The impression placed upon me , when I asked in meditation about this.
Our Guides can in some cases have been close bonds of friendship or family in previous corporeal wanderings of the material plane, and of course future lives. Time being as it is an entirely human concept of measurement.
Our Guides are involved in their own journey of development through being guides and we play an important role in their progress.
So a symbiotic relationship is indicated here, Guides need us as much as we need them possibly. further we me conjoined, though I have heard of Guides changing.
We play leap frog sometimes carnate , sometimes guides, sometimes guides and carnate at the same time.
One popular view of Guides being that they are higher/inner self.
I don't know if you remember a TV show called Joe 90 from years ago, but the trick of it was to download required information for a mission from a huge library(I reckon a metaphor for the Light Library or indeed Akashic record) into ones brain.
It is a interesting thought to ponder that your guides may be aspects of yourself, In D.N.A. Genetic, Sub molecular level..Though to be fair , on a sub molecular level you are quiet possibly at one with all that is (Quantum Physics not being my strong suit).
I am usually quit happy to suppose that Guides are aspects of us as individuals, so it's fair to suppose you will get to meet this aspect o0f yourself whenever you call upon it in daily life.
I understand that my answer was a total mess and I apologize for that..but in there somewhere is the tiniest grain of what it is .