Here’s a spiritual practice to support you in listening for inner wisdom by creating and being curious with wisdom collages.

Explore what it means to go slow with this evocative image collage. What does it stir in you?

Helena Bonham Carter reads Rumi’s The Guest House. What does this welcoming poem stir in you?

Dr. Shannon Michael Pater’s trauma-informed perspective is helping me look upon my experiences of dysregulation with greater compassion.

Sometimes an image or phrase can help us gently help us excavate this wisdom (like an archaeologist, not a construction worker!). Here’s a practice to experiment with.

Praying our experiences means being open to seeing ourselves as we are. This requires an awareness and an honesty that will root us in our actual daily life.

Prayer is fundamentally an offering of ourselves to God. It is not a matter of offering the pious thoughts of theologians or spiritual writers. Nor is it a matter of offering God only what we believe to be worthy.

Have you noticed the concept of trauma coming up more frequently in the past few years? You are not alone; it is confusing. What do people mean when they use the word trauma in this rapidly-changing landscape?

Sometimes an image or phrase can help us gently help us excavate this wisdom (like an archaeologist, not a construction worker!). Here’s a practice to experiment with.

What words shimmer for you in this poem by Derek Mahon? What arises in you as you hold those words?

“You’re able to begin to notice that God speaks to us, God comes to us in our experience, that God becomes known; God becomes flesh in our everyday experience.” - Jonathan Merritt

Coming home to our bodies is about recognizing we are complex beings whose present-tense needs are worthy of time and care. These needs are not distractions, but rather, a portal to our deepest wisdom.

Here’s a poem about coming home to ourselves, to inner wisdom — not as an end in itself, but as the place we perceive the ways we are interconnected.

Here’s a tool I use in my life and my trauma-informed spiritual direction practice often. Naming our felt sense of something helps us connect with the wisdom of our body.

What do I mean when I say “trauma-informed” spiritual direction?

As you follow the threads of wisdom in this post, and listen for resonance in your own soul, may you find comfort in this quote from George Bernanos, “The wish to pray is a prayer in itself.”

The enneagram came to me in a season when I was ready to take a look at the parts of me that I’d been afraid to look at. It was a tool that pointed to some tender spots within me that I didn’t have language for in a compassionate way.

I was in a minor car accident a couple of weeks ago. Though not badly hurt, I received a prescription for brain rest. My doctor also suggested bundling up and going outside to be among the trees and birds. Nature as medicine.