We tend to follow clients, but we need to lead as well.
The ability to lead and the ability to follow a client are two different but interrelated skills. When we balance these abilities well, we follow our clients into a process that is deep and transformative.
Our leading as a spiritual director with following our internal impulses. It’s the subtle work of listening intently, trusting our hunches, and engaging the client with attuned and lively comments and questions. Leading also happens on a structural level (see my video on this topic). That is, we create a safe container, we clarify our role, we honor boundaries, and we have a clear structure for our sessions. Leading in these ways is essential for effective spiritual direction.
Our following needs to have depth to it.
Many spiritual direction sessions are flat and have a low energy because we follow clients superficially. This may mean, we stay on topics that don’t have any significance. We follow clients on their vacations, their descriptions of work or family, we talk about the weather or music or sports. Some of this is fine. Too much is deadly.
Paradoxically, we also can follow our own egos in a way that keeps conversations shallow. This happens when we get hooked by something: we want them like us, we want to change them, we disconnect in some way and they take over the energy of the session, or we fall into any of a number of forms of reactivity. When this kind following becomes a pattern, we close the door to our hunches and to higher guidance. And, spiritual direction becomes a chore.
The deeper way to follow has a mystical quality to it.
The deep process emerges out of attunement with the client. There is a sense in which our two separate beings come together in a coherent field of awareness. There is a shared Presence that emerges for both of us that is mentally, emotionally, and intuitively connected. From this place, the spiritual guide is following the deeper knowing of the client, and relying on their soul as the true guide.
This kind of Presence and connection may seem far off, but I think it happens more than we realize. I think we drop in and out of these moments. And here’s the key:
The more we cultivate our own practice of Presence, and work with clients to do the same in and out of our sessions, the more we experience this empowering connection. The more we are intentional about and look for these moments, the more depth we will experience in our spiritual direction work.
When we are in this deep following mode, we are tapped into a client’s highest possibilities.
From this place, we perceive a potential in them that they have forgotten or never seen. We work to unblock these possibilities, and we help clients give voice to the wild and creative possibilities that are waiting to be birthed in them.
In this coherent connection, we are creating the space for the client’s higher knowing to enliven them.
And the bonus is that when we follow these clients, they lead us deeper into our own aliveness. Can it get any better than this!