Compassionate listening leads to discerned action in response to your inner aliveness, and the movements of spirit that some name God.
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What shift do you desire? Are whispers of hope calling your name? Everyone has a sweet spot that can be the focus to disrupt, for maximum impact for growth and change. Can you identify your longing and desire for shift? Would your sweet spot be in a relationship, work life, prosperity, health and wellness, spirituality, legacy, finances, home life, creativity, or service? Start close in.
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Let go, embrace, chose. To maximize and experience the alchemy of growth and transformation, we need to clear dusty and outgrown beliefs, stories, energy, and yes … stuff.
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To grow the future, experience and give a gift, we start in the present. A pause, exhale, inhale.
We can open the present of grief, despair, delight, and anticipation. It’s helpful to understand the poem Mary Oliver wrote titled, “The Uses of Suffering”:
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem) / Someone I loved once gave me / a box full of darkness. / It took me years to understand / that this, too, was a gift.I honor your light and dark, your both-and.
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SEEK
Curiosity, tears, wrestling, and invitation guides our breath.
What makes you come alive?
Are you grieving or seeking healing and wholeness? More laughter, and spontaneity, and depth?
Is it time to discern a work transition? Move? Relationship? Inner prompting?
Where do you find meaning and significance? What excites you?
Do you wonder who God, the Spirit that animates life, the Sacred, a vital energy, or however you name it—or don’t—is?
Do you have a prayer, meditation, or mindfulness practice? Do you want to learn to meditate or pray?
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LISTEN
Everyone lives a unique, distinct, and irreplaceable story.
Do you have a contemplative practice? Where do you seek silence, stillness, a pause?
How is your life showing up? What keeps you awake at night, or tugs at your mind or heart?
Would a soul friend with presence and insight assist you to be brave and hopeful, and through listening, be a mirror so you can discover what you did not realize you already knew?
Can you hear the whispers of your emerging sacred life story?
What are you most grateful for, least grateful for?
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ENGAGE
Your
“I can.” “I will.” “I am.”
”Yes.” and “No.” matter.Are you living with a clear mind, generous heart, and discerned action?
Does your brilliance have space to show up each day?
(Yes, you have your own superpower brand of brilliance!)Where can you engage and volunteer your service to others?
Be generous.
What is it time to let go of, embrace and move towards?
Are you living from your center, bringing delight and love to those in your life?
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FLOW
Cultivating your life vitality gifts yourself, and everyone you encounter.
What’s on your mind and heart today?
Can you tune into your body and feel your stuckness and vitality?
Can you trust your intuition and the synchronicities that show up?
Do you live from a space of essence and vitality (at least most of the time)?
Does your rhythm of life support your deepest longings and the ways life is speaking in this time?
Do radical presence, opportunity, and meaningful moments guide your time?
Soul Care
through Spiritual Companionship
Within every person or group there is an energy or spirit at work that vitalizes, is flat, or drains. Spiritual direction or soul care tends to the movement of this spirit.
A relationship of care and accompaniment, spiritual direction, guidance, companionship, or friendship helps someone to recognize the Spirit of God alive in the now and here of living–the present moment–even if God is rarely named. Soul care helps people attune to significance, meaning, and possibility. A dedicated relationship for spiritual companionship offers the potential for healing and transformation in order to live a vibrant life of integrity, dignity, and transparency.
Spiritual direction or guidance is an ancient practice that continues to evolve and can take place individually or in a small group. I refer to it as soul care and appreciate the Celtic name anam cara or soul-friend. Generally, a person meets with a spiritual guide once a month, for approximately an hour. Group spiritual guidance is usually about two hours. In contrast, 1-1 or group coaching can be weekly or scheduled more often. A spiritual direction relationship can last for months or years.
You may hear terms like spiritual guide, companion, friend, director, anam cara, mashpaiâ, hashpa’ah, murshid or others to describe this distinct relationship.
Pegge received her training and certification in Denver, Colorado, in 1996-1997, and then taught in the spiritual direction formation program, now called Formation in Soul Care program. In 2004 she began working with Spiritual Directors International in a variety of capacities, was the founding editor of Listen: A Seeker’s Resource for Spiritual Direction for ten years, and for 18 years has served as the media review editor for Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Companionship.
In 2024, I am delighted to once again dedicate time to accompany seekers 1-1, and in groups, both in person, and via phone or video.
Spiritual direction is not intended to be or to replace professional counseling or psychotherapy
anam cara
Do you seek a soul friend?
“In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. … the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the “soul friend.” In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam cara. … In everyone's life, there is great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are with-out mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging.” ― John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Is it time to hibernate, or to explore what you will do with your
one wild and magnificent life? Both are necessary and valuable,
and can happen simultaneously!
#OpenThePresent