FAQ #3: What do we Talk About in Spiritual Direction?
The conversation in your spiritual direction session is up to you. We talk about whatever it is that is on your heart, impacting your life, or keeping you stuck. You are on a path through life, and a spiritual director simply joins you on that path to listen, observe, and notice the landscape of your soul.
It is helpful to spend time prior to your meeting preparing your heart and mind for the conversation. If you keep a journal, this is a great time to go back over the past month and see what you encounter on those pages. What rises up as meaningful, or invitational, or something to explore further? Or you may just want to spend some quiet time and engage in some soul talk: How is it with my soul today? What is the desire of my heart? Have I noticed a nudging or recurring idea in my life? Where have I felt close to God, or distant? What have I been wondering about lately?
More specifically, your conversation may be derived from any one of the following:
The things you are pondering and wondering about your faith in the midst of your current circumstances.
A desire for spiritual growth and how to recognize it.
Discernment about your calling and how to live into it more fully.
Issues that keep coming up in certain environments, like boredom in your everyday work life, or how you experience your faith community.
Your prayer life, or your changing understanding about God.
Life transitions you are experiencing.
Letting go of past hurts and wondering what forgiveness really means.
When I first started meeting with a spiritual director, I went because I felt like I had shut down in a lot of areas of my life and felt “flat” emotionally. The conversation over the next couple of months helped me look more deeply at the reality of how God not only was present, but actually had been protecting and guarding my emotions through a trying season of life. This isn’t something my director told me, but something she helped me discover on my own. I often bring my work life to my director because it is one of the more challenging and formative aspects of my life, although I often don’t see it or hear it until I’ve begun to give expression to it in our session together.
The possibilities in “sacred conversations” are endless. As the scripture says, “God’s mercies are new every morning…” So why not search them out and talk about them. If you want to explore more about spiritual direction, set up a complementary session with me anytime via e-mail at marsha@marshacrockett.org. Or read more about the gifts of spiritual direction in my latest book, Sacred Conversation: Exploring the Seven Gifts of Spiritual Direction which you can read about and order here.
