The spiritual director’s role is helping clients become more selfish, spiritual, and sensational.
Woah - selfish? Yep, you read that right. Becoming selfish is one of the most heretical and important steps anyone takes. How can this be?
Here’s the twist: The selfishness I’m pointing to is that capacity to look within and figure out what really matters to a person. This step requires the difficult, transformative shift of unplugging from the beliefs and perspectives of others.
After getting her psychology major in college, Client Emily spent 25 years raising children. Once they “left the nest”, she felt a huge, scary void. It was really hard for her to be selfish - to make her self and her dreams primary. We repeatedly explored what her heart and soul desired. The explorations led her back to school, and now she’s a school counselor.
Once clients discover what matters, and what’s most true for them, they are powerfully equipped to live authentically. And paradoxically, it is out of our authenticity that we are best able to serve others: Authentic people have more of themselves to give. I think of this as “holy narcissism” - more on that below.
The question that invites clients into this aspiration is: “What do I really want?”
Next we have becoming Spiritual. This is about learning to live with an awareness that we are Spirit. When we help clients realize they are Spirit, their inner world becomes more dynamic, and their outer world expands. If we compare ourselves to plants, Spirit is water, and we need to be watered. We need inspiration to live vitally.
Client Joel, who was embarking on a new business, had a disturbing dream about dying in a house fire. When he reframed the dream as the burning off of his old life, and the entering into a new identity in the world, his inner experience shifted from fear to excitement. This dream became the water that inspired his Spirit.
When clients are able to intentionally claim their spiritual nature, they plug themselves into an amazing power grid of purpose. They open to a guidance that is transformative.
The question that moves clients toward this aspiration is: “What is the Divine calling me to be and do?”
Finally, we have becoming sensational. This is actually is a two-part aspiration, given that this word can have two distinct meanings.
In the first sense, becoming sensational is about helping clients tune into their bodies, in order to tune into the deepest level of their physical, mental, and spiritual sensations. Each one of these subtle channels is an source of soul-information. The inner and the outer world become more magical through these sensations. Such sensations are filled with guidance and wisdom.
The question leading clients to this aspiration is: “What am I sensing, feeling and intuiting?”
The second way of becoming sensational is helping clients own the ways in which they are brilliant.
Again, this has often been considered heretical in our society. Claiming our brilliance is an act of “holy narcissism.” It calls forth courage, optimism, untapped potentials, and new possibilities into our lives. It’s the opposite of being a victim. It grows out of the awareness that I can choose to create a new and dynamic life.
The question that opens clients to this aspiration is: “What do I love to do that uniquely serves others?”
By becoming more selfish, spiritual, and sensational, our clients become more alive.
And the purpose of this aliveness is not just to feel good. Aliveness is contagious, and this aliveness is further activated when it is shared with the people closest to us, with our community, and with our planet.
One of my favorite Howard Thurman quotes captures these invitations to become selfish, spiritual, and sensational:
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”