Connecting to guides, angels, and your Higher Self is easy depending on which method you use. I'll give you some methods I've learned and how to use them. To connect more easily, just take a few minutes to clear your mind from that chatter that's always there and set your attention to communicate to your angels, guides, etc.
Before I start, I just wanna say that your angels, guides, power animals, etc. are
always around you and watching you. You can just request their full attention ether mentally or verbally by just saying something like "I ask that my angels/guides come to me now." However, your Higher Self is at a MUCH higher frequency/vibration than you, so you can ether meditate and raise your vibration to try to meet it half way, or you can go the easy way and just say, "Higher Self, come down to me!" When I do that, I instantly hear my Higher Self's voice in my head saying, "yes?"
Physical Method:
The physical method can be dangerous, and you need protection before you begin. If there's a spirit wandering around, looking for some fun, it might come along and mess with the answers or replies you get to fool you. This could just be a playful, benevolent spirit, a spirit who wants to cause mischief, or something more sinister. So always ask for protection, invoke the white light all around you, cast a circle if you want, whatever.
With a pendulum:
Hold a pendulum a foot or so away from you with two or three fingers. Go ahead and calibrate it now (ask for yes, no, and need more information answers). Call your contact, then start asking yes/no questions. Or you can grab a piece of paper and draw out the alphabet and the pendulum will swing and spell out words, but that's quite difficult for me.
With dowsing rods:
Hold the rods horizontally and calibrate it. Basically the same as the pendulum.
Table tipping:
I'm still looking into this form.
Obviously, you can use tarot, runes, dice, and other forms of divination.
Meditation Method:
Most of us know that meditation is important, and that it is also a way to contact the Otherside. This includes our angels and guides. Just get into a very relaxed state and control your thoughts so that they disappear (if possible). Once you have reached this state, mentally go out to the forest, the beach, a garden, or wherever you feel most comfortable. Then request that your contact come to this place. You may find a human, an animal, a being of light, or something that looks like an elemental. If this doesn't happen, make one, then treat it as if it is your contact. The link will be made.
Mental Method:
You don't have to be in a meditative state for this method, and it may seem strange at first too. But for this one, you want to mentally call your contact, then speak to them ether mentally or verbally and wait for a mental reply. At first it may seem like yourself, and for a time it may be! But as you go along in the conversation, you'll find that the replies start to sound like things you wouldn't say, and you may find answers that you couldn't know. This is actually telepathic communication between you and your contact.
Dream Method:
This is one I've yet to achieve. While you're in bed going to sleep, call your contact and tell them that you would like to speak in your dream and to remember it when you wake up. You may have to say this many times or just once, but the theory goes that your contact will appear in your dream and speak with you. You may wish to ask that you become lucid in this dream (or aware that you're dreaming).
Hope this helps! If you have any questions, you can ether reply or PM me and I'll try to answer them if I can.
Love and light!
-Wes