Guest blogger Anne Landerson
Like many of my colleagues, I offer online spiritual directional sessions. Every day, I find myself lucky to work with a supervisor who lives anywhere in the world. I also understand how lucky I am to meet regularly with professionals who provide the same services as me, even if I currently live in Belgium.
Earlier this month, I attended an online meeting for my spiritual director. When the presenter placed us in the breakout room, I found two like-minded souls and myself. We had just finished introducing ourselves and shared our thoughts about the prompt we were given. Our answers reflect our unique background and experiences regarding religion, spirituality, and unique ways of helping people as spiritual care providers.
When it was my turn to speak, I mentioned certain painful places in the past, which caused the pain. These online meetings between colleagues can make you feel vulnerable, especially when you don’t know other participants. But because we are spiritual supervisors and companions, we believe that what we say about ourselves in the breakout room in a sacred and brave space remains a secret.
During this meeting I felt safe and listened deeply. I began to explain the harmful incidents I had as an adolescent. Growing up in America as a young, strange woman, I was looking for spiritual guidance in a society that didn’t always accept people like me. My friends at the new church I was in attendance called us “sinners.” I was leaving that church.
And now, decades later, I was retelling the incident in the breakout room, and I glanced at a giant brownish orange spider (or was it a long leg bug?).
“Yeah!” I cried, and my hands flew to my chest. I swallowed and told my colleagues about the huge beast expanding my walls. I’ve never seen anything more ugly in my office, which I had vacuumed two hours ago.
One participant, a practitioner of the shamanic tradition, told me this might be a sign from the spirit: Spirit messenger. I noticed this and when I stopped talking, if you included that leg, I imagined a bug or spider of the same length as my pinky finger. That’s how it is. It’s gone.
Practitioners of the Shamanic tradition advise me to ask what message I have about bugs and spiders and really listen to the answer. And trust it. It sounded like a great idea. But I couldn’t find the beast of last night or this morning.
So while I sat at my computer, I looked back at the answer I received. I meditated on this question for 20 minutes. I asked what the message was for me, or what the spider, a spirit messenger. And during that time I felt calm and peaceful… almost full of joy. And when I was finished, I understood this unexpected message of spirit, from nature to the walls of my office.
Meditation more, prayer more, trusting our human species was tweaking me. No matter how flawed you are, trust us in our human condition. And we trust our future, our planet, and all living creatures. For some reason, this mess is all going well. In the meantime, prepare to be a catalyst and deep listener to help others understand this important spirit message: help protect all Beings on Earth, and our planets. We are all Safe, love, compassion, and kindness.
As a writer, spiritual director, and coach, I try my best to express what comes to me, including words, thoughts, and emotions. It’s not necessarily in that order. As humans, we are not always aware of the message that cleans our heads, minds, and bodies. We all know that emotions are not the same as thinking or writing. But they are interconnected.
I am an inter-fiction spiritual director who enjoys working with people from all backgrounds, people of spiritual and religious traditions. I am very open and affirming the LGBTQIA+ community and the people of NeuroDivergent. I often find peace and comfort by immersing myself in nature. And sometimes nature comes to me. Like yesterday.
In conclusion, I plan to follow the kind advice from an unexpected mental messenger. I found it harmless so I will continue to check my wall and check my wall under my desk in case I receive another visit today.
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Dr. Anne Landerson is an author and inter-fiction psychic supervisor who graduated from the Phoenix Center Force Philippine Direction Apparentice Training Program in January 2024. This essay was first published on her website (the URL below). Anne is currently embracing new spiritual direction clients and welcomes seekers of all backgrounds and traditions. She is multilingual, multicultural, and openly affirms the LGBTQIA+ community. Based in Belgium, she effectively meets her clients in person. For more information, see Anne’s SDI profile https://www.sdicompanions.
Source: Spiritual Direction 101 – www.patheos.com
