People sometimes ask me, “What is spiritual direction?” Great question! However, it’s not so easy to answer in a single sentence.

Historically, spiritual direction has been a one-on-one process of “companioning” with a person on his or her spiritual journey. In some ways it’s a little like meeting with a counselor or church pastor, but often those meetings are dealing with the search for solving a particular problem, whereas spiritual direction is about paying attention to the presence of God in your life (not to say that “problems” are excluded from the conversation in spiritual direction!).

Some people think of a spiritual director as a sort of coach, mentor, or personal trainer for the soul. Others may view their spiritual director as a spiritual companion, soul friend, or “spiritual midwife.”

In the short video below*, spiritual director Kristen Hobby from Melbourne, Australia answers many questions about the spiritual direction process in our times:

(If you don’t see the video here, visit YouTube or Google and type in the search these words: Kristen Hobby spiritual direction .)

Questions or comments about spiritual direction? Please share them below or  send them to me in e-mail (see contact page). I’d love to hear from you!

Until next time, Amen!

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*Special thanks to Spiritual Directors International, a network of spiritual directors of many religious traditions throughout the world, for making this video available on YouTube.