By Peggie Arvidson

Is it Really a Sign?

We all want a “sign” to tell us to take a job, leave a relationship or even invest in the stock market. The challenge of course is to figure out if what we’re getting is actually a sign or simply wishful thinking.

According to Dr. Adrian Calabrese, author of Sacred Signs, “A sign is a direct manifestation from the spirit world in material form.”

What does that mean exactly?

As humans our understanding of what is manifested can be a bit fuzzy. We all have the tools to connect with the Heavens/God/Angels/Universal Wisdom at any time. However, our ability to trust this truth has eroded over time.

My ability to trust my intuition is directly tied to reading and responding to signs. As a kid my first experience of a sign came after my Grandfather passed away. I found a penny on the street and decided it was from Heaven and from my Grandfather specifically. I can’t tell you if I made this connection because an adult had told me it was true, or simply because it “came” to me. Either way, I’ve always taken pennies to be signs from my loved ones who have crossed to the other side. The pennies show up whenever I’m stuck trying to make a decision or worried over a potential outcome. The sign, for me, is that they’re telling me “chill out – everything is going to be okay. We’re with you.”

There are various types of signs and some are kick-you-in-the-pants obvious and some are subtle like a scent wafting on the wind. This can make it hard for us realists to recognize a sign, much less trust one!

Signs can be in answer to a question you’ve asked or help you make a decision and they can seem to be coincidences. For instance, at a particularly trying time in my client’s life she felt lost, scared and very alone. After a tough divorce, she left her secure job to pursue what she felt was her passion. Within a few months she had no clients, was living off her savings and realized that she’d neglected most of her friends during her marriage because she was so lonely. As she pulled up to her condo on a cold Spring night she sat in the car to cry. Just then she heard Natasha Bedingfield sang these words on the radio, “Staring at the blank page before you/Open up the dirty window/Let the sun illuminate the words that you cannot find/Reaching for something in the distance/So close you can almost taste it/Release your inhibitions.” These are the lyrics to the song Unwritten. My client took it to be a sign that everything was going to be okay if she stopped wallowing and started taking some action. Turns out, she was right.

Could the song on the radio have been a coincidence? Not for her. My client told me she was at her lowest point and when that song came on she knew that it had meaning specifically for her at that time. As a result she made some changes, hired a coach and took action to write the story that she wished to live.

On the other hand, sometimes no sign is the sign.

If you’ve ever asked for a sign to let you know that it’s okay to quit your job, marry that fella you just met, or buy a new house and then gotten nothing, you know what this is like. This is where the doubt creeps in.

When you can’t find a sign it means one of two things. Either you phrased the question in a yes/no way, as in, “Please send me a sign to let me know if Bob is the one!” and the lack of a sign is your “no.” Or your timing is open-ended and the answer is still forthcoming. You have free will in all things, which means that you can still choose to run off to marry Bob or not. The sun will still rise and set and the Earth will continue to spin on its access. It’s all part of your journey.

Here’s a tip to clear up this type of sign confusion:

Be specific with your wording. Feel free to ask for something in particular to show up and within a certain time frame. Then you won’t be left wondering if the sign is still in transit or not.

At the end of the day, it’s a great idea to use your own ability to create a personal lexicon between you and the Spirit world. With my penny example, I’ve worked with Spirit to create the agreement that pennies out of the blue mean my departed loved ones are watching over me. For you, pennies out of the blue may mean you’re going to get a windfall, or speak to an old friend, or go for a trip. Make your conversation a two-way street and have fun learning to use signs in 2018!