If you’ve ever felt inadequate as a spiritual director, you’re not alone: imposter syndrome is a hallmark of our vocation.
We know it’s important to be humble - it is important for us as guides (aka people being guided by the Divine) to keep our egos in check. But strange as it may sound, inadequacy is really the ego working overtime.
Here are some of the building blocks of inadequacy:
A fear of looking foolish or unprofessional.
Worrying about our clients not liking us or seeing us as frauds.
Not feeling “spiritual enough” to be helping people in their spiritual lives.
Fearing we are cheating clients out of their good money or letting them down.
Sound familiar? I know I’ve felt all of them. And all of them are the ego being more concerned about how we look than how we help others.
Our moments of inadequacy place us on the edge of a cliff of sorts. We become like that young bird who is sure we will fall rather than fly.
The cliff of inadequacy is the cliff of appropriateness, fear of disapproval, thinking we don’t know enough, thinking there is a right way to do spiritual direction.
Staying on the cliff leads to a cautious, heady, dispassionate form of spiritual direction that leaves us and our clients feeling stale.
For much of my professional life I felt comfortably planted on this cliff of propriety. Don’t rock the boat. Be kind. Be nice. And what I learned what that this veneer of comfort put a lid on loves and strong feelings and instincts that were dying to get out.
The surprising antidote to inadequacy is risk. Jumping off the cliff. It’s leaping into is a trust that our inner impulses are guides from beyond. And this is where our work comes alive.
The Divine speaks to us through our loves, strong feelings, and instincts. This doesn’t mean we become reckless, but rather that we become wisely passionate. Opening the comfort lid opens us to the fertile regions within us that are full of energy and new life.
Here’s the thing - the Spirit is designed for flight. It’s light. It takes risks. It trusts there will be “wind beneath the wings” when we leap
Will you take the leap, jump from the confines of the cliff and let a new part of you soar? Can you imagine a bolder, more fun, more real version of yourself showing up in sessions?
Clients will be drawn to you not because of how you perform but because of who you are.
Spiritual direction will only matter to clients if it’s evident that it matters to you, if your soul is shining forth in it.
And I guarantee that the more of you is present is a session, the more clients will seek you out as someone who can help them fly, too.