Spiritual Guidance Is Only the Beginning: What You Do Next Matters

Sep 7

4 min read

Spiritual guidance can offer clarity, perspective and new possibilities—but it cannot take action for you. Bonnie Vent explores free will, spiritual discernment, accountability and why what you do with the guidance matters.

Receiving spiritual guidance can be helpful. It can offer another perspective, confirm something you have already sensed, or help you recognize choices you hadn't considered.

But receiving guidance is only the beginning.

Over the years, I have given many readings where someone tells me the information is completely accurate. They recognize the situation. They understand the message. They may even know exactly what needs to change.

Then months later, they return with the same pain points.

Nothing changed because nothing changed.

That may be an uncomfortable thing to say, but spiritual guidance cannot take action for us.

Spiritual guidance, discernment, choice and action — a woman moving forward on her own path, illustrating free will and personal accountability.

Guidance Is Information, Not Instruction

The Connection, the multidimensional group I channel, has always offered a very simple instruction about the information they provide:

“Accept what resonates and disregard the rest.” — The Connection

There is a great deal of freedom in that statement.

You aren't being asked to surrender your judgment to a channeler, medium, card reader—or even to the source of the information itself.

You are being given information to consider.

That puts the responsibility right back where it belongs: with you.

Whether guidance comes through channeling, an intuitive or spiritual reading, cards, meditation, or another source, I believe it should offer perspective rather than take away your ability to choose.

Spiritual Discernment Is Part of the Process

Discernment doesn't simply mean deciding whether you trust the person giving you a reading.

It also means evaluating the information itself.

Does it make sense? Does it apply to your circumstances? Does it help you see something differently? Is fear influencing how you're interpreting it? Are you accepting something because it is useful—or simply because it is what you wanted to hear?

“Accept what resonates” doesn't necessarily mean accepting only what feels comfortable.

Sometimes the information we most need to consider is uncomfortable.

You can respect the source of spiritual guidance and still question, evaluate and think about what you've received.

In fact, I believe you should.

Free Will Means You Still Make the Decision

I don't believe spiritual guidance should make your decisions for you.

A reading may illuminate a possibility. It may point out a pattern. It may help you recognize something you've been avoiding. It may encourage you to look at a situation from another angle.

But eventually the reading ends.

Then you decide what happens next.

That is free will.

It also means we can't hand responsibility for our decisions to someone else by saying, “The cards told me,” “the psychic told me,” or “Spirit told me.”

Guidance can inform a decision.

You still make it.

An Accurate Reading Can Still Change Nothing

This may be one of the least popular things I say about spiritual guidance:

A reading can be completely accurate and still accomplish nothing.

Recognition isn't the same thing as transformation.

You can recognize a relationship pattern without changing how you participate in relationships. You can understand that you need a boundary without setting one. You can recognize an opportunity without pursuing it. You can know that something isn't working and continue doing it anyway.

Eventually there has to be movement between:

“I understand.”

and

“I'm going to do something differently.”

The action doesn't have to be dramatic.

It might be making a phone call. Having a difficult conversation. Researching an option. Setting a boundary. Asking for help. Saying yes. Saying no. Trying something new. Taking one small step in a different direction.

Spiritual guidance may help you see the path.

It cannot walk the path for you.

Accountability Is Part of Free Will

We talk a great deal about free will because having choices feels empowering.

The other side of free will receives much less attention:

Accountability.

If the choice belongs to us, eventually we have to take responsibility for what we choose to do—or choose not to do.

That doesn't mean everything that happens to us is our fault. There are circumstances, losses, other people's decisions and events completely outside our control.

Accountability means recognizing the part that is ours.

What can I do from here?

What decision belongs to me?

What action am I willing to take?

Sometimes choosing not to act is a choice too.

I Have to Practice This Too

I don't write about these ideas from somewhere outside of them.

The spiritual guidance I share with other people often begins with something I am navigating in my own life.

I have had to learn when to act and when something isn't mine to change. I have had to establish new boundaries, accept help, take chances, change direction and learn to receive things that past experiences made difficult to trust.

Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes I have to reroute.

The person offering spiritual guidance doesn't get an exemption from doing the work.

That experience has also influenced The Signal, my series of short spiritual reflections inspired by card readings and real-life experience.

Many of those messages begin personally. I work through them first. Eventually, I recognize the part of the experience that may be useful to someone else.

Then I send it out into the world.

What someone does with it belongs to them.