The invitation is to weave these two journeys together. Growing up helps bring tenderness to my own humanity, while waking up reminds me that my identity is larger than the struggles I face. Together, they invite a way of being that is both deeply human and gently transcendent.

When our spiritual practice is not integrated with our psychological material, it can lead to shadow problems. We split ourselves in an unhelpful way that is not true to any path of wholeness or spiritual transformation.

Spiritual direction conversations often touch into the area of uncovering and letting go of toxic images of God imbibed during life, often in childhood. In my earlier article on 'The Spiritual Life & Our Images of God' I talk through how these images are crafted in our life and the general influences and factors behind their development within us. I also discuss how our images are not the same as our ideas about God. Rather they are projections onto the Holy which may or may

In the Christian tradition, the Book of Proverbs describes our heart as 'the wellspring of life', conjuring up in our imaginations the beautiful image from the Song of Songs of our soul, our spiritual being, as an enclosed fragrant garden with the Fountain of Life at its centre, and where the Wind blows over the flowers releasing and spreading their exotic scents into the world. But, I know from my own path and from those I am privileged to accompany as a spiritual director ,

The journey of descent often begins being triggered by an event in life - an inner event or process of the outside world such as job loss, the loss of a relationship, grief or trauma; a crisis that shakes the familiar ground of our ego's reality. As this ground of our ego's sense of self and reality is shaken, we find things begin to fall apart, challenging what we thought of as our sense of reality about ourselves.

Ancient stone carving with ornate cross design, covered in orange lichen. Set against a textured stone wall. Mysterious, ancient vibe suggesting the mystery of the compassion of Christ.

Here is a copy of the recent article I authored for a special Spiritual Direction themed edition of the Franciscan magazine published by the Society of St Francis, UK, January 2022. It is part of a series of articles I have now written on the S hadow and the spiritual life . Over many years of working as a spiritual director, I have found people come to me, some in Christian leadership, in times of crisis in their lives - relationship issues, anger, hidden addictions, extram

Following my earlier article looking at how to work with our dreams, detailing the initial stages of recording all the detail of the dream and then building up all your associations with the dream symbols, we now move on to the later stages, towards understanding any meaning the dream has to convey to us. 3. Dialogue with your dream There are many creative ways we can prayerfully dialogue with our dreams to help unlock their meaning. The important thing to always bear in mi

Modern society has lost the power of symbolic life, though we have not escaped our need of it. A symbol is a term, a name, or an image that in itself may be familiar to us but which through its connotation and application also points to hidden, vague or unknown meanings. For example, the image of the cross. For Christians a cross means much more than the intersection of two lines. It has wider unconscious aspects, qualities than can never be precisely defined or fully expla

In the Christian tradition, many people are becoming more interested again in working with their dreams, recognising some intuitive value and wisdom in them that needs to be listened to. However, most of us these days don't have a clue where to start to begin to try and work with our own dreams. They contain a language of symbolism that is alien to our modern Western mindset. On top of that, as each dream communicates information that is not consciously known by the dreamer,