We know to follow our clients, but we need to lead as well.
The words “spiritual director” and “leader” have seldom entered the same sentence, unless they are framed as opposites. As I see it, the ability to lead a client and the ability to follow a client are two different but interrelated skills.
When we exercise skillful leadership, we follow our clients into a process that is deep and transformative.
What does it mean to lead our clients? This leadership has an internal and external form. The internal form of leading as a spiritual director begins with noticing and following our own internal impulses.
This is not as easy as it sounds. It’s the subtle work of
Listening intently
Trusting our hunches, and then
Engaging the client with attuned and lively comments and questions
When we following our internal guidance we come into a certain strength as a spiritual guide. It leads us to lead, but we do so only in ways that are serving the client. I think of this strength as unleashing our sass, a strange word but one that is both playful and edgy. (For more on this check out my video: The Power of Sass in Spiritual Direction.)
The external form of leadership has more to do with what I think of as structural matters (check out my video about creating structures within your spiritual direction practice). Given attention to how we create structure within a session is an import way that we provide leadership. For example,
We create a safe container
We clarify our role
We honor boundaries, and
We have a clear sense for how we structure our client sessions
When we combine these internal and external forms of leadership, we set the table to following clients into their deep issues and knowing.
Our following needs to have depth to it.
Many spiritual direction sessions are flat and feel low in energy because we follow clients superficially. This may mean we stay on topics that don’t have any deeper 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 surface conversation is fine. Too much of it is suppresses the deeper movements of soul and Spirit. It becomes a kind of counterfeit spiritual work that quickly runs out of steam and vitality. When I observe this pattern in myself or in others, we are suffering from spiritual direction work that has forgotten the Spirit. (Here’s my video about giving the voice of the Spirit the amplification it deserves.)
When this kind following becomes a pattern, we close the door to our hunches and to higher guidance. And then, spiritual direction becomes a chore.
When we balance leading and following, sessions have a mystical quality to them.
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 active 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 clients 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. We therefor follow them into a new way of leading their lives.
And the bonus is that when we follow clients in this way, they lead us, deeper into our own aliveness. Can it get any better than this?!