Signs and Synchronicities 111: A Beginner's Guide to Intuitive Messages

A Silent Promise

The first sign I consciously remember experiencing was a rainbow. Much like in the story of Noah and his Ark, the rainbow I encountered came after a flood. Unlike Noah, my flood was more metaphorical than physical, but it threatened to destroy my world nonetheless.

It came shortly after I was first told that my mother had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. That, on top of the personal issues I was working through as a 24-year-old trying to find my place in the world, meant I often found myself in a flood of my own tears.

After one particularly hard moment, I mustered the strength to go outside for a walk to clear my head. As soon as I stepped out of my apartment, I saw a rainbow growing out of the horizon and into the clouds. It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d ever encountered a rainbow, but it felt like the first time I had truly seen one. It was so meaningful to me at that moment, that I took a picture of it and shared it to my Snapchat.

Immediately, I was reminded of that story from the Bible I had been taught when I was little: after the flood, God sent Noah a rainbow as a sign that everything would be okay. And in that moment, despite proverbially feeling up to my neck in water, I truly felt like everything would be okay too.

From the earliest human attempts to understand the Creator of the world we inhabit, signs have been recognized as a way of communicating with and experiencing the Divine. But why?

Why would God, the Universe, the Creator, Source—choose to communicate through symbols instead of directly using words?

Words are abstractions. They point to things, but they are not the things themselves. “Tree” is just a combination of letters — but those letters don’t rustle in the wind, give shade, or grow fruit you can eat to sustain yourself.

Signs, on the other hand, are real phenomena, drawn from the fabric of life itself. A rainbow after a storm, a bird landing on your windowsill, the repeated appearance of a sequence of numbers — these aren’t just ideas that exist in the mental realm. They are events in reality. It’s easy to deny something that only happens in your head, but it’s much harder to dismiss something that unfolds in the world.

That’s what makes signs so piercing and powerful: they carry both the weight of their physical presence and the depth of symbolic meaning. A word can only gesture toward meaning; a sign embodies meaning.

Words, while beautiful and often useful, can also make the apparent gap between ourselves and the Divine feel even bigger because of their subjective nature. But it would be difficult, if not impossible, for any human being to witness the beauty and majesty of a rainbow and not feel a sense of awe, wonder, and hope.

So while it’s natural to long for verbal confirmation of God’s enduring presence in our lives, it’s the silence within the symbol that speaks most clearly to the soul. That silence draws us inward, asking us to seek clarity within ourselves rather than relying on the mind’s habitual patterns of verbal processing. In fact, a sign’s greatest power is its capacity to interrupt familiar patterns and, in doing so, awaken a deeper awareness within us.

Caterpillars and Butterflies

The second sign I remember encountering — one that was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a wink from the Divine that everything was going to be okay — was a butterfly that flew directly in front of me just minutes after the doctor told me my mother was about to die within hours.

Around this time, I had first heard the quote: “What the caterpillar calls the end, the master calls a butterfly.” This line was deeply impactful for me because I was in the throes of a spiritual awakening that was undoubtedly killing the “old me” and birthing something new. I was beginning to see death itself not as the end but as an ending — an ending that inevitably brings about a new beginning. That perspective was comforting as I faced the impending death of my mother because it gave me hope that death would not take her away from me.

After the doctor told me to call my family, let them know my mother was about to die, and begin making funeral arrangements, I stepped outside the hospital and walked into the garden adjacent to the entrance to try and gather myself before I did one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life. Within seconds, a beautiful butterfly flew into my line of sight and landed on a flower before me. With it, the weight of the world was immediately lifted from my shoulders. This time, though, it didn’t feel like the message was from God. Instead, it felt like it came directly from my mother’s spirit, as if to say: “I’m not going away — I’m simply evolving into a higher form.”

I found the same to be true for myself. It was excruciating at times to let go of the caterpillar form I had embodied for as long as I could remember. It was often difficult to imagine being anything other than what I already was. But this sign — seemingly from my mother’s higher Self — gave me permission to die along with her body and to allow myself to be reborn with wings that could carry me much farther than the legs I had begun to outgrow.

From that moment on, butterflies have been a constant sign for me — not only of hope, but of evolution, growth, the eternal nature of Spirit, and my mother’s enduring support despite her apparent death.

Dial 1-888-222-4444 for Divine Guidance

One of the most powerful synchronicities I’ve ever experienced came through a sequence of numbers I had been carrying with me for years before I even noticed them. Back in the summer of 2013, I bought and registered my car, and the license plate the state issued me was “IQA 444.” At the time, this sequence of numbers meant absolutely nothing to me. I didn’t even see it as an interesting coincidence; they were just letters and numbers I only thought about when filling out paperwork that asked for my license plate info.

This all changed one fateful day in 2017 when I went on a first date with a woman I had met on Tinder and immediately felt a deeper, soulful connection with. Our first conversation went really well—so well that afterward, she came back to my apartment so we could talk some more. In hindsight, it was probably not the wisest decision for either of us, but at the time it felt safe to me, and it must have felt safe to her too.

Later, she told me that one of the reasons she felt comfortable coming back was because she had seen my license plate number, and it included “444”—a sequence she had been seeing repeatedly in the weeks leading up to our first encounter. It meant something to her, and she meant something to me, so it opened me up to the idea that these repeating numbers might carry meaning beyond coincidence.

A few months later, Jay-Z released his highly anticipated album 4:44, which served as further evidence to me that this phenomenon was universal, and that she and I weren’t the only ones who felt the Universe was communicating through numbers.

After doing some research, I found an abundance of information about what are often called “Angel Numbers”—sequences of repeating numbers or numerical patterns that seem to follow us until we give them proper attention. I’m not entirely sure where the association with celestial beings originated, but I would theorize it’s because our encounters with these numbers often feel Divine—or as though the Divine is trying to communicate something to us. Much like the soulmate I mentioned earlier, many people experience synchronicities as a form of confirmation. In her case, the confirmation was: “This is the one you’ve been looking for.”

From that point on, I became much more open to these synchronicities and have experienced them countless times—so many that they’ve honestly begun to lose some of their novelty. At this point, they mostly serve as reminders that I am on the right path, or that I am never as alone as I sometimes feel.

Skeptics might argue that seeing signs and synchronicities is nothing more than confirmation bias—that we see what we expect to see. From a logical perspective, I can completely understand that point of view. But I can’t tell you how many times I wasn’t looking for them and yet they appeared everywhere. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been doing something as mundane as writing a newsletter, felt the random urge to check the clock, and found the time was 2:22, 4:44, or 11:11.

Most recently, I’ve been wandering through cities I had never visited before, only to find myself standing in front of buildings whose addresses began with repeating numbers. This happened during both of my most recent trips to Chicago and Los Angeles. In both places, I wasn’t actively looking for signs. In Chicago, it was happening so frequently that I had no choice but to stop and be fully present with what I was experiencing. And I think that is the true purpose of encountering these signs.

It’s not always as clear as, “This is the exact thing you’re looking for.” More often, signs and synchronicities serve as nudges—ways of encouraging, if not forcing, us to return to the present moment. They are jolts designed to pull us out of our heads, out of regretting the past or anticipating the future, and back into the now where life is actually lived. They are evidence that we are living in alignment, that we are on the right path, and that we should pay attention to our surroundings and the lessons available to us in the here and now.

My theory is that these signs don’t come from angels, per se, but rather they are messages from our own Higher Self (which, I suppose, could be considered an angel of sorts). I feel we all have hidden insight into our highest timelines because we are connected to a higher version of ourselves—one who already knows every potential way our lives can unfold. Seeing these signs is evidence of a critical juncture: a moment to pay special attention, or reassurance that we are aligned with our highest path and need only to keep walking it.

To that point, I would advise against taking the meanings of numbers you find online as absolute fact. Instead, look inward for the meaning these numbers are trying to communicate to you. Ultimately, they are not placeholders for absolute, universal definitions like words are intended to be. Instead, they are invitations to listen more deeply, to pause, and to ask yourself what’s stirring in your heart at that exact moment. The meaning is not in the number itself but in the dialogue it opens between your conscious mind and your Higher Self.

444 Your Eyes Only

So, it matters not if you’re the only person to whom your signs and synchronicities are real. It makes no difference if no one else would ever believe that you’ve been seeing the same bird in different places every day for the past week. Or that, for some strange reason, every time you glance at a clock, it’s 3:33 p.m. Or that you randomly thought of your cousin, whom you haven’t spoken to in years, and then she called you.

What matters is not outside validation, but the meaning these moments stir within you. Signs and synchronicities are intimate whispers—meant to be recognized by you, not explained to others. There are so many signs that I encounter on a daily basis that only have meaning to me—but the meaning is so grounded in my current reality and circumstances that they are absolutely undeniably meant for me to see.

Signs and synchronicities are a language that is simultaneously Universal and exclusive. We can all see the same rainbow, and yet all gather different meanings from it—or none at all. The fact that these signs often only exist to us personally is what gives them so much power. Because being that other people can't perceive them, other people also cannot diminish them.

They are like secret love notes from the Universe, from our angels, from the Higher Self—meant to encourage us, inspire us, and remind us that we are never truly alone. If we can be quiet enough, present enough, and open enough, the next message we need will always be waiting for us, right where we are.

The real gift of signs and synchronicities isn’t that they tell us the future, but that they anchor us in the present — and remind us that presence itself is Divine communication.

The Inner Interview

💡 Want to take this further? For only $5 a month, paid subscribers get access to exclusive reflection prompts each week — plus the opportunity to share their answers with me directly and continue the dialogue. I’ll read every response and continue the conversation with you.

These questions aren’t just for journaling — they’re invitations into dialogue. As a paid subscriber, you’re welcome to share your reflections directly with me. Click the button below for this week's questions and a growing bank of prompts that will surely support you with your growth.

I hope this week surprises you with an undeniable sign that you are headed down the right path. If it does, I would love it if you came back to this post to share what happened! And if not, I'll catch up with you next week where we'll be exploring the phenomenon of spiritual awakening.

In the meantime, here is one of my favorite songs regarding signs.

With love,

Micheal Sinclair 💜