If you made it to this point, one could at least assume that you might be searching for something. Perhaps you are asking yourself questions about meaning and purpose in an increasingly complex and uncertain world? Are you wondering where to find resources to cope with and shape your life and its challenges? Are you seeking a safe space to think about and discuss spirituality and faith, and how these can be reconciled with life in the midst of our postmodern consumer society? If so, Spiritual Direction might be an option for you.
What is Spiritual Direction?
Spiritual direction or spiritual accompaniment is a relationship between two people with the spiritual seeking of one of them, often called the directee, at its centre. It is an open, safe space into which the accompanied person can bring all their questions, experiences, joys and struggles with the small fixables and great unfixables of human life from birth to love to death. For some, these might involve the search for God, the numina, the real, the Dharma or however they like to describe the divine, for others it might just be the search for meaning in life.
Other commonly used terms for Spiritual Direction / Spiritual Accompaniment are Spiritual Companionship or Soul Friendship.
What is a Spiritual Director?
‘A spiritual director has a very deep respect for the mystery of personality, combined with common sense, the gift of prayer, patience, experience, and sympathy.’ (Thomas Merton) The director is available as a witness to the other’s story and therefore a bestower of hospitality to others on their journey through life.
It is important to mention that a spiritual director or accompanier is neither a friend nor a therapist and also not a spiritual teacher. The director is not teaching any specific spiritual way but accompanies and supports the directees in developing their own way for themselves. For this reason, the term spiritual accompanier might appear to be the more appropriate one, but spiritual director is, at least in Western Christianity, the traditional term with a long and valuable history of nearly two thousand years. I always use both terms indiscriminately.
My approach to spiritual accompaniment
My approach to spiritual accompaniment is best described as contemplative hospitality. I offer a space where we can meet to listen to and talk about your questions, experiences, joys and worries in your (spiritual) life. Often these conversations will move back and forth between your daily life, which one might not perceive as particularly spiritual in the first place, and questions of meaning or where we can find the divine in the daily mess of our lives.
For roughly 20 years now, I have been a seeker myself, passing through different stages of life and faith. Today, I combine my work as a theologian and spiritual director with a day job at my local city council. Therefore, I know about the challenges of integrating the spiritual and secular aspects of life, such as finding time for prayer while pursuing a secular career or fulfilling family commitments. I am happy to discuss these challenges as well as the big and small questions of faith with you. I offer spiritual accompaniment in English or German via Zoom or in person in Kiel, Germany. More details about my journey can you find here.
My spiritual and theological sources
Benedictine contemplative spirituality is my spiritual source, from which I draw every day. For many years, I have been practising a form of contemplative prayer as well as praying parts of the Divine Office, daily. I also have experiences with Ignatian spirituality and Soto Zen Buddhism. Important sources for my theology and spirituality are the Bible – especially the Psalms, the Benedictine Daily Prayer, the Rule of Saint Benedict and the writings of St. John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Shohaku Okumura, Perry Schmidt-Leukel, and John Hick.
I am also aware of the obstacles of living with visible and invisible disabilities as well as neurodiversity, especially autism.
How to proceed
If you are considering to explore your spiritual life further, please feel free to get in touch. Our first appointment will be an exploratory session to get to know each other and to find out if we would like to continue our conversation in future meetings. Each session will be about an hour long and we will normally meet every 4 to 6 weeks. After the exploratory session, I ask for a small fee on a sliding scale of up to 40 € per session to cover my expenses, but that is wholly depending on what you can afford.
Professional standards and safeguarding
I received my formation as a spiritual director / spiritual accompanier through the spiritual direction course at Sarum College, Salisbury, UK. I am a member of the network of spiritual directors of the Church of England’s Diocese in Europe and the London Centre for Spiritual Direction and follow their professional and ethical guidelines. I receive spiritual direction and one-to-one supervision regularly. I have complete safeguarding training through the Diocese in Europe and hold DBS clearance for the UK as well as the German equivalent, a Certificate of Conduct without entries.
Stephan Jockheck 