Spiritual Direction in Daily Life
“At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening.”
- Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone To Talk
Ever Emerging
Sometimes it can help to stop, sit, and listen to particular areas of your life to sense (or grapple with) what is emerging or trying to.
Think of these questions as ones you can return to any time. Use them as a “scan” of your life, and see what comes up.
Our circumstances shift, our seasons of life change, and with those shifts come movements in terms of our energies, our commitments.
Areas of life to listen to include family, health, work, creativity, relationships, spirituality, geography, volunteering, inner work, and more.
Look at areas of your life for:
Fading. What have you outgrown, or no longer do with the same enthusiasm?
Edge. Where are you on a frontier or a threshold… of comfort and discomfort, of old life giving way to new?
Emergent. What new sprouts of life or interest are making themselves known?
Retrieval. Where in your life to you need to “retrieve” a part of yourself that has gotten lost along the way?
Relinquish. What no longer serves you that you need to give up or stop doing?
Honoring the Emotions
At any age, and whatever our circumstances, our inner and outer lives are in the process of unfolding: Changes may be afoot, chosen or not; new intimations or longings may be beckoning; the people in our lives are amidst their own shifts.
To be a “disciple of our unfolding” means to attend to both the surfaces and the depths of our lives: to take time to listen to the stirrings, and to the patterns and surprises that are emerging. It is to honor the ongoing creation that is you and your many gifts and calls in the world.
It also means being present to all the emotions that are in us at a given time… however uncomfortable they may be. Fearing them, hiding from them does not make them go away–it just disempowers us.
In the privacy and safety of journaling, try to name the potent feelings that are claiming space in you at this time… Anger… Fear…. Envy… Rage, even? Also… Joy… Sadness… Ambivalence…, etc.
Dialogue with these emotions… what do they have to say… to teach you at this time?
The “News of Your Heart”…
“Of great importance is the story you tell yourself each morning. Don’t listen to the outer ‘news’ first… Listen to the news of your heart. Then go forward into your story of creation.”
- Neil Douglas-Klotz
This quote could be the basis for a quick, daily morning meditation. Write it for a few days and see what emerges. Patterns may show up; surprises and openings.
What is the “news of your heart” this morning?
What Time Is It For You?
In the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
As a journaling exercise: Write your own verse:
“This is a time for ____________.”
“What if we reframed “living with uncertainty” to “navigating mystery”? There’s more energy in that phrase. The hum of imaginative voltage. And is our life not a mystery school, a seat of earthy instruction?” - Martin Shaw
“… Knowing, as we must, how the vivacity of what was is married to the vitality of what will be…” - Mary Oliver