My spiritual director is a man named Aaron Manes1 and he is based in Richardson, Texas2 I found him with a simple internet search of “Spiritual Directors near me.” I had no real reason to choose him over anyone else except he was near the top, near me, had a great website, and made the process of getting started really easy.
Aaron and I met twice, once online for the initial introduction section for about an hour, and then again in person at a place called the The Retreat House.3 The initial call was not as important to meet in person because I wanted to get a feel for the process and if we would work well together and very quickly I knew we would so I scheduled a session. On April 22nd we met at the Retreat House and went into a small comfortable room where he basically asked about my life. We didn’t start with a prayer or any real ground rules, just “what’s going on?”
The difficult thing to overcome, even if it was just for the anticipation and first few moments, was treating this like a class assignment. I had told Aaron that’s why I initially sought him out, but I was committed to the process because it felt like the type of work I needed in my life even outside of the class. After reading Margaret Guenther’s book “Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction,” I had an idea of how the process should go, which is why I was a little taken aback in part that we didn’t start with prayer or silence as Guenther suggests.(17, Guenther 1992) However, it was at that moment I knew I had to let go of expectations and trust the process we were in together.
Guenther writes that:
The first step in discernment is perception. The director is deeply attentive to the person sitting across the holy space, open and permeable to all that is said and unsaid, revealed and hidden. More importantly, by example and by judicious interpretation, she helps the directee toward equal openness and attentiveness.(44, Guenther 1992)
The best thing I got out of this first session was allowing Aaron to hear everything I was saying, and then hearing the story he pulled from my words. He interrupted me a few times to focus me on key things that I had said as important and valuable insights to my own story, such as connection (or lack thereof) to my world and to myself. He would not let me off the hook if I tried to brush things away and at some point he told me to stop talking and to just breath.4 This connection and slowing down was almost overwhelming.
During this class period I have had multiple therapy session with a licensed therapist5, and those have been valuable, but they lack a certain connection (partly because they are virtual, and partly because they are very focused on healing from military and childhood issues). I have always said that there seems to be lacking an openness on my part to be vulnerable about my spiritual life, and I think it’s because I don’t trust therapists who label themselves as Christian (seems like secondary religious trauma as I’ve never seen a “Christian” therapist), and therefore I feel weird about being spiritual in a clinical setting. Aaron (and spiritual direction in general) is a much needed practice for me to be vulnerable about life, but intensely focused on the spiritual aspects of my journey.
Though I didn’t get the two sessions done in this time period, I am scheduling another session in June for after we’re back from Ireland because that first session alone was a life changing moment for me.
Footnotes
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Suburb North of Dallas ↩
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This was similar to the feedback I got about my Spiritual Direction supervision, but I was asked if I ever just tell people to breath. It’s interesting to hear that feedback because the person I wrote the case study about has ADHD. ↩
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Mandy Reyna, LPC - Angels on the Horizon - https://www.angelsonthehorizon.com/therapists ↩