Some years ago, I met with “Phil” for spiritual direction.
He was a pastor, and very smart guy (he had a PhD). As he told his story it was clear he had a deep spiritual life. If you could hear the thoughts spinning through my head, you would have heard a panicky voice say: “This guy is out of my league! What do I have to offer him! What should I say?”
The task of joining someone in their spiritual struggles and questions, and then guiding them through a life-giving process, is remarkable work. And, it is very difficult to do well.
Like simultaneously riding a bike, patting our stomach, and drawing a figure eight with our toes, it takes the coordination of many skills: listening, intuiting, asking questions, framing responses, while accessing knowledge of spirituality and psychology.
To say the obvious, it takes a unique and sophisticated skill set to join and guide others spirituality.
And if that weren’t challenging enough, to be highly effective at this work, we have to leave our skill set behind, and go to another level.
The #1 misconception about spiritual guidance work is that our skills are the differentiator between what is effective and not-so-effective. The lie is that it is our intelligence or expertise that will make the difference.
Here’s the higher-level truth: heart-knowing trumps intelligence and spiritual direction skills.
Being transcends doing in the work of spiritual guidance.
Intelligence, skills, and doing are foundational for creating a safe and open channel with clients. However, they are not enough - they don’t have that something extra that leads to a transformative encounter.
Our heart and our being are the channels through which higher wisdom travels, and through which we connect deeply to the hearts and beings of others.
After some moments of detouring into panic with Phil, after moments of reaching into my bag of skills and finding it empty, I reached into my shaken being and said to him: “I’m so impressed with what you know and your spirituality. And, frankly, I’m at a loss for how I can be helpful to you.”
I spoke from my heart. We sat in that kind of silence that is half awkward and half profound.
And then I noticed his chin starting to quiver. Puddles formed in his eyes. Into that silence he poured the pain of hating his job, and of not knowing what he believed anymore.
This was something we could work with. The doorway for this deeper connection was my vulnerability rather than my skillful technique.
Listening to your heart, trusting your gut, going with a hunch, these are ways that your being guides you. In this space your wounds and vulnerabilities matter more than anything you can read in a book.
And each of these - heart, gut, hunch, wound, vulnerability - is a pathway through which the Spirit works to touch into the tender places of your client.
There is so much fertile ground that lives and longs beneath the intelligence of a client like Phil. And that same fertile ground lives beneath the surface layers in all of our clients. If we follow our hearts, they will lead us into the fertile deep.
As I have shared before, I have a video that invites us to FIND OUR SASS as spiritual guides. It’s another way of talking about doing this work from our soul rather than our role. Check it out, and please subscribe to my channel! Thanks!