Jungian Psychology and Spiritual Direction
Jungian spiritual direction aims to help individuals deepen their connection with their inner selves and the divine by exploring the unconscious and embracing the wholeness of their psyche (soul).
Practicing G.R.A.C.E. in Spiritual Direction
G.R.A.C.E. can be an active and adaptive process not only in the spiritual accompaniment encounter but in the context of our whole lived experience, and a powerful resource for us, not just a technique. When we live it, it can become a way in which we align ourselves with our integrity, values and deep aspiration to be of service to others in our life with God.
Growing Up and Waking Up: Psychology and the Spiritual Life
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.
Spiritual Bypassing: Discernment, Healing, and the Holding Presence of God
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.
Temenos: The Sacred Space of Spiritual Direction
When applied to spiritual direction, the ancient concept of temenos particularly offers a revealing and helpful metaphor for the sacred relational field that takes place between director and directee.
Psychologising our Spirituality: Depth, Soul, and the Loss of Mystery
I have had cause to reflect recently on looking the other way down the lens of this dialogue between our psychology and spirituality, to reflect on a relatively new 20th - 21st century phenomenon of how we can also unhelpfully reduce our spirituality to our psychology. We now live in a very 'psychologised' world where this paradigm can too dominate our perspective.
Letting Go of Toxic God-Images
Our Images of God Are Formed Early Spiritual direction conversations often touch on the process of uncovering and letting go of toxic images of God that have been absorbed during life, often in childhood. In an earlier article, The Spiritual Life & Our Images of God , I explore how these images are formed and the influences that shape them. Our images of God are not the same as our ideas or beliefs about God. Rather, they are emotionally charged inner representations — proj
A Soft Heart: Vulnerability and the Spiritual Journey
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 Spiritual Journey of Descent
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.
Justice in the Eyes of Compassion: Seeing the Other Without Possession
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.
