Understanding Spiritual Direction

What Spiritual Direction Is — and Isn’t

Spiritual direction can be hard to define, and maybe that is part of its beauty. It is not therapy, although people may experience healing. It is not teaching, although people often learn. It is not advice-giving, although wisdom may sometimes be shared. At its heart, spiritual direction is a sacred conversation where one person is invited to listen deeply to their own life and to notice the movement of God within it.

In a recent conversation on the SoulStream Living from the Heart podcast, Paul Bergmayer, author of The Making of Modern Spiritual Direction, reflected on how difficult it can be to pin spiritual direction down with one perfect definition. Rather than trying to explain what it is in abstract terms, he suggested it may be better to describe what it does. Spiritual directors meet with people, listen deeply, and ask questions that help them go deeper into their own experience. Paul says, “I think it’s 90% listening,” and names deep listening and good questions as two of the central gifts he brings to the practice.

Spiritual Direction as a Companioning Practice

This kind of listening creates space. It allows the person receiving direction to bring their whole life before God, not just the polished or obviously spiritual parts. Questions, doubts, feelings, decisions, desires, grief, joy, and ordinary daily moments all become places where God may be speaking.

Spiritual direction is also deeply personal. It is not about forcing someone into a particular structure, theology, or spiritual practice. As Paul notes, the spiritual director serves the directee, paying attention to what they bring and responding with flexibility and care.

In this way, spiritual direction becomes a companioning practice. It helps us slow down, listen beneath the surface, and become more attentive to grace already at work in our lives. For anyone longing to live with more awareness, freedom, and love, spiritual direction offers a quiet, thoughtful place to begin.

Also see What is the Art of Spiritual Direction 

You can also listen to our conversation with Paul Bergmayer, The Making of Modern Spiritual Direction, on the SoulStream podcast: https://www.soulstream.org/podcast/