When life gets to be too much as adult children of divorce and all we want is to find peace that will calm our innermost self, Spiritual Direction can become part of the answer to your distress.  So what exactly is spiritual direction?

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual direction is the means to seek and grow closer to God by helping you discover in your life the presence of God and the motions of your God-given counselor, the Holy Spirit. When meeting with your spiritual director, the presence of the Holy Spirit will be part of your session.  (An image with three chairs in a circle is a symbol of spiritual direction.)  Why is there an emphasis on the presence of the Holy Spirit?  Because our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, he lives inside us.  “The Holy Spirit lives in the center of the soul, in that profound region of the will… From that center he pours himself out… over the whole man with a divine unction [anointing]” (Archbishop Luis M. Martinez, The Sanctifier).  The Church calls the Holy Spirit “fire and light”, and his work is that of transformation. 

What are the benefits of spiritual direction? 

Mostly, there are three:  interior freedom, encountering your own identity, and the experience of living in God.  First, your inner freedom will start to increase as you are guided by the Holy Spirit.  Second, the result of finding that interior freedom will lead you to encounter your own identity.  It is then that you will be able to find what direction you want for your life and you will develop your own personality.  In time, you will be able to answer the following questions:  What is my purpose in this world?  Who am I? And will find your individuality.  Once the directee is conscious of God’s presence in his life, he will be able to face himself and can start to feel ownership of his life.  As you encounter your own identity, you will see yourself as unique and unrepeatable.  Third, by living in God’s presence you will allow yourself to be found, to be healed, to be freed, and to be able to act in Him. This spiritual experience is definitely at the center of spiritual direction. (See Graciela de Tuya Rodriguez, Maestro, ¿dónde vives? Vengan y vean.  La Dirección Espiritual, caminando con Jesús:  personal translation).

St. Teresa of Avila said that prayer is a conversation with God; it is having a conversation with a friend.  It’s an encounter where you look at God and God looks at you and you permit yourself to be loved by God.  Prayer is our lifeline to Him.  You can think of prayer as picking up your mobile and calling God any time of the day or night.  He is always available and is just waiting for you to make that call.  We don’t need to ask permission, we simply act on our desire to talk with Him.  What a freeing experience it is knowing that we have the ability to find God and be loved at any time!

St. Pio of Pietrelcina defined spiritual direction and the spiritual director as: “the application of the science of the spiritual life to a particular soul, the assistance without which it would be extremely difficult to advance towards perfection…” He specified that “one of the conditions for successful spiritual guidance is that the disciple [directee] should have unlimited confidence in his counsellor [director]… He must, moreover, be a docile instrument of the Holy Spirit and know how to recognize the workings of grace in the soul he guides” (Mary F. Ingoldsby, Padre Pio, His Life and Mission).

Overall, spiritual direction is an important and serious decision to be made as you advance in your journey to put your life in order and achieve that inner peace that we all desire.   There is a second resource that will help you to put your life on track: therapy.  There is a difference between these two.

Therapy vs. Spiritual Direction

Therapy helps with our human growth and mental health whereas spiritual direction leads you to spiritual, interior transformation.  The purpose of therapy is to help you sort through and improve conflicting and difficult situations with your family, work, social relationships, and so on.  In therapy, you will face your innate behaviors, emotions, feelings, and any behavior patterns that are bothering you.  You will discover new ways of working through negative thoughts that occupy your mind and cause you distress. 

The therapy sessions include you and your therapist.  Your therapist will lead you through different life experiences such as working with self-esteem and a sense of unworthiness; looking at misperceptions that keep you from doing what you actually want to do with your life; and setting achievable goals so you may move forward.  Therapy will help you see your life and those around you in a different way helping you to make changes to your behavior and your attitude.

Both spiritual direction and therapy are processes that take time.  There is no rush.  Your goal is to achieve your mental and inner peace.  It took time to get where you are, feeling pain, sadness, anguish and distress so don’t feel you have to rush through these processes.  One day at a time is good so you may truly achieve a positive outcome for your life.

“Excellent guest that He is, the Spirit finds you empty and fills you; He finds you hungry and thirsty and satisfies you abundantly.  God the Holy Spirit, Who comes from God, when He enters into people, draws them to the love of God and neighbor.  Indeed, He is love itself.”        (St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 225, 4).

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Graciela Rodriguez and her husband have been married for 50 years. They have two adult married children who have given them one granddaughter and two grandsons.  She completed her MA in Pastoral Ministry in 2016 from Barry University.  Her pastoral project, Maestro, ¿dónde vives? Vengan y vean. La Dirección Espiritual, caminando con Jesús, was published in 2017 by the Piarist Order in their journal Analecta Calasanctiana.  She served as facilitator for a Life-Giving Wounds support group in Miami, Florida.