Spiritual Direction &
Spacious Accompaniment
“Yes” to who you are today. “Yes” to who you are becoming.
I’m Kirsten Harrison, and Spiritual Direction is where I became deeply acquainted with the inner ground of my soul. It was a steady, loving, non-judgmental place for me to rest and open to what was emerging, held in presence by someone who was not afraid for me.
It is my joy to get to extend the gift of that
spaciousness forward to you.
"May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging."
John O'Donohue
Belonging As You’re Becoming
True belonging comes from the inside, but we get a feel for it as we experience belonging in a relational field.
Becoming is a slow, steady, non-linear process that happens in the context of living our lives. We don’t need to rid ourselves of our “us-ness.” It is the raw material we’ve been given for this human journey.
We can deepen our capacity to witness and welcome “what is,” to ground and resource ourselves, to know and soften into unknowing.
It is my delight to offer spacious presence and co-regulation. Together, we name, contextualize, wonder, and listen — we slow down to savor tiny signs of what’s emerging.
Each appointment is a plot point on your journey. I hold the long arc of your story in love when you are "in it," reminding you of who you already are and embodying patient trust as become who you will be.
Focus Areas
Mapping Your Inner Landscape — Learning and accompaniment as you develop familiarity with your inner world. Map the somatic intelligence that helps you witness what’s happening inside of you in real time with love and compassion. Experiment with resources that deepen your capacity to stay present in stressful moments.
The Dark Night of the Soul — In a season of obscurity/spiritual disorientation? I am familiar with this terrain my own spiritual landscape and see it as fertile ground worth lingering in. Having a companion who won’t rush you through disorientation can make the journey more bearable.
Deep Listening in a Season of Transition — It is hard to walk through change alone. Having a companion as we sift and sort, turn toward our deep knowing, imagine our options, and listen for “the thing under the thing” can be stabilizing.
Bringing Curiosity & Context — I bring lenses —contextually and organically — that may support you in opening to wisdom. With your consent, I offer these with great spaciousness, open-handedly, to support your discernment and access to choice. I am not an expert on your life. I’m not giving you advice, but inviting curiosity and context.
What Draws People to Spiritual Direction & Spacious Accompaniment
“I'd like someone to see me and know me over time.”
Someone who who will listen as I talk about what’s happening in my life and support my own deep listening. Someone who knows the long arc of my story and can hold it and me with compassion. A regular touch point — steady, non-judgmental presence over time.
“I want to engage my life in new ways, and I'd like gentle guidance exploring my inner landscape.”
I want a guide who can help me experiment with spiritual practices and nervous system education. Someone who will be a compassionate witness to — and can listen for wisdom in — the actual life I’m living. Someone to help me do the same.
“I’ve got questions that I don’t want answered for me. I’d like to be held in my questions — not fixed or saved.”
Can I trust myself?
What does love look like here?
What am I here for?
Can I be myself and still belong?
Is it supposed to be this hard?
“My experience of God, church and/or faith is shifting, and I need a place to talk about what is stirring in me.”
Curiosity/Doubt
Disorientation
Spiritual trauma & shame
Mystical awakening
Longings
Sorting out what I believe/know
Naming the harm
Connecting with my agency
Gender/Sexuality
Parenting as things are shifting in me
“Life is especially hard, complicated and confusing right now, and I need a space to anchor into rest, connection, hope, solidarity.”
Turning toward my pain with kindness
A life transition / liminal space
Grief & loss
Disenfranchised grief
Feeling stuck/restless
My kid came out and I want to love them well
Disorientation / Obscurity / Dark Night of the Soul
Existential pain
A spiritual director is trained to ask you the questions — to help you enter into whatever it is more fully, so that you can begin to discern what Spirit is up to in even this. This chaos, this turmoil, this joy. This challenge. This obstacle. This dark night of the soul.
– Rob Bell on the “You Listening to You” | Robcast
What Happens in a Session?
You get to choose how we begin. We transition from the pace of life into the rhythm of presence. And then we talk.
Conversation, silence, questions.
We may open with curiosity to an interaction you’ve been ruminating on, awe you experienced unexpectedly, doubt that’s lingering in your awareness, something that you sense or feel that you can’t quite name.
We are ALWAYS attuning to your experience in our times together; sometimes I engage more actively and sometimes I listen for the entire session. You have agency in the space.
We all have direct access to the divine (though our sense of this connection may sometimes seem inaccessible) — within us is a shared dwelling place. We are confluences of divine and human — we are made of the same sacred substance and also unique.
This divine DNA is sometimes called the inner teacher, the divine spark, the inner or subtle body, the soul, “a life within a life.”
We’ve often had little support in (or have been conditioned against) attuning to, trusting, and living from this deep knowing.
Spiritual Direction is a space to be held in our questions; it’s steady presence as we come home to our depths and inhabit our lives as fully and lovingly as we can.
