My friend TJ is a trained spiritual director who completed her Master of Spiritual Formation degree in May 2025. In addition, TJ is a facilitator with The Allender Center, where she was trained in Narrative Focused Trauma Care.
I am thrilled TJ is offering her skills of compassion, depth, vulnerability, and her desire for others to find beauty and abundance in this incredible way.
I asked her to share more about how spiritual direction can offer those wanting to connect more deeply with themselves and their spirituality.
“Spiritual direction offers intentional time and space to attend to the sacred and divine in one’s life.”
Spiritual direction offers intentional time and space to attend to the sacred and divine in one's life. Spiritual directors offer generous listening and a witnessing posture, joining the directee in attuning to the movements of the Divine (as defined by the directee) in their lives. While called “direction,” this process is non-directive and allows the person to freely explore the sacred movements in their life with the presence of a loving witness. My desire for people I walk with in spiritual direction is that they would continually find themselves feeling more loved and free - secure in their belovedness, and free to explore their spirituality.
Because spiritual directors are trained to be able to support directees from a variety of spiritual backgrounds, spiritual direction can be enjoyed by people of varying faith traditions or even people who aren't sure where they are spiritually. People who find themselves questioning the faith they grew up with, or just wanting to make it their own, often find spiritual direction to be supportive as they explore where they are.
Spiritual direction takes place in a format that is similar to therapy, usually in one-on-one sessions. However, spiritual directors do not diagnose or attempt to provide mental health guidance. Rather, they offer an intentional space to focus on the spiritual aspect of a person’s life. Sessions are centered on the sacred, and spiritual directors look to the “third chair” (the presence of the holy) as the primary actor in the relationship.
That being said, spiritual direction can be an excellent complement to therapy. Sometimes issues come up in one's life that hold a spiritual dimension that might benefit from more exploration than a therapeutic process can give. Spiritual direction can be a supportive place to explore those questions, while not interfering with the counselor/client relationship or that unique healing work.
The metaphor of “panning for gold” is a good one for the spiritual direction process. Often, a directee brings the facts and facets of their life that might be quite jumbled and look like nothing special on the surface. In direction space, a spiritual director sits with the directee as they “sift” those experiences, looking together for the gold - where the Divine shows up and is at work in places that maybe hadn't been seen before.
If you are interested in pursuing spiritual direction, you can contact TJ at www.tjpoon.com or Spiritual Directors International (SDI) maintains a directory of spiritual directors.
