I’ll begin with a few stories of my own spiritual direction. I encountered spiritual direction years ago when I took UU Wellspring, a year long spiritual deepening program for the first time. One of the layers of experience was to engage with a spiritual director. I had no idea what that was!
What I learned is that a spiritual director serves as a companion on your own spiritual journey. As I thought about my past spiritual journey that included religious experiences as well as mystical moments, I realized that this journey could both connect me to the great beyond and the divine as well as to help myself to better understand myself.
My first spiritual director was a person who was not trained, but had a wellness background. It was more of a mentoring relationship and once I realized I wanted to delve into the spiritual realm, I began working with a trained spiritual director. This director was also an author and only worked with people who were exploring their spirituality through the expressive arts. This was a great fit and when I needed to take a brief break, my spiritual director’s publishing took off and she was no longer meeting with directees!
I then decided to choose a spiritual director who was of another faith, mainly as part of my own training as a spiritual director. This was an interesting couple of years and my own translation of my faith to her and translating her faith to mine was very beneficial.
Eventually, I moved to a Unitarian Universalist Spiritual Director and this has been a great fit. Of course, as a spiritual director I will also remain in a peer supervision group with other spiritual directors for my own learning.
