A friend of mine once asked the Divine for a very specific sign.
She was trying to decide whether to make a significant change in her life, I think it may have been a career decision. She said, essentially: If this is the right thing for me to do, show me a peacock.
There was only one slight problem. She was in Canada. In winter. Driving through snow. So the chances of a peacock casually wandering across the road were not exactly high.
She drove all the way to her destination without seeing one. Fair enough, she thought. There’s my answer.
Then she arrived, knocked on the door, and the woman who opened it was wearing a top covered in peacocks.
I love that story. Not just because it’s funny, although I do imagine the Divine occasionally enjoying being quite literal. But because it says something about the way angels send signs.
Angels can send signs through the most ordinary parts of everyday life, a number on your phone, words that catch your attention, a feather in your path, or something much more personal that only you would recognise. What makes it a sign is not a fixed set of meanings, but the conversation that develops between your angels and you.
I’ve been working with spiritual guidance for decades, and over time I’ve come to recognise some of the ways this communication works, and some of the ways we can get in our own way.
I believe we are being helped far more than we realise
Our angels, God, Source, the Universe, our spirit team, whatever language feels right to you, are always available to us. We never need to do anything alone.
There are beings in high spiritual realms who love us, care about us and want to help us, rather like a loving parent wants to help a child. But the most important rule is free will. They will not override it.
It is up to us to notice. We are always free to ignore the signs, or see them but not heed them. They do not interfere with our decisions. But when we actively ask for their help, we open the conversation and they have all sorts of ways of getting through.
Sometimes rather inventive ones.
A sign is often just something that makes you look twice
One of the most familiar examples is numbers. You pick up your phone and it’s 4:44. You get a receipt and the total contains 111.
111 speaks of alignment. A doorway opening, a sign that you are on the right path and can trust your own guidance. 444 speaks of protection and presence. The angels are close.
For me, a repeating number like this is often simply a little ping: “We’re here. We’ve heard you. You’re being held.”
And sometimes it is directly connected to whatever I was thinking about at the exact moment I saw it. If I have been wondering whether to do something, for example, the number is quiet encouragement to go ahead.
How angels send signs: the language between us and the Divine
Once you become more receptive to how angels communicate with you, you begin to recognise the particular ways they’re trying to get your attention.
Because your angels try so many different ways of reaching you, once something lands, that becomes a channel they can use again. And over time, the language between you becomes more sophisticated.
It might be a sentence on an advert in the metro or subway that answers your question, or feels like a teaching. A line from a song that suddenly seems written for you. A phrase you hear in two completely unrelated conversations on the same day. Or the classic one, a white feather.
For many people, a white feather simply means: We’re here. You’re not alone.
But context matters. If you’ve just asked, “Please show me whether I should go ahead with this,” and minutes later a white feather lands at your feet, it will carry a rather more specific meaning for you.
Another friend, in Australia, once asked for a sign during her morning meditation. When she went outside afterwards, she saw a man carrying a large Buddha statue.
She was Buddhist. But she lived in an entirely ordinary Australian neighbourhood where people did not routinely wander around carrying enormous Buddhas.
She knew it was a sign meant for her.
And this is why I don’t think we need a giant dictionary of spiritual signs. It is more personal, individual and sophisticated than that. It is a specific conversation between your angels and you.
You can also agree your own signs
This is where it becomes quite lovely.
You can ask: “If this is right for me, please show me a peacock.”
Or a blue butterfly. Or a particular word.
Choose something specific enough that you won’t see it every three minutes, then leave it alone. Don’t spend the rest of the day Googling peacocks.
Ask, and then go and live your life. The whole point is that the answer reaches you.
“I’m doing this. If it’s wrong, stop me.”
When I’ve thought something through and it seems right, I sometimes simply tell the Divine: “This is what I’m going to do. If I’m getting this wrong, please stop me.”
And then I go ahead.
But if you’re going to do this, there is an important second half. You have to remain open to being stopped.
If it doesn’t flow, if everything becomes increasingly difficult, and the further you go the more it feels as though you’re moving uphill or through treacle, pay attention. Not to every single inconvenience, but to the pattern. To that repeated sense of pushback.
You still have free will. You can keep going. But don’t ignore the guidance you’re being given by being stubborn. Be open to a U-turn. Our angels want the very best for us – long term and with the bigger picture that they can see.
Here’s where the shadow work comes in
We humans are exceptionally good at finding evidence for something we desperately want to believe.
If I really want to take a particular job, move to a particular country or stay with a particular person, I can probably interpret half the contents of my local supermarket as confirmation if I try hard enough.
This is where spiritual openness without self-awareness gets risky.
Before asking for a sign, it helps to ask another question first: What answer do I want?
Not what answer do I think I’m going to receive. What do I secretly, desperately, passionately want the Divine to say?
Because once I know that, I know what I need to be careful of. That question is the whole of how I tell spiritual guidance from wishful thinking.
This is the honest work of looking at our fears, our beliefs, our attachments, our wounds, the things we desperately want to be true and the things we really don’t want to see. It matters enormously.
Learn what yes and no feel like in you
Signs aren’t the only way to receive guidance. When you have a question, there might be two choices. Go or stay, yes or no. Becoming quiet and going into an open, non-analytical space of surrender is important. Feel into the two choices from that state. Not from the analytical mind that weighs up the pros and cons.
For me, when I do that, one direction will start to feel in flow. Light. Supported.
The other feels denser, almost as if I am moving through water. I can still go there if I want, but there is resistance.
If you’ve never experienced this, there is a very simple way to start learning your own internal language.
Try this exercise
Go out and stand somewhere like a T-junction, somewhere that has two choices but you know exactly which way leads home. Stand there and ask inwardly, “Which way is home?”
Turn towards the direction you know is right and notice what happens in your body, mind, and emotions. In your subtle bodies. Don’t manufacture anything. Just notice.
Then turn towards the direction you know is wrong and notice again.
Perhaps one direction feels slightly more expansive and the other more closed. Perhaps there’s a subtle sense of being pulled forward or pushed back. Or perhaps one feels easy and flowing, while the other feels as though you have to force your way forward, with the resistance growing as you continue.
Yours may feel completely different from mine. That’s fine. You’re learning your language.
But don’t confuse “hard” or “scary” with “wrong”
Sometimes the right thing is terrifying.
Leaving a relationship that no longer fits you can be frightening. Starting the work you actually care about can bring every insecurity you possess galloping into the room at once. Speaking honestly can feel much harder than staying quiet.
Growth often takes us directly towards the places where our fears live. So I wouldn’t use “this feels hard or scary” as a spiritual decision-making system.
Because underneath, or perhaps above, our fears there can be a sense of knowing. Knowing what the right thing to do is despite the fears.
Sometimes the answer itself is clear long before the route becomes clear. It’s a knowing that is quiet but persistent. It doesn’t shout or push. And despite not knowing HOW we will do it, we know it’s there.
And we don’t actually need to know the “how” at this stage. We need acceptance of our inner knowing. If we follow it, we can trust that the support that we need will come. Usually not as the entire map in advance, but as the next step. And then the next one.
Those are also beautiful moments to ask for a sign.
You can say: “I know this is what I need to do. Please show me that you’ve got my back. Please show me that you’ll help me see this through.”
Those are the moments when you may pick up your phone and see 4:44 or 1:11, or find a white feather in your path.
As reassurance: We’ve heard you. We’re with you. Keep going.
There is a difference between being scared as you move forward and repeatedly feeling that something is off.
Learning that distinction takes time.
Signs are not meant to make us frightened of making decisions
The purpose of spiritual guidance is not to turn us into people who cannot order lunch without asking the angels whether they recommend the soup.
We still have intelligence, judgment and responsibility for our lives. Sometimes there simply isn’t one Divinely approved answer. We are allowed to choose.
For me, signs are part of something much larger than themselves. Even a peacock appearing in the most unlikely way can become a moment when the veil between this world and the Divine feels very thin. That is when signs become more than coincidence. They become part of an ongoing conversation with the Divine.
Own your shadows. Open to the Divine.
