Spiritual Counseling – Caring and Companioning

Spiritual counseling is a relationship of companioning, witnessing, and exploration for individuals, couples, and groups, of all faiths and beliefs – whether spiritual, religious, or secular – to explore and address the aspirations and challenges of life, to more intimately know oneself and one’s Source, to find greater meaning and more fully live one’s life journey, and to support personal transformation toward wholeness.

Through caring loving presence, holding of sacred space, compassionate listening and mirroring, along with a range of modalities and practices, Rev Gary guides counselees to deepen connection to their personal source of strength, to the love and compassion of their heart, to the wisdom of their Higher Self, and to the Divine, according to each counselee’s particular faith tradition, beliefs, and practices.

Rather than give judgment or advice, Rev. Gary assists counselees to more joyfully and authentically live in the total experience of their life and to find answers within.

Areas of Exploration

Life Challenges and Changes

• Embrace and celebrate life transitions
• Create healthy relationship with money
• Deal with illness, aging, end-of-life issues
• Experience grief, loss, letting go of fear of death and embracing it; connecting with departed souls
• Growing inner peace and resilience through life’s challenges

Connection to Spirit

• Increase alignment and surrender to Spirit and Divine Will; holding ego demands and goals more lightly; be more at peace with what is (yet more empowered to change what is changeable); embracing Mystery
• Build a bridge between the separated self and Higher Self.
• Deepen spiritual awareness and connection to sacred Source; finding one’s spiritual path/home, incorporating spirituality and Divine/God in daily life
• Address spiritual crises – loss of faith, betrayal of God, dark night of soul, spiritual emergencies and spiritual trauma;
• Develop and commit to a regular spiritual practice that truly fits counselee

Personal Growth and Transformation

• Transformation: “How can I BE differently”, not “how can I be different”?
• Learn from pain and struggles; heal old wounds; moving beyond aloneness
• Healing wounds from family and/or religion of origin
• Witness and disengage the Inner Judge
• Discern meaning and purpose in life; discover one’s true calling & passion

Optimal Living and Being• Slow down, be more grounded, live more in the present and with greater authenticity

• Expanding one’s joy
• Deep listening to – and greater integration of – body, mind, heart, soul
• Strengthen hope and engaging/lessening fear and despair
• Deepen trust and intuition; unlocking the imagination

Relationship

• Create more loving and fulfilling relationships; Open up to intimacy with oneself and others
• Moving beyond aloneness to a sense of us
• Creating space, acceptance and connection with other mindsets, cultures, ways of being.
• Interpersonal/ group conflict resolution and transformation
• Marriage counseling, spiritual divorce, post-divorce spiritual friendship

Modalities and Practices

To understand the richness of life experiences and embrace the healing journey of the mind, heart, and soul, Rev. Gary offers counselees many modalities and practices as possible avenues to explore. These include: meditation, prayer, guided visualization, body scan, ritual, silence, gratitude, forgiveness, sacred text, poetry and storytelling, spiritual biography, spiritual sensitivities, soul and purpose maps, Jungian archetypes, faith styles, dream work, chakras, family of origin work (such as child archetypes and attachment types), and disengaging the inner judge. The actual modalities and practices used depends entirely on what is most useful and appropriate for each counselee.

Populations Served

Rev. Gary works with all populations, but his practice is primarily focused on adult individuals, couples, elders, groups/organizations, and those ill and dying.

Format

Private sessions can be in person or via Zoom (it’s preferable for at least the first couple of sessions to be in person, if at all possible, before Zooming). In rare situations, sessions may be done by phone. For the most part, the work is open-ended, until the counselee(s) decides to terminate. Workshops for groups of individuals or couples are available. 8 people minimum Contact Rev. Gary for details.

Length of Sessions: 50-60 minutes

Fee: $120 per private session, to be paid at time of service, unless other arrangements are made. If fee amount is a hardship, please discuss sliding scale and other options with Rev. Gary

No-Show, Cancellation And Late Policies

Barring emergencies, usual fee will be charged if counselee doesn’t show for scheduled session or if cancellation is made less than 24 hours of session. If counselee is late, session will generally not be extended past the allotted time.

Confidentiality

All information discussed in sessions is confidential. The only exceptions are when a counselee poses a danger to themselves or others, when requested by a court of law, or for purposes of professional supervision (in which case, your name and identifying information will not be used). Please be advised that disclosure of child abuse or suicide attempts must be reported, by law.

PLEASE NOTE: Spiritual counseling is not a substitute for psychotherapeutic or psychiatric specialized treatment of substance abuse, trauma, mental illness, depression or other serious conditions, but rather can serve as an adjunct, reinforcement, and spiritual support.