Spiritual Direction, the Power of Listening, & How to Attune to Yourself and to Others
Episode Notes
Imagine if someone sat with you and listened to you attentively for as long as you needed. That's what I experienced through a series of spiritual listening retreats. And today, I invited the Rev. Dr. Stephen Macchia and a spiritual director in training, Rowena Day, to talk with us about the practice of spiritual direction and deep listening as one component of your mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
This episode is so rich, so soothing, and so deeply nourishing. As a therapist, I have found spiritual direction to be a powerful part of my own mental health practices. It's also taught me so much about how to become a better listener in my relationships with others.
Here's what we discuss:
1. The deepest need we all have
2. How to attune to your own soul
3. The neurobiology of presence
4. What to do if quiet is hard for you
5. The links between spiritual and mental health
Do you have questions about friendship for Dr. Alison? Leave them here.
Resources
- More about the Emmaus Certificate in Formational Leadership
- The Spiritual Journey 3-book series by David G. Benner
- "God shows up disguised as your life."-Paula D'Arcey
- Visit leadershiptransformations.org
- Seeking God Together by Alice Freiling
- Crafting a Rule of Life by Steve Macchia
- Ephesians 3:16-19
- Psalm 62:1-8
- Romans 12:1
- stevemacchia.com
- Email Dr. Alison to be connected with Rowena
- Resources for support
Related Podcast Episodes:
- Episode 31 and Episode 44 with Rowena
- Episode 47: Spiritual Bypassing vs. Embodied Faith & How Not to Harm Those Who Are Hurting, Including Yourself
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Music by Andy Luiten
Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik
While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.
Transcript
Alison: Hey everyone. And welcome back to this week's episode of the best of you podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you keep coming back this summer. We finished up a series on friendship last week, but I felt like there was still more to mine in that well. There are just so many questions I get about how to increase support, whether it's through therapy or through some of these other ways that we're going to talk about in these next few weeks.
So this is a little mini series. I'm not even sure it's a series. I'm going to do a few episodes just on other ways to increase your support, other ways to make sure that you are flourishing in as many ways that are in your control, that are in your capacity to control.
We can't control everything. Sometimes life is just hard. Sometimes we're struggling, but there are things we can do to pull in support. And again, I think about that MEPS, that mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual and Each of those dimensions, we need to be checking in and thinking about where do I need a little bit of support?
Where do I maybe need a little bit of input? Where do I need somebody checking in on me? And so in these next few episodes, I'm going to talk about some of what I call these therapy adjacent ways that you might want to consider.
Now, I'm also going to talk about therapy in one of these episodes and really walk you through different types of therapy, what kind of therapy, how you find a therapist, all those kind of brass tacks questions. So there's a lot we're going to cover in these next few weeks. Stay tuned. You're going to find some practical ways to continue to increase your support network.
So today I want to talk about spiritual direction. I've mentioned spiritual direction frequently on the podcast. It's something I use. I have a monthly spiritual director, and I have for years. I was part of a spiritual listening community, which I've also talked about in prior episodes.
It's a really unique way of getting support. It's not therapy. It's also different from what many of you know as discipleship. And we're going to talk about that, but it is someone checking in on your soul, checking in on how you're doing in your relationship with God, in your spiritual life, which actually bleeds out into all your relationships, right? Because when you're connected to yourself and to God, there's a way in which you show up more effectively in all of your relationships. So these all overlap, but spiritual direction is a very unique way to get support. I've invited two of my dear friends on to talk to us today about what spiritual direction is, about what you might expect from it and how you might find one.
We'll talk to the Reverend Dr. Stephen Macchia, he's the founder and president of Leadership Transformations Inc., also known as LTI. LTI is a ministry that focuses on spiritual formation and the spiritual discernment processes.Steve is an ordained minister. He's a speaker. He's a retreat facilitator, a ministry mentor and coach, and he's a spiritual director himself.
He's also the author of 16 books, including his latest, The Discerning Life, Broken and Whole. Crafting a rule of life. We talk about that in this episode. It's a wonderful book that I've used many times and the Baker bestseller, Becoming a Healthy Church. These are great resources for anyone who's interested in thinking about how to make our churches healthier spaces.
We talk so much about what's hard about church and Steve is someone who's really coming in and saying, let's figure out how to make churches healthier, how to really make churches a place where we're growing. Deeply, and I really respect him for that. And then I also asked Rowena Day back on the podcast, you know, Rowena, she's been on the podcast before in episodes 31 and episode 44.
She's a writer, an artist, and she's a spiritual director in training. She's going through the process of becoming a spiritual director. She's also the mom of four children between the ages of one and eight. And she and her husband live in Washington. DC. She and I met over a decade ago in one of those spiritual listening communities put on by LTI and led by Dr.
Steven Macchia. So please enjoy this conversation about spiritual direction, spiritual discernment, and how to grow spiritually as one component of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health.
*Music*
Alison: So to get started, Steve, I would love to hear a little bit about how you got interested in spiritual formation, spiritual listening, spiritual direction. I know you were a pastor for many years and then you started this organization that's more centered on these spiritual formation practices. So tell us a little bit about how that evolved in your life.
Steve Macchia: Well, I was on the pastoral staff at Grace Chapel in Lexington, Mass. for 11 years in four different pastoral positions. And then I went to a group called Vision New England, where I was for 14 years. And in the middle of that time, I said to a friend of mine, it seems like everybody in my life has an agenda for me, has something they want from me. And I need someone objective to listen to me. and help me sift and sort my way through my spiritual journey.
And this good friend of mine said, you need to meet David Freihoff, who is an Episcopal monk with the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I had the audacity at that time because I was, you know, a professional ministry person. I had my sport coat and tie on every day, and I went to my office and I led my organization. And I had the audacity to invite him when he was in my area to stop by because I wanted to interview him and see if what my friend had to say was really true.
When he walked into my office and he graciously said yes to that invitation, which is amazing to me, he had blue jean overalls and a t-shirt and open toe sandals on. And he sat down across from me in my professional desk setting. And as soon as he opened his mouth, I knew he had something that I desperately needed and wanted. And it was a real heart for God, a real genuine, simple, yet beautiful way of relating to Jesus.
To make a long story short, he has been my spiritual director for more than 30 years. And every month or so I go to see him and I tell him my tale of woes or my questions about God or my issues or my joys, my delights. You know, it's a relationship founded on attentiveness, listening and teaching me how to be more attentive to the work of God in my life and to the biblical text as it comes alive in my spiritual or prayer closet journey, and in my daily life experience. And he came alongside me, he was willing to take this on, take me on, and a role that has become a life-changing role, the role of a spiritual director.
I learned from him how to be a spiritual director, and then our organization, Leadership Transformations, almost immediately when we founded the organization 20 years ago, we started a program called SELAH in training people in spiritual direction that Ro is going to be joining. And I guess the rest is history, but for me, Alison, it all began with a single relationship of a very godly, Christ-centered, humble, gentle, holy man, who I knew I wanted to spend time with, and he's listened to my soul ever since.
Alison: Steve, tell me a little bit about what you mean by agenda. I thought that was interesting. You said prior to just sitting with this humble person who asked questions, you felt like everyone had an agenda. What do you mean by that?
Steve Macchia: Well, you know, if we're not prayerful and contemplative and reflective, we are actually quite manipulative in life. We have agendas for people. We have a way that we want them to live or to act or react to us, to the people around us. You know, we're in a marketing culture where we're constantly trying to present a message that others will... absorb or receive or buy or whatever. And same with others coming at us. I just felt like I was surrounded by people that needed something or wanted something.
Alison: And this is even in the church community.
Steve Macchia: Oh, gosh, yes. We’re a bunch of human beings that are within the Christian community with needs and wants and desires. And so they may have wanted my attention for financial resources from our organization, or they may have wanted my attention to promote their program or their particular ministry.
I worked with a regional ministry with about 80 different denominations and 6000 congregations, and there was always just a need that I needed to fix or take care of. And I just was looking for someone that didn't have that need and had instead a real desire to companion me as a brother. No other pretense attached to it. No other agenda attached to it.
Alison: That's so powerful. Rowena, how about you? What led you to participate in this spiritual listening community that you and I both partook of? It's called Emmaus. Steve, it's part of your organization. You guys set it up. And it's a series of, I would say, would you call it group spiritual direction in a way, Steve?
Steve Macchia: Exactly, that is what it is. We didn't always call it that, but that's what it was.
Alison: So it's a little bit of what you're describing where there are small groups of people where we are simply listening to each other in a structured way. Rowena, what led you to feel the need to take part in that in your life?
Rowena: I think I've always been fairly introspective, just the nature of how I'm wired. But I think there was a desire to find some companions on the journey and I'd never heard of spiritual direction, but I experienced it through a one-day women's retreat that LTI offered and I signed up for an hour slot. And I just remember feeling, wow, this is... very nourishing.
I think our souls are looking for satisfaction and you know, we can spend a lifetime looking for it in anything and everything. And God is our creator and he made us and he made us to be satisfied in knowing him and finding kind of the grounding of our being in him. And so I think just the work of the spirit in me kind of creating that desire to really seek, you know, what is going to really satisfy me? And that is knowing God deeply and within myself and knowing myself and just feeling like I can inhabit the world, just securely rooted in God and who He is and who He has made me to be.
I just found spiritual direction such a life-giving, nourishing way to pay attention to my own soul. And then to do that within a group, in a mass, and to kind of have the space held and certain structures in place to help us as human beings practice some holy restraint so we're not trying to fix and solve each other, but we're really able to set ourselves aside and listen to that person and be listened to was just, like, you don't experience that in life in very many places. And it just, I think it just created conditions to really begin to grow and thrive.
Alison: Yeah, I think of the psychology term attunement as very much linked to what's happening in this idea of spiritual direction or spiritual listening. It's someone attuning to another soul. So it's me attuning to you. It's listening to your words without that agenda, as you said, Steve. It's hearing literally the words that you're saying. There's that attunement that we need to come alive. We are not designed to live alone in isolation. It's that embodied presence that we bring to each other.
Just here before we dive in too deeply to kind of differentiate between the work of therapy and the work of spiritual direction, I want to point out that there is an attunement component to both. When we go see a therapist, a therapist is attuning to us, hopefully without an agenda. How would you see the difference, Steve? I'll certainly weigh in as well, but I'm curious how you differentiate, because I know you're very clear to make that distinction. I've participated in both and there is a clear distinction. I'd love to hear from you how you see the distinction.
Steve Macchia: I like that word attunement. It reminds me of a tuning fork, you know, where you're tuning to the particular sounds where there's some connection and unity to the sound. When I look at spiritual formation in general, I see spiritual formation generally, the attunement, if you will, to the true God, and the true self, or the true me. The more I get to know the true God, not all these false gods and false representations of God, but the true God, and if I get to know the true me, not these falsehoods or pretenses or things that we're trying to present to the wider world, but instead to just be the true person that God made us to be, made you and me to be, the more we get to know that true you and that true God, that's how we're being spiritually formed. And the closer in proximity and in parallel and attunement to both, the healthier, the stronger, the more vibrant, the more alive we become.
So when I consider all of the caring ministries or caring relationships, we do have counseling, we do have coaching, we do have mentoring, we do have discipling, pastoring, spiritual direction. I think all of those are healthy, vibrant, important roles and relationships, and I do think it's important for people who are serving in any one of them to know what they're distinctly offering. Because for me, I'm a pastor, I'm a coach. I'm a discipler. I'm a spiritual director. I need to figure out when I'm with a particular person, what do they need me to be in order to be the best I can be as one to continue that attunement. To help attune their heart to God's heart and their heart to the true nature of how God made them to be rather than listening to lies or listening to the falsehoods of others or listening to the pressure points of others or the stresses that others are bringing upon us.
Now, how do we listen to God? How do we listen to ourselves and to provide as pure of listening as I can so that what I'm doing is I'm giving voice back to the person I'm sitting with as a directee saying what I'm noticing. Here's what I'm hearing. Here's what I'm sensing. Here's maybe a way to get maybe closer in touch with God's purpose or plan in the midst of that story.
But the difference between that and counseling is I think a spiritual director is less directive, interestingly, even though the word director is there. It's far less directive. Whereas a counselor, you go to a counselor because you want feedback, you want help. you're in an issue, you're in a relationship that's not healthy, you're trying to make some decisions and you want feedback, you want the wisdom and the counsel of another and that's good and that's important but for me what I try to do as a spiritual director is I try to create space where there's pure listening, like you and Ro experienced at Emmaus, as pure as possible.
There's no such thing as completely pure listening but to get to it as purely as possible. All I want is to be there for you. I want to dive into your story that when I'm giving voice to, if I'm giving voice to anything, that you would say, absolutely, that is what I'm saying. As opposed to, “No, you know, you missed that point. No, I wasn't saying that.” or “I wasn't meaning that”. That means I missed the point. I wasn't a good listener.
If I'm a good listener, a good attentive attunement specialist, that person, if I say anything, that person's going to have maybe tears in their eyes and say, “That is exactly what I said”, because I think what–and I think you'd agree, Alison, as a counselor–people don't want to be fixed. They don't want to be corrected. Everyone does, however, want to be listened to. And if we can provide healthy, God-centered, them-centered, attentiveness, I think we're serving them well.
So there's crossover in these roles. They're not totally separated by a big fence. There's some permeable membrane that's attached to all of these caring roles. But I think when I'm in a spiritual director role, I really just want to spend as much, 80% of the time maybe, listening,
and then 10% of the time, let's sit in silence, and 10% of the time, I'll give you some of my noticing.
Alison: Yeah, yeah, I love that. So when I participated in the spiritual listening community–I did it for two years, it's quarterly retreats, so I did eight retreats–I was a therapist at the time. I was trained as a therapist, and it, to me, felt like it brought in a missing piece. They are different. And it brought in a missing piece during that experience.
I actually had a profound experience of feeling freed to go back into the work of being a therapist. As you well know, Steve, you were part of it. Because it brought in the piece of the listening without agenda, which freed me as a therapist to realize, “Oh, the Holy Spirit is right here”. And even if I'm doing a therapeutic intervention, the Holy Spirit is still right here with me. I'm not doing it alone. It's not on me to be the expert.
In my field, we can feel like we have to be the expert, not necessarily fixing a problem, but providing the right diagnostic intervention. And as I was part of that listening, I was astonished by the power of the structure. For the listener who isn't familiar with the structure–and I think it's a fantastic structure for folks to use in small groups, informally on your own, where we're so quick to pile in with our advice: “Here's what to do, have you thought about this? This is what you should do”, which just adds more noise to our souls–I was astonished by, you know, each person would get, I think, something like 15 minutes to share, uninterrupted with the timer. And then after that 15 minutes, sit in silence for a certain amount of time, and it's vulnerable. You've just shared. And then you're sitting and everybody's sitting with you in what you've shared.
Nobody's jumping in to fix, to offer advice, to analyze. And then the next round is people reflecting back to you verbatim words that you said. I heard you say this word five times and it is so powerful. I learned so much from that and I'm curious.
Rowena, for you, you know, what stood out to you? I would say for me, what stood out the most was that the vulnerability of simply being heard and then having people reflect back words that they heard me say. And it kind of spoiled me, to be honest. Because now if I go into a small group setting or a group of friends–and I do this sometimes and there's no shame–but when I'm in a setting and people just jump in, I'm like, “Oh, oh no, I just need to be heard”. You know, it really spoiled me.
So I'm curious, Rowena, for you, what stood out from that experience.
Rowena: Yeah, I think it's the uniqueness of people holding space for you, and holding up a mirror to you of words that you said. You can say, “Oh, wow, I did say that several times”. And then you can kind of sit with that and ask God about it more. So it's really interesting. I feel like we are all sort of these acorns that are trying to germinate and bust out of the soil and grow. In spiritual direction, I think the distinction is that the Holy Spirit is the sun and the water helping the acorn grow and then maybe the director is like a fellow acorn over here, maybe adding some nutrients to the soil just by listening.
But it requires such trust that God is real–that he's here–that I don't need to be the one to fix. And it requires such a getting out of the way and holding ourselves back in like a holy restraint kind of way that is just so counter cultural and counter intuitive. I think David Benner says in his book about spiritual direction that “relationships are malnourished from a lack of attention”. And so spiritual direction is a way that we can give attention to our relationship with God. And that creates just such a nourishment for us when we actually take time and then we have someone companioning alongside us. It's so powerful and it helps all of our individual acorns and collectively to really germinate and grow.
Steve Macchia: I was going to say that one of the elements here that both of you are mentioning is the gift of silence in community. I remember going early on, before LTI was even born, on silent retreats. I didn't know anybody in the room. But after a weekend, I was tearful to say goodbye to these people. Never had a conversation with them. Never never talked to them. Even over meals. The meals were silent meals.
But at the end of the weekend, we're like hugging each other saying goodbye. We don't know anything about each other except that we shared a weekend in silence And I remember praying at the time, “Lord, I want to do this with people I know, not just strangers”, and God answered my prayer through the ministry of LTI to be able to experience community without conversation.
Silence is a bonding mechanism. It's a way in which we're bonded together. So like in our Emmaus communities that both of you are part of, in those times together, they were blanketed with “Okay, let's just be let's just be together”. But let's not say anything, you know, because words are going to destroy the moment.
And think about it, the most intimate things that we do with the people we love the most are not about conversation. It's about presence. And the gift of real, authentic, genuine, deep presence is a healer. It's a restorer. It brings vibrancy and life.
And so I just want to say that what I love about spiritual direction and group direction is I love surprising individuals or groups with blocks of silence. Because what happens in the silence is that God through his spirit taps on the shoulder of our hearts in unique and marvelous and wonderful ways, surprising ways, mysterious ways. And if we're not creating that space, we can go through an entire life without experiencing the fullness and the richness of what we're describing today.
So, yes, Alison, I agree. I am spoiled by the community that I'm a part of and creating life for others. When I go into those other settings where people like talking over each other or fixing, it feels like fingers on a chalkboard and it bristles within me. But it's because my heart has been in touch with the longing of being known, being heard, being with. And I think that's what we're wanting. I want to put emphasis on that, you know, that quiet space together is actually amazingly healing and restorative and enlightening.
Alison: That is a whole word. I don't want to put words on it. That's powerful. It's presence.
You know, my mind is going even to the neurobiology of that, that there is something powerful happening when two human beings are present with each other regardless of words. And perhaps, in an embodied way that transcends what the mind can do.
Steve Macchia: Well, Alison, maybe you've done some research or study on eye contact. You know, it's through the eyes that we actually fall in love. It's through the eyes that we actually notice, when our eyes are fixed or locked on each other and we're in good space, it's the eyes that bring it about. So I'd love to know from your professional expertise, what is it about the eyes? What is it about eye contact? What is it about? Reading the story beneath the eyes.
Alison: The gaze, right? The gaze of that loving mother. The gaze that takes in the child. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is the research on attachment that shows that secure attachment is presence. It's not words.
You know, a parent can say all the right words, but if they are not present, whole body present, calm nervous system present, where we're not in that fight flight, adrenalized state where we are so calm inside and we are with that child, right, through the gaze, through the calmness of the nervous system. That's what creates that attachment.
And if we think about God, it's so interesting, I've never thought about this. But of course, that's how we experience the withness of God. It's very rarely through a word.
Steve Macchia: Yeah. And it's our withness that's our witness, you know. It's when we are with, that we actually have something to say about another. Rowena, you're an expert in this as a young mom, you've got all these kids at your feet and you're constantly giving them complete attention. I don't know how you do it.
Rowena: Thankfully, being in God's presence is especially helpful. I often think of the imagery that he uses of him being a mother hen and gathering up all the chicks under the safety of his wings. That picture in my mind is so powerful and helpful to me when I feel like maybe there are different parts of myself that are running around little chicks, maybe some of them with their heads cut off or something, and God is like, come on, gather under here and let me put my wings over you.
All the parts of me can be heard and witnessed and attuned to and have the attention and the care that they need. And that kind of feeling of being held is really powerful, held under his wings. That sense of care for my own soul, then, is helping me in real time try to do the same with my kids. Not necessarily needing to fix their emotions, but just being with them and kind of gathering them and saying, I'm here with you, it's going to be alright.
And then the other sort of imagery that comes to mind with spiritual direction is this phrase, “being a physician of the soul”. There's this wonderful quote: “What does a physician do when someone comes with a bleeding wound? Three things; he or she cleanses the wound, aligns the sundered parts, and gives it rest”.
That's all the physician does. He or she provides an environment for the natural process of healing to occur. And so I think in spiritual direction and doing the training, it’s just such a helpful reminder that God made our bodies to heal. And he also made our souls to heal. If we can remove some of the obstacles and the barriers, the natural course of healing will occur.
And that has been so real in my own life. I find it incredibly powerful to witness other people in that way and know that I am not the physician who's actually doing the healing. But God designed us to heal if we just come into his presence and can attune to different parts of ourselves and then he can let the natural course of healing take its place.
Alison: It reminds me of that acorn, right? So much of what you're both saying is the acorn, or any sort of seed, is designed to burst forth and become the beautiful thing that it's supposed to become. Our job is to provide the right soil, remove the weeds of distraction (which is so often the noise and the advice and the agendas), and cultivate that soil so that seed can grow.
Prior to my experience with this kind of thing, I would be in my prayer closet thinking, okay, I'll be with God. And somehow that needs to only be between me and God. And what spiritual direction or these spiritual listening communities do is bring it into relationships. You are with another person.
For the listener, typical spiritual direction is a monthly rhythm. You meet with someone typically, not always, but typically once a month. It is a practice. There's a rhythm to it. And that rhythm–there's a withness with that. It's saying, “I need another human body that is not trying to fix me, is not doing therapy on me per se, but is with me and bearing witness to me in my process of becoming”. So there is a witness, it's just a unique kind of witness.
Steve Macchia: Exactly. And it is an important practice to be trained in. Not everyone is fit for this. So we need to understand that they may be more fit to be in more of an active discipling role or pastoral role.
All the old ancient monastic communities that were providing this for people that were coming to them–sort of like, “Brother, give us a word”, kind of thing–they were trained to be, as Row said, soul doctors. In fact, I will often ask my directees, “So how is it with your soul today?” as an opening question. Or we'll sit and just do Lexio for a few moments in a particular verse or a psalm or something that's just to quiet our hearts and minds. And it's generally where I see men one-on-one–I see men and women in groups–but when I'm sitting with another man and we're sitting in quiet, which they're not used to, you know, just quietness.
There's a little uncomfortableness to that. And then I'm reading the passage of Scripture, and then I'm saying you can break the silence however and whenever you want to. Generally, they're surprised what they say after the silence because they came in with a particular thought or concept or idea or relationship or question or issue that they're wrestling with. But in the silence, when we're together in the word and in prayer, they can often end up going in a different direction that may actually be more fruitful for their life, their walk with God.
Because we wanna always be pointing people back to the biblical text or their walk with God or the state of their soul, so that it becomes a prayerful, reflective space that both director and directee are engaged in. And as the director, you're not doing much direction, even though it's called that. It's really providing space for this person to give voice to their experiences, their experience of God or their experience with others.
So it's out of that experience, it's out of that place of need, where we're able to step in as active listeners, and hopefully have some spiritual maturity to us that we can actually be a voice in the wilderness for them that allows us to offer a word of hope or a word of comfort or a suggestion to sit in a particular passage of scripture or whatever. So it's a beautiful thing when it's fully embraced and not distorted, it is really a beautiful space to create for another.
*Music*
Steve Macchia: One of the questions that I've been wrestling with of late is all the issues of the day, not just of a particular person's story, but whether it's political or human sexuality and how that's really been front and center for so many racial, ethnic issues. One of the things that spiritual direction gives a person is a voice to how they're reacting or responding to those issues.
It's not just necessarily a personal issue that you're coming with, it may be a lament that you're coming with or a heart's concern for a loved one that's gone a wayward way in any one of particular areas. So what a person comes into a direction session with is all over the map.
It's not just your prayer life. It can be a tough relationship, it can be a tough issue of the day. I like defining passion as that which exists somewhere between what brings a tear to your eye and an angry fist to the air. Somewhere in there, between the tearfulness and the angry fist, resides your passions.
So we can create space where people get in touch with what they're passionate about, what they're interested in, what they're concerned about, what they're carrying, it could be personal, but it could be more corporate or collective.
So I think that's what I just wanted to mention. It's not just that we're talking about, you know, a person's time in the Bible and praying. Spiritual direction can be misunderstood that way. No, it's actually pretty broad. It's like counseling, like therapy in that way. You can't predict what the issues are going to be that are gonna enter the space with the person who's gonna give voice to where they are or where they're at.
Alison: You're reminding me of a quote that my spiritual director said to me recently, which I believe is attributed to either Richard Rohr or I want to say Paula DRC. “God shows up disguised as your life.”
Whatever is happening in your life is where God is. When you go to someone for a spiritual direction, it's not just limited to your “spirit”. There's no bifurcation–whatever is happening in your life is where God has an invitation for you. It doesn't matter where that is. Your God shows up disguised as your life.
That's a really helpful word because sometimes I'll think, “I gotta think about my spiritual questions for my spiritual director, you know, what am I thinking about God”? As opposed to, “Whatever's happening in my life, in my soul, whatever I'm worried about, that's where God is. That's what God cares about. That's where there's an invitation for me”.
I'm curious, Rowena, you've now entered into training to become a spiritual director. What prompted that and how is that going for you? And I've noticed just being your friend, I'm not surprised when you told me that you were going to embark on a journey of becoming a spiritual director. I see those qualities in you, that ability to hold space so subtly, but so powerfully for other people. Tell me a little bit about that journey for you and what that decision was like.
Rowena: Hmm. I think when I read the quote about being a physician of the soul around 10 years ago, something really resonated with what I felt called to do. That would just be a very powerful way to spend my life. I can't quite describe it, but it was a very deep feeling of being drawn to this.
I think it's also because I experienced the power of it–of being attuned to and of being deeply listened to–that it's just such a needed thing in this world. And I want to grow in that ability to listen and hold space for others and help them attune to their own souls and to God.
So I don't think I chose it myself. I think somehow God put that desire and that longing in me, and in listening to my own soul, that became apparent. And it was just a matter of waiting for the right timing for my family. So it's really exciting to finally be beginning and to start meeting with directees and just to feel the “rightness”, like, “Oh yeah, this feels like this is something I'm meant to do”.
Alison: How do you find, and Steve touched on this, but how do you find pockets of the kind of quiet that we're talking about, that we so desperately need? You are parenting four really young kids, so your life is probably far from a quiet, contemplative life. I think a lot of our listeners will think,
“Gosh, that would be nice, but where do I find that?” How do you find those rhythms in your own life?
Rowena: Hmm. Yeah, I have a real need, I think, in my mind and my body. My mind is very active with lots of thoughts. And so it often feels like a snow globe shaken up. And it's like the silence is kind of what helps everything kind of settle and then there can be calm and clarity within. And I just know that about my inner being.
I need a babysitter at least twice a week for a couple of hours so I can have a little bit of time to attune to myself so that I can show up as kind of that more clear snow globe rather than being shaken up all the time. It's really easy to live in this world in that constant state and I just can't function there permanently so I need it and I have to carve it out.
So for me, that is during nap time or yeah, intentionally kind of carving out some hours with a babysitter just so I can go for a bike ride and read a book and journal. And yeah, it's just really vital for me in this season.
Alison: I love that. Yeah, it is very much whatever the season, because it's true, even when you have more time, there is always something you can do to drown out the quiet. There's always something. We can turn the radios on in our car, we can have a podcast on all the time, we can be on social media. And it is a discipline.
One of the things I know I did when I was in that driving phase of parenting, where you're in the car all the time shuttling kids to and fro several hours a day sometimes, is I would start a practice (after this whole Emmaus experience where I began to realize that quiet is our friend) of not turning anything on while I was in the car.
It's not necessarily optimal, but it was an amazing difference in my life. No radio, no podcast. Just sitting in the quiet for at least as long as that car ride. It gave me that moment of just noticing what was in my own mind, what was in my own soul, just attuning to myself.
Steve Macchia: And what I hear in that is the discipline of Sabbath. And Sabbath is really foundational to the deeper life. Without Sabbath, you won't go deep, period, end of story.
It is commanded and invited by God. It's not something that's just in the Old Testament. It's something that Jesus came to fulfill in the use of Sabbath because all of the religious leaders, the Pharisees, had really made rules and regulations around Sabbath and basically nearly destroyed Sabbath by over-regulating it. And Jesus came to set them free from that which was bringing them down and into bondage.
Even within the text and the Ten Commandments, you know, there's that reminder that we're to remember that we were once enslaved. but we are now set free. And being set free is to be in Sabbath practices on a weekly basis, but also Sabbath moments on a daily basis or a day by day basis.
So when you, Alison, say that you turned the radio off as you were driving kids around, that's a Sabbath, that's a choice towards Sabbath. Or Rowena, when you say you're gonna get a babysitter and just take a couple hours or take a bike ride. That's the craving within us that exists universally for some space.
And when we don't want it, it's because we've chosen distraction as our main drug of choice to drown out that which we need to wrestle with in the silence. And that's why silence and solitude has often been described as the crucible of transformation. It's the place where the deepest work occurs. And if we choose not to be in those Sabbath, quiet, restful moments in our life, we'll end up living the entirety of our life, inch deep and mile wide.
So Sabbath and Sabbath practices, it's one of the things I'm trying to awaken within the pastoral world that I connect with because pastors will tell me over and over again, Sabbath is impossible, or that Sabbath is only possible when it's not a work day. No, you need Sabbath. Every soul needs Sabbath. God knew what he was talking about.
It's the only commandment that was applicable to him because he chose to do Sabbath himself. So we listen for that in spiritual direction. We listen for the soul that's troubled or the soul that's distracted or the soul that is constantly in need of noise or motion.
And when we create space as a spiritual director to just quiet ourselves, to be more attentive, more reflective, it's basically introducing a Sabbath-like experience for a person to say yes to that invitation within us, to get to know God at a deeper level, rather than running ourselves ragged, letting this world define who we are and what we're becoming.
Alison: I love that. And I would add if you're someone who's listening who finds it very challenging to sit in quiet as a result of so much pain inside–trauma is something that can surface in silence. It's nothing to feel shame about.
And that's one of the areas where I would say therapy becomes that place of Sabbath where you're with someone who can help you begin to pace yourself as you work through a lot of the noise in your soul that has built up over time as a result of trauma, as a result of no one attuning to you. That's where a therapist can help you pace that so that you can arrive at this place where your nervous system understands, “Oh, I can be quiet with myself and that feels okay”.
So that's another way where those two areas I think can work together. I know for me early on, sitting quietly, before I even arrived at Emmaus, I tell the story of having a series of panic attacks at the end of graduate school, and being in the quiet during that time would have been too much.
I needed people, I needed bodies, to help me understand what was happening. And as I healed that, then I brought in spiritual direction as a much needed reminder of, “This is what it feels like. I can take deep breaths. I can be with myself”.
It's just such a valuable practice that I've kept in my life since meeting you, Steve and Rowena. I would love to close by asking both of you, what would you encourage our listeners to take as next steps if they're listening and going, “I long for that. I long for what they're describing”. What are some next steps people can take? I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear from both of you.
Steve Macchia: Well, my obvious answer would be to connect with us at leadershiptransformations.org. There are resources, there are workshops, there are programs and opportunities for you to at least get a handle on what is spiritual direction and what does it look like and how do I find a spiritual director?
Because I would say, Alison, that anyone in Christian leadership needs to have a spiritual director. Now, I would say that across the board, because there's something about the objective voice in one's life, helping you listen and attend to the voice of God. And if you don't have that in a spiritual friendship or spiritual director role, you're missing out on something that will take you to a deeper place.
And I wanna say too, on the comment you just made, ethically for me as a spiritual director, if a person is sharing stuff that really belongs in the counselor's office, I must and will refer that person because I don't want to take on things that I can't handle.
And if it's an issue that you can handle as a therapist better, it is incumbent upon me to make sure that person that's come to see me gets better care by a trained therapist or trained counselor. So if we can work cooperatively between the areas of people care, the better off we'll always be.
It's sort of like an ethical commitment that we as spiritual directors need to make. If they need a counselor, we find the best counselor for them to deal with their issues in a more therapeutic way. But I think steps to take would be to invite a friend to be a spiritual friend. Invite a person into your life that you know and love and trust. And just say, Can we get together and just kind of talk soul stuff together? It's like, what are we noticing about God or not God? You know, is there an absence of God or a presence of God? And let's just start having conversations. And maybe we could practice healthy listening to each other and not fix or correct or change or one up each other. And just through a simple relationship, let's see where that grows. So that would be one way to just get it started.
Rowena: I think Alice Freiling's book, Seeking God Together is an incredible resource if you're interested in doing this with a couple of friends. To gather those friends together and to read that book, it gives some extremely practical tips for how to set up group spiritual direction time and questions you can ask each other and it helps establish the boundaries for that group setting. So I have done that in the past and that has been really, really profound to practice with other friends. That was before beginning SELAH. So that's another step that people can take.
Alison: I would make a plug for your book, Steve, Crafting a Rule of Life is a fantastic book I recommend to people. And we haven't talked too deeply about this, but this idea of a rule of life is very little about a rule and more about rhythms of these spiritual practices. It's a really deep and practical book on how to create these rhythms in your life, kind of like Rowena and I were talking about.
It could be as simple as “I don't listen to music in the car”. That's a rhythm for me that helps me. Or “I get a babysitter for my kids every two weeks” all the way to “I meet with a spiritual director once a month”. Or it's just a really great introduction to this idea of having these rhythms of quiet, having these rhythms of attuning to the contents of your soul.
Steve Macchia: Thank you.
Alison: Is there anything else that either of you would like to see? And then I want to give our listeners a chance to learn about where they can find you both.
Rowena: I just keep thinking of the verse from Ephesians where it says, “I pray out of his glorious riches, he will strengthen you through the spirit in your inner being with power, so that Christ can dwell in your hearts through faith.”
And I think that's kind of the essence of spiritual direction. What it can do is be a place where God can strengthen our inner beings with power through the Spirit and enable us to live in the world from a richer, fuller place where we can really inhabit our lives alive, present, awake, embodied, in the here and now, not stuck.
Or that's one place where we can work through places in life we are stuck, but it can be a place where God can bring a lot of freedom within ourselves. That's just what I feel like God keeps sharing with me is “I want you to be free within yourself”.
And I want all of my children to be free within themselves and to have everything stripped away that is entangling and enslaving and distracting and to find that rest inwardly and that freedom. And so that's, I think, the taste that I want listeners to get from what spiritual direction can offer. It’s the way to get free within yourself, unencumbered by things that are weighing you down and being able to emerge in life as your full self empowered by God. And that is a beautiful thing.
Alison: I love the way you're both describing this rest that is so much deeper than taking a nap, which is also important, but just this inner rest, where no matter what's going on in your outer life, there's an inner ability to find that calm. Being at peace with yourself, being at peace with God–that is the freedom that I believe God wants all of us to have. I love that, Rowena.
Steve Macchia: And I would add that Psalm 62 verse 1A could be a breath prayer for a person to just embrace, and it's very simply my soul finds rest in God alone. It doesn't come in any other place. It only comes in God. So learning how to rest in God is really learning how to trust God. Trust and rest go hand in glove. The more I rest in God, the deeper I trust Him. The more I trust God, the more I'm able to rest in Him.
We often use the word trust and rest rather flippantly, but to really take those words and have them be a part of our true identity as men and women of God, that we wanna learn how to trust, we wanna learn how to rest. And when we rest, we trust, when we trust, we rest. And it's out of that trust and rest that we find peace and joy in our relationships and in our service, in the communities that God has placed us in.
And finally, just to say, you know, by doing this, by finding a spiritual director, by taking care of your soul, it's not selfish to do so. It's actually good, solid self-care by which you become more fit to serve another. So when you're in a healthier place, when you're in a better space, when you have greater clarity about who God is and who you are, you can present yourself to the wider world with a far better way of serving another.
Otherwise we are going to be that manipulative presence that constantly is wanting to push or pull a person according to our interests or desires. And I have that problem. I'm a controller. I like to know, I like my family to know what I think about their decisions. I like to tell Ruth what she needs to do, and I got to stop constantly because that's not what they want. That's not what they need. They need my presence. They need my love. They need my affection. They need a more secure me to be present with them so that I can love them more impactfully out of a genuine heart for them. And I think that's with all of us.
We're all selfish, we're all kind of into our own ways. But if we really want to be a servant for another, it needs to come from that genuine, deep trust and rest in God that I'm not here to prove anything, I'm here to offer myself as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God and to others. And that takes time to strip that false self away in order to mine the deeper places that really matter the most.
Alison: Mm. I love that. I love being with you both. I feel the presence from both of you and have been so blessed and honored by your impact, both of you in my life, to help me learn what that means. And I'm just so grateful.
Thank you for your time today. I would love for our listeners to know where they can find you and where they can get a hold of you if they're interested in learning more.
Steve Macchia: Very simply for me, it's leadershiptransformations.org for the organization and stevemacchia.com for the books and things that I've created over the years. So leadershiptransformations.org is the go-to place.
Alison: And I can't recommend more the different workshops and different options that you provide for people to learn about this way of being with yourself, with God, and with other people. And what about you, Rowena? Are you going to be taking new directee clients?
Rowena: I am open to it. Right now, I can't really be found anywhere on social media. I just sort of realized that at this time in my life, I can't invest much time in those platforms, but I am interested in taking some directees, just a few. And so, yeah, if there's anyone who lives in the Washington DC area and would like to do it in person or I am also available over Zoom. We could connect.
Alison: Email me, how about that, if you're interested. I first of all love, I think both Steve and I are nodding our heads here, like, and wanting to honor and validate your choices to keep certain clutter out of your life. I mean, that right there is evidence of your own rhythms, right? This isn't a rhythm that I can have right now as to be available publicly.
And I know I've gone through seasons like that myself and want to honor that, I can also attest to the fact that you'd be a wonderful person for anyone who would like to get started with spiritual direction.
You can email me on my website, dralisoncook.com, and we'll get you hooked up. I also believe through SELAH, Steve, your spiritual direction training program, there are, is there a search engine where people can find spiritual directors through the Leadership Transformation website?
Steve Macchia: Yes, it's just it's SELAH, S-E-L-A-H, which is the word that's used in the Psalms for pausing between various verses. So it's got a great meaning, the word SELAH itself. So when you go to LeadershipTransformations.org, you just do /SELAH or go into the search icon and put SELAH in our spiritual direction. And there's also a listing there of spiritual directors that have been trained by us that are all over the country, different parts of the world.
Our SELAH program continues to multiply. We've got SELAH East on the East Coast, SELAH West in Arizona, SELAH Europe in Scotland and SELAH Anglican in North Carolina for the North American Anglican church. So it continues to grow, God continues to bless. If you're at all interested in that program, you should apply early and just make your interest known.
Alison: Beautiful. I love it. Well, thank you both for all the goodness you are bringing into this world full of noise. Just the beautiful presence that speaks so powerfully. I'm so grateful for both of you.
Steve Macchia: We're grateful for you too, Alison.
Rowena: Yeah same.
Steve Macchia: Kudos to you for all the wonderful writing and speaking and podcasts and blogs and all the rest. Keep up the good work, okay?
Alison: Thank you. Likewise.
*Outro*
Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to podcasts and click the Plus or Follow button. That will ensure you don't miss an episode, and it helps get the word out to others. While you're there. I'd love it if you'd leave your five-star review. I look forward to seeing you, back here, next Thursday. And remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor God, you heal others, and you stay true to your God-given self.