Tending Your heart,
Preparing for Spiritual Direction
Find a quiet space and reflect on the movements of your heart, tending as a loving mother or father would tend an infant, or a gardener would look after a much-loved plant.
You might like to respond to some of the following:
- How is my body feeling?
- How is my spirit feeling?
- What is the general tone of my life lately?
You might express this in terms of colours, temperature, landscape, aromas, anything that helps give expression to your experience.
- Describe the rhythm of your life.
- How would you describe the quality of your loving?
- name the experiences and relationships that are communicating to you a sense of God’s presence.
- Or are you experiencing God as absent?
- Describe your way of praying at the present time.
- Again use feelings, colours, images, to give expression to the felt sense of prayer.
- Begin with an outer felt sense, then focus interiorly.
- Identify and place some words or images on this deep interior felt sense.
- Is there a specific prayer time that it would be helpful to return to?
- How are you relating to God at this time of your life?
- What are your favourite names or images for God?
- Are there any decisions you need to make that require discerning God’s desiring for you?
- In what area of your life do you sense God inviting you to grow?
Adapted from Philip A. St. Romain.
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