“Maybe there was something in my persistent plea. Maybe there was something irresistible and inviting in the length of my eyelashes — she always said I had moo-cow lashes. Maybe it was, after all, Maybelline.”

“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

This playlist is not designed to tell you that your dark night of the soul is not so bad, nor is it an attempt to coax you out of your dark night.

This is an evocative poem in Ó Tuama’s own voice. What words stick with you when you listen/watch? What is your felt sense of the poem?

These are some of the threads I’ve been following related to the topic of trauma. May curiosity and resonance be your guides as you explore this collection.

Disconnection from our inner wisdom disrupts all of our connections — with Self, Spirit, others, and the earth. Trauma-Informed Spiritual Direction is a place to discover, recover, and cultivate our connection to this wisdom.

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 what’s emerging for me as I contemplate Meister Eckhart and John O’Donohue’s image of the soul as a shared dwelling place.

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?

Here’s a spacious spiritual practice for joining the earth’s rhythms as a reset for your soul that was inspired by John O’Donohue.

Here’s an invitation to engage with poetry as a prism for Spirit. What words shimmer for you in this poem?

This 8-minute video is the best resource I’ve found to simply explain how residues of our overwhelming experiences shape our felt sense of safety in the present. The awareness can be a lens for compassion and curiosity for ourselves and others.

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.

Here’s what I wish I would have known as a Christian parent before my child came out as gay.

A playlist for days we are holding the paradox of Sorrow & Joy. Naming and feeling our own pain reminds of our connectedness to others, in sorrow and love.