SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

Spiritual Direction is the art of listening to the other as they become aware of their innermost self and the presence of God in their everyday lives. Another way to phrase spiritual direction is soul companioning.

In spiritual direction sessions you can expect to be listened to without projection from your director, discuss any topic most pressing to your soul, and pause in silence. The purpose of spiritual direction is to provide a contemplative space for you to have the freedom to process through any current hopes, fears and questions.

Spiritual directors do not attend to their own biases, judgements, or feelings, and they will also not try to fix you or solve your problems. Their integrity is to hold a posture of welcoming by maintaining trustworthy boundaries and providing a non-judgmental space. They are committed to spiritual practices and are often participants of spiritual direction themselves.

INterested in Hiking spiritual direction session?

  • Sessions with me as I earn my Spiritual Direction Certification

  • January-July 2024

  • Six sessions

  • In Portland Metro area

  • Evening and weekend availability only

  • Free of charge!

  • “Listening is an act of love. As we listen to another’s story, our role is not to interpret the meaning of how God is at work in another’s life. Rather, we strive to listen for the sacred currents beneath the stream of the person’s life.”

    Conversation—The Sacred Art by Diane M. Millis, PhD

  • “That’s what can happen when a spiritual guide creates a safe space for someone to be vulnerable. It’s the wonder of helping someone discover the difference between the God of their experience and the God someone else told them to believe in.”

    Spiritual Direction 101, Teresa Blythe

  • “People of color, especially First Nations people and those of African descent, are still in need of this self-love—both individual and communal—that reminds them of their origins, that they are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of that which some call God. This is our liberation. It must be internal before it can ever manifest externally. Spiritual directors sitting with people of color must encourage self-love in their directees, who often come burdened by life and caring more for others than themselves.”

    Kaleidoscope, “Internal Liberation,” by Therese Taylor-Stinson and Paula Owens Parker”

  • "Discovering spiritual direction is simple—but in an amazingly countercultural and counterintuitive way. It is about heeding the Holy Spirit. Learning to follow the divine compass means stopping and paying attention instead of looking for a magical map with the shortest route highlighted in yellow.”

    Sacred Compass by J. Brent Bill

  • “My listening is different from that of many professional listeners, in that I listen for how the holy penetrates lives. I am there to help people discover the ways their lives are imbued with spirituality. This is spiritual direction.”

    Candlelight by Susan S. Phillips

  • “More accurately, spiritual direction could be defined as taking place when one person (the director) prayerfully supports and encourages another person (the directee) to attend and respond to God. As a fellow pilgrim, the spiritual director accompanies the directee on this journey of faith. The real ‘director’ is God the Holy Spirit, who initiates and inspires the directee’s deepening relationship with the Trinity, with his or her own self, with other people, and with the realities of life in the global village of the twenty-first-century.”

    Spiritual Direction: A Practical Introduction by Sue Pickering