General Discussion

make you more open:

Meditate - whatever type works best for you.

Try the butterfly hug EMDR technique, which to me seems to give results something like instant meditation: https://www.debbieaugenthaler.com/toolbox-2/

Put a focus on gratitude/appreciation, whether making lists of what you're grateful for or just focusing on appreciation for a few moments.

Don't stress yourself watching for signs, because that might block them. And keep in mind that spirits' perspective on time is different. From their perspective on the other side, loved ones will be reunited with them soon, no matter how many years pass.

A relative of mine who believed in an afterlife but was skeptical that our pets' spirits can visit suddenly found herself looking at a cat she'd lost to cancer years earlier. The cat appeared at her feet, one evening while she was watching TV, and just sat there looking at her for a few moments, then vanished. A friend of mine who'd had a cat vanish during a storm had its spirit return a few weeks later as he and his wife were in their living room on a sunny morning; they both felt the cat rub against their legs and looked down to see its translucent form. And a neighbor who lost a cat to heart trouble felt it jump on her bed and curl up at her side, purring, invisible, but there every night for a couple of weeks after it crossed over.

I don't believe there's any transition point beyond which spirits can't communicate with people here.

And sometimes signs can happen when you are thinking or even talking about them. A couple of decades ago I was talking to a neighbor who'd lost her husband to a heart attack several months earlier when he was doing yardwork in the fall. I'd only recently learned about signs myself, and while talking to her learned that both she and her grown daughter had had signs from him that it took them months to mention to each other. I mentioned signs like animals including butterflies acting in odd ways. It was spring, a nice day, and she was sitting on a lawn chair on her driveway, watching her grown son mow her lawn while her granddaughter played nearby. There were some flowers blooming on the other side of the yard, but no butterflies in sight. Then, only a minute or two after I'd mentioned butterflies, the largest butterfly I've ever seen in my life landed on the driveway light on the front of the garage, directly over my neighbor's head. We both stared up at it after it landed, neither of us saying whether we thought it was a sign. We talked about different subjects for maybe fifteen minutes or so before I left. She was still sitting there, the butterfly still perched on that light above her. She'd looked up at it occasionally as we talked, and I thought I saw tears in her eyes once.

It could have been a coincidence, but it was one hell of a coincidence.

Not everyone gets signs, or recognizes them. But I've heard too many stories from people I know - all ages, all walks of life, all beliefs or lack of belief - to doubt them. Most people won't talk about them unless they have some confidence they won't be ridiculed for describing their personal experiences.