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About Me
Spiritual Direction
The spiritual life is not a life of quiet withdrawal, a hothouse growth of artificial ascetic practices. It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop spiritual union with God.
Thomas Merton
- I received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Missouri Southern State University, a master’s in counseling from the University of Kansas, and a doctorate in counseling psychology from Indiana University. I received a professional ministry certificate in the Art of Spiritual Direction from Loyola Marymount University.
- For thirty years, I worked as a psychologist in Counseling and Psychological Services at California State University, Long Beach. For fifteen years, I served as director of a doctoral internship accredited by the American Psychological Association. For ten years, I taught graduate and undergraduate courses in counseling and human development. For several years, I served as faculty advisor of the LGBTQ Resource Center.
- I spent my youth in formation at the Sacred Heart House of Studies in Missouri, Holy Trinity Seminary in Texas, and the Pontifical College Josephinum in Ohio.
- I served as mentor, instructor, supervisor, and program manager in the Art of Spiritual Direction program with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange and the Center for Religion and Spirituality at Loyola Marymount University.
- I have been offering spiritual direction since 2009.
Do not think that saintliness comes from occupation; it depends rather on what one is. The kind of work we do does not make us holy, but we may make it holy.
Meister Eckhart
Spiritual Direction
Spiritual Direction
He or she is entirely alone who is without a friend. But what happiness, what security, what joy to have someone to whom you dare to speak on terms of equality as to another self; one to whom you can unblushingly make known what progress you have made in the spiritual life; one to whom you can entrust all the secrets of your heart and before whom you can place your plans.
Aelred of Rievaulx
- Spiritual direction is the relationship of accompanying others on their spiritual journeys. It is the contemplative practice of helping another person awaken to the mystery of God in all of life, and to respond to that discovery in a growing relationship of freedom and commitment. Spiritual direction explores a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human. It is helping others tell the sacred stories of their lives. It is conversations about life in the light of faith.
- Spiritual direction is a ministry deeply rooted in Christian tradition. We are called to greater awareness and response to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Spirit calls us to our deepest self, our True Self. The Spirit calls us to deepening levels of intimacy with God, with others, and with all creation.
- The spiritual director serves as a gentle guide, a fellow seeker, a listening companion to help you with the experience and expression of your faith, to discern movement, and to live in growing fidelity to God's mysterious call. The spiritual director helps you read God's presence and action in your life.
- Within a caring relationship, the spiritual director offers support and feedback. Through deep listening, powerful questions, and reflection on your thoughts and feeling, spiritual direction provides an opportunity to regularly reflect on life's events and circumstances from a spiritual perspective. This process helps you clarify, articulate, and affirm your spiritual experience revealed through the situations and events of your life.
- The Holy Spirit is the true Director. Direction comes from within you; from the movement of the Spirit within you. The person that tradition calls “spiritual director” assumes no superiority in faith because we are all equal before God. The spiritual director attempts to assume a humble, contemplative posture by accompanying you and witnessing God’s mysterious and loving presence in your life.
Topics / Sessions / Stipend
Whoever has God in mind, simply and solely God, in all things, such persons carry God with them in all their works and into all places, and God alone does all their works. They seek nothing but God; nothing seems good to them but God. They become one with God in every thought.
Meister Eckhart
Topics Discussed
- The focus of spiritual direction may be the interior journey to God or discernment about how best to serve God.
- There are several possible reasons for considering spiritual direction. These reasons include: feeling restless or challenged; being in transition; dealing with loss; needing to share one’s journey with another; feeling guilty about not living up to expectations; wondering about satisfaction in life; having unfamiliar spiritual experiences; desiring to receive and more fully respond to God’s love; exploring questions and decisions; yearning for God.
- Spiritual direction sessions may focus on what it means to be a child of God and follower of Christ; characteristics of prayer and relationship with God; feelings toward God; how Scripture speaks to you; your relationships with others; life in your faith community, home, and work.
- Anything that prompts you to listen to and consider God can become part of a spiritual direction conversation. Trying to put into words that which is beyond words helps you to recognize unnoticed aspects of your relationship with God. Spiritual direction is a way of supporting and encouraging the faith journey. The issues, questions, confusion, or sense of God’s grace that we speak about arise out of the context of all areas of life. No matter what comes up for discussion, we focus on how God is involved.
Sessions
- The session begins with a few minutes of centering silence. The spiritual director listens in a prayerful manner to your sharing about your life. The focus of the session is on growth in awareness of situations that have either helped or hindered your relationship with God as it is lived out in your everyday life and relationships. Openness, honesty, awareness, and affirmation of God’s mysterious presence in your life are emphasized. The presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit is what is most deeply sought in each session.
- Sessions are about 60 minutes long. Although the first few visits may occur more frequently, you will meet with your spiritual director about once a month.
Stipend
- Spiritual direction is a vocation, a calling and ministry within the Christian community. Time is given to study, to preparation, and to you. There are expenses acquired in offering this ministry. A certain level of training, experience, and expertise is provided. For each one-hour session, we will agree to a specific stipend to support this ministry. The stipend is payable at each session.
Spiritual Direction & Psychotherapy
In times of anxiety and suffering, God sometimes gives, in that deep place in the soul where human torments can no longer reach, movements of joy and an intense awareness of spiritual realities, so that one can return to life with its struggles and sorrows.
Elisabeth Leseur
- The goal of psychotherapy is resolving a crisis or problems in living. The purpose is to achieve a greater level of emotional, mental, and behavioral functioning. Typically, you meet with a therapist on a weekly basis for a few months.
- Spiritual direction is not about problem solving. It emphasizes your deepening relationship with the sacred dimension of your life. It assumes both a faith perspective and a fundamental desire for prayer and intimacy with God. In spiritual direction, faith and God are central to all topics discussed.
- Henri Nouwen tells us that if we raise only psychological questions, we will get only psychological answers—when our hearts need spiritual wisdom. Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.
- Spiritual direction and psychotherapy share common ground. The purpose of both disciplines is to enable you to live a more fully mature life. Spiritual direction integrates knowledge of human development and psychology with scripture, sacraments, theology, church tradition, and contemplative spiritual practice. Psychological knowledge and counseling skills are used as resources in accompanying souls on their journey.
- It is not unusual for God to speak to us and work in us through our psychological experience. Manifestations of grace can be truly present in our subjective psychology. A holistic approach to spiritual discernment emphasizes that the God whose guidance we seek is not distant but is in our midst. It is our job to become sensitive to the promptings of God who is everywhere to be found, in all aspects of our lives. Holistic discernment requires paying close attention to what goes on both in the external world and in our inner world of feelings and desires, thoughts and bodily sensations, dreams and fantasies, aspirations and fears.
- You may choose to participate in both spiritual direction and psychotherapy. These are pursued in different places. Your spiritual director and your psychotherapist will not be the same person. Your spiritual director may suggest that you seek psychotherapy in addition to spiritual direction, or that you need psychotherapy at this time rather than spiritual direction.
Ethical Standards
Ethical Standards
The false self, sensing its fundamental unreality, begins to clothe itself in myths and symbols of power. Since it intuits that it is but a shadow, that it is nothing, it begins to convince itself that it is what it does. Hence, the more it does, achieves and experiences, the more real it becomes.
James Finley
I have studied and abide by the Guidelines for Ethical Conduct of Spiritual Directors International.
Relationship
- I will take the lead in developing our agreement about the nature of spiritual direction; my role; the length and frequency of our sessions; any stipend; and the process for assessing your experience of the relationship.
- I will help you clarify your expectations for spiritual direction and when it may be time to end the relationship.
Dignity
- I will respect your values, conscience, spirituality, and theology. I ask probing questions about your motives, experiences, and relationships only as necessary and related to spirituality. I recognize a certain degree of imbalance of power in the spiritual direction relationship and am careful not to exploit that imbalance. I will establish and maintain respectful physical and psychological boundaries within our relationship.
Confidentiality
- I do not disclose to anyone that you have sought spiritual direction. I do not disclose the nature or content of our conversations to anyone. Exceptions to confidentiality include disclosure of suspected child abuse or elder abuse, and immediate threat of harm to self or others. In these situations, appropriate action to promote your safety or the safety of others must be taken.