Jeanie with the Cool Glasses

I attended a counseling conference this week at the invitation of my friend, Jeanie. Jeanie and I have much in common but our most exciting commonality is our passion for helping people move toward healing and wholeness. It floats our boats, charges our batteries, and blows our dresses up. Jeanie is an excellent counselor and she has walked me through many trying times in my life. Let's just say if she were charging me by the hour then I would have to ask the government for some of that financial bailout money.

At this conference I was able to find sessions where counseling and spirituality were linked. Interestingly enough, the speakers of these sessions spoke from the premise that you cannot separate counseling the person from their spiritual/religious stance. The emotional, psychological and spiritual are intertwined and getting to the root of an issue can often lie in the spiritual/religious realm. Of course, I was very excited to see a secular conference acknowledge the connection in their effort to move people toward psychological health.

I was able to attend sessions such as "Using Biblical Principles to Move Clients from Fear to Forgiveness", "Empowering Clients by Using Spirituality in Counseling", "Counseling Issues with Clients from Mainline Christian Denominations", and "Wired for Joy or Wired for Stress." Of course, I am not a counselor nor would I ever pretend to be. But I have been trained in Spiritual Direction and this renewed my passion for coming alongside people on their own spiritual journey.

I have three main reasons for my passion for Spiritual Direction. First, this is what I am gifted to do. I am a listener, an empathizer, and I love to see people move toward wholeness. I have my own life experiences with depression and loss so I know the struggle of moving from the pit to standing on my own two feet. Of course, I am still moving toward wholeness and I have far to go. I believe my woundedness is the gift that I bring to others. Second, I have worked as an Adult Discipleship Coordinator in a local church. I spent much time finding and developing programs to help people in the area of spiritual transformation. Of course, some of it was very helpful to others as well as myself. I don't totally discount programming. At the same time, I firmly believe that transformation cannot be programmed. I don't believe that Bible knowledge or reading a Christian book generally changes a person. I have seen people who know much about the Bible show the least love to others and there have been times that I can include myself in the category. I do believe that Spiritual Direction forces you to identify where you are with God and what is happening in your spiritual life right now. The goal of Spiritual Direction is to help you identify the desires of your heart and to do the work that helps you move toward those goals. Spiritual Direction is about your spiritual ideology, not mine. I am there to keep the focus on that point that the Holy Spirit is moving you toward. My job is to help you find answers to questions by drawing those answers from you. You are the only one who truly knows the answers and I dance the dance of listening and asking questions and then stepping out of the way of what is happening between you and God. This is truly spiritual transforming work because you are no longer in the knowledge realm but facing the reality of where you are spiritually and how it plays out in your life. It is the joy of being actively involved with your God in the healthiest way possible. The third reason I am passionate about Spiritual Direction is because I have been on a church staff and I have been in that place where I needed a truly safe and confidential place. The reality is that this place is very difficult to find in your own church. So my heart goes out to all the people on a church staff from the custodian to the pastor(s). Most church staffs consist of wonderful people trying to do an impossible job. Their need for support is immense and absolutely necessary. I know Spiritual Direction can be that place that recharges their batteries and helps them to return to an impossible task. Of course, you don't have to be on a church staff to need Spiritual Direction. Anyone can need it at any point in their life.

I am grateful to Jeanie for asking me to go with her. I just hope I have the energy and courage to pound the pavement to make myself available as a Spiritual Director. Just email me if you are interested, what to know more, or know of someone who might be interested. And if it's counseling that you need then I'll just refer you to my friend, Jeanie.

On-line Counseling

Thank you for your patience while I have my own on-line counseling session here. Yesterday I added a "My Type" application on my Facebook page and took the temperament test again. The first time I took it many years ago I was an INFP but the last two times I have taken it over the years I have moved more toward an INFJ. I thought I was always more of a J because I remember going to stores as a child with my mom and straightening up shelves while she shopped.

Interestingly enough, after reading this description of an INFJ I realized that I don't need to be blamed for anything - it is just my nature to do that before anyone else does it to me. This is the part of the description that explains that:

INFJs, when scorned, take it personally and retreat inward. They may obsess about the relationship and their role in its failure. One INFJ explained, 'people can do the most outrageous things, yet I blame myself for triggering their behaviour or not recognizing it. I see myself as responsible for relationships. Other people can dismiss them --- I'm not able to.' INFJs may blame themselves and experience a period of mourning. If they do not marshall their resources, externalized their feelings, and take risks to move on, they may experience a long periods of self-examination.

That explains why blaming me and not unpacking the problem together is so devastating to me or any INFJ. I am in mourning - but, hopefully, this reminder will help me not get stalled out here. I took a risk and co-led a staff retreat for St. Raphael Social Services where my sister is an outreach nurse. I thought about backing out of it many times but it felt good to be in front of people again, especially reminding these wonderful people that they are picking up the "servant towel" every day and their lives will be blessed for answering their calling.