What is Spiritual Direction?
There are a number of models of Spiritual Direction and because I am qualified to practice Contemplative Spiritual Direction that is what is described below.
Spiritual Direction is an ancient practice of spiritual accompaniment, and it takes place when one person (the Director) prayerfully supports and encourages another person (the Directee) to attend to and respond to God. It is a relationship, involving prayer, dialogue and discernment, whose focus is on helping the Directee to cultivate a deeper personal relationship with God. It aims to enable the Directee to pay attention to God’s personal communication with them, respond to this personal communication, grow in intimacy with God and live out the consequences of this ever deepening personal relationship as their spirits are formed by Him.
Such exploration in our spiritual lives almost inevitably will lead us in to healing, growth and transformation, in the service of fullness of life and wholeness, and greater reverence, praise and service of God.
What is a Spiritual Director?
A Spiritual Director is someone who has sensed a calling from God to accompany people on their spiritual journey, helping them to discern the spiritual movements of God in the whole of their lives. In this way they differ from counsellors/ psychotherapists who are essentially concerned with listening for the movements and patterns of the person’s emotional and psychological life.
A Spiritual Director will be a person of prayer, often with extensive experience of life in general and of life with God in particular. As part of their training they will likely have undergone a period of intensive spiritual formation and should still be receiving their own Spiritual Direction and growing in their contemplative lives and in their relationship with God, themselves and neighbour.
A Spiritual Director knows that God is the true Spiritual Director and will walk alongside their Directee seeking to discern His fingerprints in their Directees lives so that their Directee might come to increasingly notice for themselves where God is present and active already in their life and where He may be inviting them in the future.
What happens in a Spiritual Direction session?
Most Spiritual Direction sessions involve a one-to-one meet-up either in a Directors home or office or, most often nowadays, online. Most sessions are monthly and are an hour long and begin with a time of silence and stillness, before any conversation begins. The conversation is different from what is usual in day to day life, being much slower and more contemplative, with time for reflection, silence and prayer.
A Spiritual Director won’t direct the content of the conversation but will help direct the flow of it as the Spirit leads. They may also introduce into the sessions spiritual practices and ideas that may be helpful for their Directees spiritual formation.