Life Direction-Listening is not therapy.
- no effort made to advance you from one state of Being to another — although you may feel different when you leave compared to when you began;
- no skills to learn — although you may discover something about yourself. Quite commonly, you will.
- no “curriculum” to learn — although you may learn new ways to Be with yourself and to listen to yourself.
There is a basic structure to a session, and your “Director” guides your self-awareness through some questions throughout each session you meet together.
But there is also a sense of mystery, some presence in you or between you and the “Director” accompanying you, that shows up in most sessions, if you pay careful attention — it can be subtle if you are not accustomed to paying attention to it.
Life Direction-Listening is not life coaching, either.
There are no goals or benchmarks to track your progress towards.
There will be no homework (unless you request ‘an assignment’ in the form of a question to hold, a practice to try out on your own, some reading to do or website to investigate).
You might be engaged in therapy or life coaching or both and still want Life Direction-Listening sessions, as a complement.
You might have tried therapy and life coaching already and discovered at some completion point that what you want next is something different. Circumstances and people can change. What makes for a winning program at one time of your life can run it’s course and no longer be what supports you later.
Life Direction-Listening
It evolved out of worldwide spiritual traditions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Earth-Based Religions (Wicca, First Nations traditions). It has historically been called Spiritual Direction or Spiritual Accompaniment.
In the Christian traditions that use this form of listening, the ‘presence between you and the “Director” ‘ has been called the Third Chair, meaning a seat for G!d.
But the truth is that Presence exists in humans regardless of belief system. The human Being contains rich depths of Presence, both beneath and amidst our feelings, thoughts, and embodiments, like a scaffolding, like a building’s foundation.
Listening for that Presence, a part of your own Being, is a worthwhile pursuit. The awareness of your own ‘Presence’ happens all the time in our daily living — a peaceful or comforting feeling inside while daydreaming, or looking out the window at the scene beyond your home or your favorite nearby spot in the world.
And having a skilled witness to facilitate the ‘listening’ you do in your life for one hour can be supportive and can add to your appreciation of life and to your self-understanding.
Not Religious, but possibly Spiritual
Each person is unique.
However you might experience or describe human ‘Presence’, I understand that it is inside you, animating your mindbody processes. I would even call it your Spirit, in a neutrally descriptive way.
Sitting in a Life Direction-Listening session does not require a particular religious or philosophical belief system. Or any belief system at all.
Other than the belief that sitting together (over video conference software) in contemplation of simple questions about your current life might yield some awareness for you that makes it worth your time to make the appointment with me.
Because even though there are question prompts, there is no guidance, just sitting in witness to your story as you decide to tell it. We both will be listening for your own guidance to emerge in the sessions.
Life Direction-Listening Journeys
Three sessions are suggested as an introduction. So you can get oriented to the simple structure of a session with me, and sample what it can feel like to do this contemplative inquiring into your life, together.
Of course, three sessions in a row will likely feel really different if you’ve been sitting with me in Life Direction-Listening for a number of months aready, or a year, because the relationship between us deepens over time. But fewer than three sessions won’t likely allow us to settle into the start of a relationship sufficiently to feel what Life Direction-Listening can feel like. So, three is a basic minimum that I request you to try on before deciding whether it is something you want to continue or not.
You get to decide
Then, if you do want to engage in this practice, the recommended frequencies of meeeting are:
- Monthly
- Quarterly
You could even do yearly sessions once a relationship of a number of months has been established. A yearly or quarterly ‘check-in’ can be affirming and validating as milestones in your life pass by.
Sometimes it can be helpful to meet twice a month, or even weekly, when just starting out to establish a familiarity with the method and with me, more quickly.
After the initial three sessions, I suggest commiting to an additional six-to-ten sessions, with some evaluation the last two of those sessions before deciding whether to continue or stop (or take a pause for awhile).
The Fine Print…Important Stuff
You must have:
- Internet access that supports video conferencing for the sessions
- Ability to make payments by Stripe on your computer or phone
- Ability to attend all sessions within a designated time frame:
- a window of 5 months is allowed for the initial 3-Session series.
- a window of 8 months is given for a 6-session series and
- 12 months for the 10-session series.
Partial refunds can be offerred if you can’t complete all the sessions, but the time frame to use them up is not extendable.
When you click on the purchase portal in the next line, it will take you to a purchase portal to enter your credit card and contact information. I offer these sessions on a sliding scale of $200-75 per session. For the 3-session package you would enter a number between $600 – $225.
The link for purchasing an initial package of Life-Direction Listening (3-sessions) is here: Life-Direction Listening .
Sample
If you would like to hear my voice, I send a free audio meditation file to everyone who signs up for my eNews, free of charge
The eNews is focused on ayurvedic wisdom and you might want to unsubscribe immediately after receiving the the audio file. But feel free to stay on the list if you want to read my introspective style. It will show you some of the intellectual side of my healership interests, although my own live Presence is not quite adquately captured. [I’m not great at video just yet, but a new audio with a sample listening session might get posted here… stay tuned!].
In Closing
I’ve tried to answer a lot of frequently asked questions, but if there’s something you wonder about please email me your unanswered question at Victoria (at) Ayurveda-Healthcare.com and I’ll try to respond within 48 hours.
If you are interested in purchasing an initial package of Life-Direction Listening (3-sessions), the link to the sliding scale purchase portal is here Life-Direction Listening .
I’ll look forward to hearing from you when and if the timing is right for you.
In Healing,
Victoria Why “Marisol”?