Spiritual Counseling

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing, there is a field.
I'll meet you there." ~ Rumi

Many spiritual traditions teach that the source of all suffering is forgetfulness of the truth of who we are. People seek spiritual counseling because they are having difficulty, in one way or another, remembering and feeling connected to an inner sense of wholeness, purpose, meaning, and worth. The task of spiritual counseling is to help the client to remember his or her wholeness and to reconnect the client to his or her own inner truth and wisdom.

What Spiritual Counseling Is

Spiritual counseling is a relationship of trust, acceptance, genuineness, honesty, and faith in the healing power of Spirit and love. It is offering counseling support with a spiritual orientation. It may include counseling people concerning their spiritual transitions, concerns, and difficulties; facilitating their process of spiritual/personal growth including the ability to be present and aware in the moment; the development of consciousness, and/or other spiritual and developmental challenges. It may focus on helping people to understand and work with the problems, patterns, blocks and transitions in their lives by utilizing spiritual perspectives and tools.

The spiritual counselor may draw upon wisdom from various disciplines relevant to integral-interfaith spirituality including: psychology (including social and emotional intelligence), sociology (group culture), organizational development (work-life patterns), cognitive science, health, ethics, interpersonal relationship counseling, parenting, the variety of religious traditions and contemporary spiritual teachings.

Spiritual counseling supports the client in letting go of painful perceptions, patterns, and blocks to love, and in opening more fully to the experience of Divine wisdom, guidance, support, and nourishment in everyday life. There is a sense, not only of emotional healing, but of coming home to one’s true Self. Successful spiritual counseling empowers the client to turn more and more to God for Inner Wisdom, or the Self as the ultimate therapist, healer, confidante, guide, and friend.

Goal of Spiritual Counseling

The goal of spiritual counseling is to assist the client in coming to know themselves as whole, as completely acceptable and worthy of love, able to love and to forgive, and fully accepted and loved by the Divine — and to see that same truth in everyone. Spiritual counseling also aims to deepen and strengthen the client’s experience of and relationship to the Divine, in a way that is authentic and meaningful to him or her.

Role of the Counselor

Spiritual counseling is not about the counselor imposing his or her belief system, spiritual perspectives, or practices on the client, but to help the client discover how they can make spiritual meaning of their life experiences.

The counselor’s role is to help guide the client back to his or her own Source of spiritual nourishment, wisdom, and strength, rather than to encourage dependence on the counselor as some kind of spiritual intermediary.

Spiritual counselors mirror the attributes of respect, acceptance, non-judgement, patience, humor, and an unshakable certainty of the basic goodness, worth, innocence, and wholeness of the client.

What to Expect

A spiritual counseling session may begin with a prayer offering the time and work between the counselor and client to Spirit for the purpose of healing, and asking for the presence and direction of Spirit in all that transpires. The client is encouraged to express his or her goals or hopes for the counseling process. The counselor is there to help the client discover solutions and answers for himself or herself.

Practices and methods of spiritual counseling include: deep listening, compassionate inquiry, empathic mirroring, reflection of throughts and feelings, prayer, meditation, use of sacred texts, journaling, dream work, art, movement, music, chanting and poetry.

Please Note: Spiritual counseling is not in-depth psychotherapy. Information given as spiritual counseling and is neither prescriptive nor diagnostic. All information that is shared is held in the strictest confidence.