Counselling Process

Eureka! 7-step Process of Self-Discovery in Spiritual Counselling

Introduction: Diverse Journeys

For people who desire to go beyond the crossroads of their lives

Diverse Journeys recognises the ongoing, developmental nature of a person’s spiritual and ethical journey.

Diverse Journeys offers training and assistance to individuals, groups and organisations in spiritual and ethical development through adult education, personal mentoring, seminars, retreats, workshops and sacred journeys.

Introduction: Meath D. Conlan, Ph.D.

Dr. Meath Conlan is the founder of Diverse Journeys. He is a spiritual counsellor / director, with specialist experience in trans-cultural and inter-faith dialogue. Dr Conlan creates and offers retreats, workshops and seminars for people on the spiritual journey. He is a published author with an Master of Arts Degree from Fordham University (New York), and a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of South Australia.

Dr Conlan’s professional experience in adult education, ethics and spiritual direction spans thirty years. He is a member of the Bede Griffiths Trust, a member both of Spiritual Directors International and the Australian Network of Spiritual Directors, and a member of The International Institute for Complementary Therapists (in Spiritual Direction & Counselling). Meath has delivered retreats and seminars in Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia and the United States.

Spiritual Counselling / Direction

The contemporary world sees profound changes in traditional religious practice. Many people are investigating cultural and religious traditions beyond their childhood upbringing. Spiritual teachers now come from a number of diverse traditions, offering spiritual and ethical, and wisdom practices. Additionally, contemporary book titles on spirituality are among the most commonly sought-after by a wide range of consumers.

Spiritual counsellors / directors offer openness, insight, and availability to people seeking to understand and deepen their spiritual journey; sometimes this may involve trans-cultural explorations.

Who May Benefit From Spiritual Counselling / Direction?

• Most adult people from all walks of life can benefit from spiritual direction.
• Spiritual direction is not a substitute for psychotherapy, but in many situations spiritual direction is often valuable accompanying such therapy, if approved by the therapist.
• Though, traditionally, there have been personal benefits associated with receiving spiritual direction, there are no guaranteed outcomes of any kind.

Self Discovery in Spiritual Direction

Self-discovery demands the presence, honesty, maturity and integrity of one who not only strongly desires to know and understand him self, but is willing to risk the opening of wounds and passionate concerns, and to undergo the personal transformation that exists as a possibility in every spiritual journey. - after Clarke Moustakas

A Process of Self Discovery

• • The spiritual journey is an inner journey, one that invites close attention upon the movements of the Spirit in a person’s daily life.
  • Each aspect of everyday life, including the painful experiences, offers opportunities for spiritual growth and advancement.
  • To support this inner desire for growth and moving beyond, Dr Conlan offers a series of steps, or phases as a useful way of self-inquiry: altogether leading to the possibility of personal discovery.

Some Details about the ‘Eureka’ Process

With reference to the works of Moustakas (1990) and Hiles (2001), there are seven steps or phases that provide the mental framework and contemplative attitudes within which the seeker will be able to explore the deeper aspects of the inner spiritual life. They are actually rather more fluid than fixed, allowing for hidden knowledge to surface in a graduated and gentle way. An explanation of these steps will now follow.

Getting Started: Preparing the Ground

A. Internal Frame of Reference:

The outcome of the ‘Eureka’ process, in terms of knowledge and experience, must be placed in the context of the seeker’s own internal frame of reference and not some external frame.

B. Self-dialogue:
Self-dialogue is the critical beginning. Discovery results from self-inquiry and openness to one’s own experience. Spiritual self-knowledge then grows from the recognition of the interaction between one’s spiritual events and life experience.

C. Tacit knowing:
In addition to knowledge that we can talk about, there is knowledge that is implicit to our actions and experiences. This tacit dimension is ineffable; it underlies and precedes intuition, and can guide the self-inquirer into untapped directions and sources of meaning.

D. Intuition:
Intuition provides the bridge between explicit and tacit knowledge, making possible the seeing of things as wholes. Every act of achieving integration, unity or wholeness requires intuition.

E. Indwelling:
This is the conscious and deliberate process of turning inward to seek a deeper, more extended comprehension of a quality or theme of human experience. Indwelling involves a willingness to gaze with unwavering attention and concentration into some aspect of human experience.

F. Focussing:
This consists of inner attention, a sustained process of systematically contacting the central meanings of an experience. It enables one to see something as it is, and to make the necessary shifts to establish contact with the essential awareness and insight.

Seven Steps or Phases of Self Discovery

• choose a text from your personal life experience for engagement – with no expectation of what will emerge, only the basic belief that something will.

• engage with the text participating deeply in the experience, exploring the demands it places on you.

• indwell over an extended period of participation by exploration and  discernment, following ‘leads,’ or ‘clues’ to material outside that chosen (e.g. novels, poetry, movies, etc), but always returning to the main focus.

• sift through and gather together the materials and experiences, allowing tacit knowing in a range of insights, meanings and themes to emerge.

• reflect on the authenticity of these insights, meanings and themes.

• formulate a “creative synthesis” of your personal inquiry that reflects both your participation and your authenticity.

• share the “creative synthesis” with others, such as the spiritual director, establishing, for yourself, the validity of your work.

Practicum

The next stage for the spiritual seeker is to integrate what has been learnt, into his/her whole being, of spirituality, psychology and activities of daily living. There are several components to this little “rule of life,” having varying emphases throughout the day. Along with sacred reading (lectio divina), prayer and meditation, they include the following:

Awareness! Awareness!

• Habitually pause; notice things that fill one’s day, starting with one’s body (e.g. breathing), and mental state.
• Focus creative energies on just a few areas of spiritual self-inquiry that one really cares about, and do this for several weeks or months as the need arises.
• Avoid narrowness in how one sees one’s puzzles and the problems that have to do with a specific area of self-inquiry. The application of a solution to what may seem a relatively minor issue may be usefully applied to many aspects of life.

Look Around & Laugh!

• Come up with original ideas by making novel associations with what is already known. That is, read widely and see what others have to say.
• When creative ideas are needed, remember: Attention (to what is happening now)! Escape (from old modes of thinking)! Movement (to new insights and understandings)!
• Pause! Examine ideas that cause laughter when first heard.

Be Open to the New!

• Recognise that streams of thought and patterns of judgment are not inherently right or wrong: they are just present, based on patterns from the past!
• Be deliberate and persistent in the effort to harvest, develop and implement the ideas, new insights, and discoveries made.

What This Means

• The ‘Eureka’ process in spiritual direction, if chosen, is actually one that assists the seeker to move at his/her own pace, obeying the rhythms of the Spirit in daily life.
• The spiritual director becomes a companion who aids in sharing through dialogue and creative listening. Dr Conlan has, through personal and academic use of the ‘Eureka’ process, developed insights that may be beneficial to the spiritual seeker.

Next Steps

• Seekers who wish to begin this inner journey are invited to write down one or two specific experiences in which spirituality, or a ‘sense of the spiritual’ was felt very strongly in their life.
• They try to describe these in as rich and full detail as possible, relating what it was like at the time.

These episodes will be the basis upon which the first several interviews are conducted between the counsellor / director and the client.

To Contact Meath Conlan, Ph.D.

Mail:

67, 107 Goderich Street

East Perth, WA 6004 AUSTRALIA

E-mail:

meath@diversejourneys.com

Phone:

office –   +61 (0) 8 9221 6338

mobile – +61 (0) 408 080 560

Select References:

Hiles, D. 2001, ‘Heuristic inquiry and transpersonal research’, in CCPE Conference, London, UK, October 2001. [Online, accessed]. www.psych.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles.html

Moustakas, C. 1990, Heuristic research: Design, methodology, and application. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California.

West, W. 2000, Psychotherapy & spirituality: Crossing the line between therapy and religion. Sage Publications, London.