Supervision for your Spiritual Direction or Coaching Practice

You want to help people find their inner truth and a greater sense of sacred life?

Then I want to help you.

I'm offering a free supervision session so spiritual directors and coaches get a sense of my work. In 2026, I completed Spiritual Direction Supervision Training (on Principles, Practices, & Storytelling by Lucy Abbott Tucker) with SDI Board Member Joan Alexander. While the training was in the field of Spiritual Direction, I have had decades of supervision in various fields, including nature and forest therapy, Clinical Pastoral Education, and more.

In this article, I'll refer to spiritual directors as "directors," the people who are providing spiritual direction for their clients, and supervision as the process in which the spiritual directors get support from me.

If you're a coach or healer in a holistic health field and seek supervision, you're welcome to set up a free session, and we can discern together if I'm a fit. (Note: I do not provide supervision for licensed mental health providers.) If you are a life coach or healer, you would be in the role of "director" in the supervision process.

What is Supervision?

Supervision is a space of radical hospitality for the director (or healer) to self-reflect, process, learn, and discern in their practice of spiritual direction. The director brings specific content and questions to the meeting to explore their lens, truths, strengths, blessings, and growing edges. The supervisor provides affirmation, education, consultation and gentle challenge for a spiritual director around the topic or case they bring to discuss, based on the director’s model of spiritual direction, the supervisor’s training and experience, and the whispers of the Spirit in the conversation. 

What is the process?

You, the director/healer/coach write a summary of the experience you wish to reflect on, using one of the templates I provide. You email it to me 1 week in advance. When we meet, we will center, meditate or pray, and then contemplate your case study. You can add updates, ask questions, and let me know I can best support you. I will offer affirmation, education, ideas if you request them, and gentle challenge if you are open to it. I may invite you to explore sensations in your body and other somatic methods of discovery. You can accept or decline any offering or suggestion I make.

We generally schedule a meeting once a month.

Same or next-day phone calls can also be arranged for urgent issues.

The outcome of supervision is that the director is more aware of how they are thinking, acting, and feeling in the role of director (and as a person), and may have more insight into how they want to be in future sessions (and/or in their life). The supervisor helped the director explore what happened and why, and possibly contributed ideas for future growth.

What is Spiritual Direction?

Spiritual Direction is a sacred process with a trained, spiritually grounded companion (listener)  to intentionally contemplate what is present or could be emerging in your Divine life.

If you are providing spiritual direction (or coaching or healing), you will have your own definition of your work.

I like to define it:

“Spiritual Direction is a mystical sacred place, co-created by the one who steps into a role of profound listening for the voice and action of the Divine in the speaker/seeker, the one who contemplates holy interior movements and external interactions that beckon a re-claiming of Godde’s presence, and that which we refer to as Spirit/Source/Consciousness/Ultimate connection.”

Why:

 We “beckon a re-claiming of Godde’s presence,” because we don’t feel Godde’s presence, or we don’t feel the whole of it, yet want to. We seek joy, satisfaction, fulfillment, purpose, and belonging.

Godde is my gender neutral word for God/Goddess. I believe the Divine is beyond our total conception.

What happens in a Sacred Listening Session?

On my website, I call Spiritual Direction "Sacred Listening" because it makes more sense to the common person today. I say, "This tradition has historically been known as Spiritual Direction, but I don’t direct you. Direction comes from our sacred listening for the direction the Spirit calls you. Only you decide what is true and right for you."

When I provide  sacred listening/spiritual direction for individuals, it is a different focus than Supervision. The outcome is that the directee feels witnessed, withnessed, and clearer about their inner life, which may include: who they are, how they are evolving, or how the Divine is engaged in their life. I strive to provide sacred witness, a non- anxious and non-judgmental presence, and a container builder for the Divine to come and/or be felt more thickly.

See more at :https://www.divinenaturetherapy.com/sacred-listening 

About Shannon's Journey:

I grew up Catholic and was drawn to the mystic saints. As an adult, I've practiced several traditions including yoga vedanta and zen. In 2014, I earned a Master of Divinity from Pacific School of Religion, in Berkeley, CA where I took classes through various denominational seminaries of the Graduate Theological Union. I kept developing my interspirituality practices over the past decade: I was ordained in the United Church of Christ and also in Universal Sufism. I became a board certified chaplain and worked as an interfaith chaplain for 9 years (including 5 years at a pediatric hospital with dying children) before moving into private practice. I apprenticed for 7 years in spiritual direction, with Reverend Denise Tebbenkamp Hill. I also completed ANFT's nature and forest therapy guide training. My practice weaves the liminal and earthen in healing traumatic realities and tapping into the larger sacred source. 

See more on my Bio.

How to Book a Free Session

To schedule a free supervision session, you can book a 60 minute individual session here using code FREESUPERVISION. I will email you templates to choose from for your first write-up. Or, book a free 15 minute phone call to ask questions and set up your first session.

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© Shannon Gorres, 2026. Written by a human, not AI or chatGPT. Please contact me to request permission before sharing. I will give you permission to share sections of it when you include "by Shannon Gorres, www.DivineNatureTherapy.com"