Shame and the Spiritual Journey: Healing the Inner World with Compassion
Shame longs not to be fixed, but to be met. Many people come to the spiritual life carrying a quiet but persistent burden of shame — a quiet, corrosive sense that something is wrong with who they are. It may not always be named as such, yet it often shapes how a person prays, how they imagine God, and how safe or unsafe it feels to be truly known. Shame whispers: “I am not enough.” “I am fundamentally flawed.” “If I were truly known, I would be rejected.” Shame is not simply
Depth Spiritual Direction: Tending Soul and Spirit
A contemplative space where soul and spirit are held together, and deeper truth is allowed to emerge. Spiritual direction has always been concerned with the interior life — listening where soul and spirit meet — with how a person responds, over time, to the presence and movement of God. At its best, this ancient practice has never been limited to prayer techniques or spiritual discernment alone, but has attended to the whole terrain of human experience through which the spir
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.
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.
'The Treasures of Darkness'*: Working with the Shadow in Spiritual Direction
In spiritual direction, moments of crisis often bring people face to face with aspects of themselves they would rather not see. This reflection explores the place of the Shadow in the spiritual life, and why engaging honestly with what we repress or deny can become a vital part of spiritual growth and transformation. Drawing on Jungian psychology and long experience in spiritual direction, I reflect on how working with the Shadow can become a source not of shame, but of heali
Christian Meditation: Consent to the Presence of God
Christian meditation invites us into a way of prayer that is less about effort and more about consent — consenting to the presence of God already at work within us. Rather than striving to reach God, meditation gently disposes us to awaken to the divine life that is our very ground and source. Meditation as Receptivity In its broadest terms, we can think of Christian meditation as a way of calming our minds and hearts to offer the least resistance to the graced event of reali
Psychological Ways We Can Undermine Our Spiritual Transformation
On the spiritual path, we often assume that our deepest desire is for transformation — to become more open to God, more loving, more whole. Yet many people discover, sometimes with confusion or self-judgement, that alongside this longing there is also resistance. Change can feel unsettling, even threatening, to the familiar sense of who we are, and this tension is not a sign of spiritual failure but a deeply human reality. This reflection explores some of the psychological wa
Knowing God: Wholeness & Self-Knowledge
The spiritual journey has always been understood as a journey of transformation — not only of belief, but of the whole person. Across the Christian tradition, wisdom teachers have recognised that knowing God and knowing ourselves are inseparable movements of the same deepening process. This article reflects on how self-knowledge and wholeness belong at the heart of an authentic spiritual life. Wholeness, Self-Knowledge, and the Spiritual Life In our contemporary world, we und
What is Prayer? Why is it important in the Spiritual Life?
Prayer lies at the heart of the spiritual life, yet it is often misunderstood, reduced to technique, obligation, or belief. Beneath these layers, prayer speaks to something more fundamental — our human capacity to turn toward the mystery that gives rise to us, sustains us, and calls us into transformation. This reflection explores what prayer is, and why it remains essential if our spiritual life is to become lived and embodied rather than merely believed. Prayer as a Human I
