Articles on Spiritual Direction, Psychospirituality & the Inner Life | Spiritual-Life

Welcome to Reflections on the Spiritual Life

Here you will find articles on spiritual direction, psychology and spirituality, contemplative practice, and the deeper movements of the spiritual life. Drawing on decades of experience in psychospiritual work and spiritual accompaniment, these reflections explore themes such as shadow material, struggles in spiritual practice, images of God, dreamwork, and the emotional dynamics that shape the spiritual journey.

Whether you are seeking support in your own inner life or resources for spiritual direction practice,

I hope these writings offer clarity, depth, and encouragement.

Dreamcatcher with feathers hangs in a serene, earthy field. Background features tall grass and small flowers against a soft, pink sky.

Working with our Dreams in the Spiritual Life Part III

Dreams often linger with us long after we have woken, carrying questions, images, or emotions that do not easily resolve. In this final article in the series, I turn toward how we might respond to what a dream reveals and allow it to shape us over time. Responding to the Dream When a dream has been lived with prayerfully — recorded, explored, and allowed to speak — we often arrive at a quiet sense that something has been revealed. This knowing is rarely dramatic. More often

Silhouette of a reflective woman with an inner landscape of trees, a path, sun, and cross appear in soft green and yellow tones, creating a serene mood of someone engaging their inner world through guided imagery.

Guided Imagery in Spiritual Direction: Recovering a Creative, Ancient Practice

Across religious and psychological traditions, images have long been recognized as carriers of truth, insight, and transformation. Yet in much contemporary spiritual accompaniment the imaginal dimension—once central to Christian prayer and discernment—has often been sidelined or treated with caution. A rediscovery of guided imagery opens a creative and deeply rooted way of engaging the soul, a way that resonates with the ancient Christian imagination as well as with modern de

Image of God as an elderly man with long beard gazes down at a dove with outstretched wings. Warm yellow and red tones create a serene atmosphere.

Our Changing Images of God: A Jungian Perspective

The ways in which human beings imagine God are never static. They shift over centuries, reflecting not only theological debates but also profound transformations in human consciousness, culture, and as I have shown in previous articles, our psychology - each shift revealing something about the inner landscape of the human soul. Carl Jung invites us to read this unfolding not as doctrinal confusion but as psychological evolution. The God-image changes because we change, it evo

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).

Colorful stones with "Grace" engraved on a tan rock. The vibrant mix includes blue, pink, and green stones in a harmonious arrangement.

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.

A dew-covered leaf drips water into a tranquil pool, creating ripples. The background is a soft green and blue bokeh, evoking calm and freshness, the life of both growing up and waking up.

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.

Frost-covered yellow flower close-up, with ice crystals on petals and stem. Soft green background creates a serene, cold mood depicting how we can cover over our inner reality.

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.

Watercolor painting of a garden with a central fountain, surrounded by colorful flowers and palm trees, representing the temenos of the inner garden. A enclosing wall and door in are in the foreground

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.

A dancer moves gracefully in a flowing dress against a textured background of blue and gold patterns, creating a sense of fluid motion and elegance as in the dance between our psychology and spirituality.

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.

A god-like figure with white hair and beard wears a red robe, standing frighteningly among clouds with light beams, conveying a powerful presence depicting the scary image we often have deep inside from childhood of God as the distant sky-god.

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

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