’s Day income to make up for lean periods in the rest of the year. I’m convinced it was my mother’s voice that had made me lock the door, but it was two years since my mum had died so how was that possible?
Anne came to see me for a reading and I explained to her that the incident had happened so that she could learn that her mother is still taking care of her. She said she couldn’t believe that the voice was quite so clear, almost as though her mum was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. She told me that from now on she is always going to lock the car doors when she drives her takings to the bank.
Of course, not all bad things can be prevented. The reason that theft was prevented is because it wasn’t part of Anne’s life plan for her business to go bust. I still see her now and her business is ticking over—not making a fortune but bringing a lot of happiness to her and to all the people who receive her beautiful creations as gifts.
If you hear a loved one’s voice in your head, you may question whether it is real or just your imagination, and sometimes it can be hard to distinguish, but the key question to ask is whether you were thinking about that person, or something to do with them, at the time. If you weren’t, and the voice just came out of nowhere, it is likely to be a message from the spirit world.
Trekking in the Blue Mountains
We all have a time at which we are ordained to die, according to a blueprint that was set down before we came into this life. So, for example, one person might be ordained to die of cancer at the age of eighty-three while another might be supposed to go in a car accident at the age of twenty.
It’s a strange concept to get your head around that the time of your death is pre-ordained. All of us have lived many different lifetimes and with each one, we have to learn specific lessons in order for our souls to evolve. You will come back into a circumstance that enables you to learn the specific lesson you need to learn next, and your life will be as long as it needs to be for that purpose. Maybe you need to learn compassion for others, or not to place such a high value on material possessions, or how to express your creativity. There are all sorts of lessons to learn.
Guardian angels might intervene if you are straying away from your purpose, or having difficulty overcoming a problem that you need to overcome—or if your life is about to be cut short unexpectedly. Their warnings can help us to avoid dying early—if we only listen to them.
A man I knew received a warning while trekking in Australia’s Blue Mountains, just north of Sydney.
Two friends and I set off on a bush walk well armed with information from the tourist authority about the route we were taking and hazards to avoid on the way. There was even a little leaflet with pictures of dangerous creatures, such as snakes and spiders, we might encounter, but we were reassured by the advice that snakes will do their best to avoid contact with humans. If they hear footsteps approaching, they will slither off down a hole or into the nearest brush. For this reason, you are advised to make as much noise as you can when walking into an overgrown area.
The sandstone mountains have a blueish tinge when viewed from a distance and the walk we were on was quite spectacular. It was a clear, sunny day and we covered about twenty miles before we decided to stop and set up camp for the night in a flattish, sheltered area. We collected some firewood and built a fire then balanced a pot of water on top to make tea. We had brought bread and cheese, cold meat and fruit, but as the light began to fade, the air grew cooler and I was glad of the fire.
We sat drinking our tea, eating our food and chatting about our day. I was about to stand up to walk off behind a tree and relieve myself when I heard my dad’s voice in my head, clear as a bell, saying, ‘Be still!’
I froze, shocked to hear him, because my father had died of cancer the previous year. We’d been very close and, in fact, he’d been the one who introduced me to the joys of trekking in the bush.
At that moment my eye was caught by a slight movement in the grass just inches from my outstretched leg. A brown snake was slithering towards me, so well camouflaged by the dry vegetation that I hadn’t noticed it till that moment. It was too late to jump up and run away because it was within striking distance.
My heart was pounding as I tried to remember the pictures in that tourist leaflet. Was a plain brown snake poisonous? I could feel beads of sweat springing out on my face. My friends were facing in the opposite direction, watching the sunset on the hills and oblivious to my situation. I didn’t dare shout to them, didn’t dare breathe, as the snake lifted its head and started to slither over my bare leg. I suppose it thought it was a log.
My father’s words—‘Be still!’—echoed
