Spiritual Direction for the Woman Being Called to the Way of the Cross…and to New Life in Christ.
Something Vital has Died.
Maybe it was your marriage, a betrayal. Maybe a beloved child grew up and moved away. Maybe you lost a loved one, or a vocation. Maybe your body changed from menopause
or illness.
Whatever it was, you’re still hanging on, keeping it together, because that’s what you’ve always done. You’re the strong one everyone relies on.
But underneath the surface of that strength is a grief and confusion you can’t quite figure out.
You’re tired - exhausted, actually - feeling overwhelmed even though you don’t show it, and, if you’re honest, you’re mad and sad as hell.
But you don’t know what to do about it, so you just keep carrying on, even though you know deep inside this version of you is on her last leg.
But there’s a deeper truth you need to know.
You’re being called to the way of the Cross, the way of Jesus.
He told us himself:
"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."
At Seed Deep Abbey we call it being planted in a big pile of dead stuff.
It’s dark and dank, and it stinks!
But it’s also fertile, and given enough time and nurturing, wildly fruitful.
Fruit of the Spirit fruitful. Abundant. Joyful. Peaceful. Resilient. Faithful. Generous.
And it’s no accident that you’ve been planted at such a time as this in mid-life.
You have been deliberately and lovingly planted by God with great care into the soil of loss and grief so that the hard-shelled seed of your old self can die and the woman God created you to be can finally rise.
But this is not a process you should undertake alone. You will need to be companioned.
This is where spiritual direction can play a crucial role.
Spiritual direction is trained, attentive companionship for the woman who is ready to walk this road. A bi-monthly conversation. A slow practice of listening together for how God is at work in your dying and your rising.
You bring your grief, confusion, and anger, your longing, questions, resistance, and hope. I bring training, presence, contemplative practice, scriptural grounding, empathic experience, and the beauty of spiritual tradition.
You bring your grief, confusion, and anger, the longing, questions, resistance, and hope. I bring training, presence, contemplative practice, scriptural grounding, empathic experience, and the beauty of grounding spiritual tradition.
What is Spiritual Direction?
Spiritual direction is not advice-giving, fixing, or problem-solving.
It’s not therapy or counseling.
It is a relational practice of being companioned, in which you are invited to slow down, notice, tell the truth about your lived experience, be witnessed, and listen with another for how God is working in your life.
In spiritual direction, we attend to:
prayer, stillness and silence
emotions and bodily experience
relationships and patterns that keep showing up
longing, resistance, and desire
seasons of transition, loss, or discernment
the images of God shaping your inner life
Direction is not a space where you’re told what to do. There are no 10 Steps to Become Your True Self. Rather, it is a space where you learn, over time, to hear the Spirit in your own life with greater clarity and increasing trust.
Who is it for?
Spiritual direction may be especially supportive if you:
You are in a season of profound transition - divorce, menopause, grief, vocational shift, the slow undoing of an identity you built over a lifetime - and you sense the Spirit doing more in this season than you yet have language for.
You are still functioning, still faithful, still showing up. But you’re also hurting, confused, sometimes furious or sad, and tired of pretending you are not.
You sense that part of who you have been has been more about keeping you safe rather than making you free, and you are willing to let Jesus show you the difference - even if it costs you.
Your image of God is being purified, and you need someone trained to walk that ground without rushing or pathologizing it.
You are longing for a trained companion who knows how to listen with you for the Spirit’s leading, not a teacher, a fixer, or a friend who will simply tell you what you want to hear.
Posture in Spiritual Direction
My posture as a Spiritual Director is grounded in the Christian contemplative tradition, based in attachment to God and identity in Christ, and reverence for your story.
I listen for:
what you are saying
what you are not saying
what your body is communicating
where God’s presence feels near or obscured
unconscious patterns
the voice of the Spirit
I offer:
insightful questions
reflective listening
contemplative practices and embodied prayer when appropriate
scriptural and theological grounding when it would serve you
clear naming, when it would serve you, of what I am noticing in the work
companionship in discernment as you carry your cross faithfully into the next step
At times, elements of coaching may emerge when appropriate, particularly around clarity, agency, or integration, but always within a larger posture of spiritual accompaniment. You are never pushed toward outcomes or decisions, only ever invited into deepening and growth.
Above all, we trust the Holy Spirit to lead us. We trust your interior wisdom to recognize what is true. We trust that to lose your life for Christ's sake is to find it.
How We Practice
FORMAT
One-on-one sessions
Held via Zoom
(or in person if preferred and you are local to Detroit, MI)
LENGTH
50-minute sessions
FREQUENCY
Typically bi-monthly
We discern the rhythm together
COMMITMENT
Spiritual Direction is most fruitful when practiced over time
I recommend beginning with a 3-session discernment period
INVESTMENT
50-minute sessions: $150 per session
Sessions are typically scheduled bi-monthly
The Seed Deep Way
Spiritual Direction is one movement of The Seed Deep Way, the Abbey’s formation framework.
Some women arrive here after completing one or more of our Becoming Beloved courses.
Some begin here during seasons of deep transition.
Some move between spiritual direction, the Seed Deep Abbey Community, and our Retreats over time.
It’s not so important where you begin your journey on the Seed Deep Way, only that you do begin.
However you come to the Abbey, know you are welcomed and wanted just as you are.
Begin the Conversation
Spiritual direction begins with discernment — not enrollment.
Before we work together, we’ll schedule a conversation to listen together for whether this is the right next step for you.