Honing Your Craft. Winter Workshops with Sue Dunbar - Online
Refresh your spiritual direction skills in an online community of practice with this series of professional development workshops. Each workshop will involve some pre-reading, short input, practice groups as well as time for sharing and questions. No previous knowledge is required but the first workshop will lay the foundations for the other sessions and is therefore recommended if you want to do any of the other workshops.
Sue Dunbar is an experienced formator and a Life Member of our ANSD community.
Cost: $40 per session
Workshop 1: Landscape and Inscape, 16th July, 7-9pm (EST) Foundational
In this workshop we will explore the metaphor of landscape and inscape as a way of understanding the spiritual direction process. Landscape is the external terrain of what is going on. We listen to the directee’s story as they describe their experience in detail, ie the external terrain of their life. It’s where they externally experience life and all its happenings. Inscape is where these things have made their mark internally. This is where we experience life and the events of our life at an interior level.
Sue will explain landscape and inscape in detail, with practical application, then discuss how this can inform our spiritual direction practice. There will be time to share wisdom in small groups.
Booking: https://www.trybooking.com/DKVKY
Workshop 2: Working with a Feeling, 23rd July, 7-9pm (EST)
Feelings bring us into the immediacy of the “Now” moment, the place where God is. Learning how to encourage directees to ‘be with’ a feeling is an important tool for the spiritual director. Feelings are always present in the session however directees may not always be aware or present to the feelings they are experiencing. Reflecting feelings assists the other to encounter their felt experience. During this workshop we will revise and develop our skills in attending to the feelings of another in spiritual direction. During this workshop we will revise and develop our skills in attending to the feelings of another in spiritual direction.
Booking: https://www.trybooking.com/DKVLV
Workshop 3: Process Skipping, 30th July, 7-9pm (EST)
Process skipping is a conditioned reaction which automatically bypasses or obscures the real feelings behind some compulsive, structure-bound pattern. Sue will reintroduce us to these process-skipping patterns and offer some suggestions of how to deal with this in spiritual direction sessions. There will be opportunity for discussion and sharing our experiences plus preparing questions for the large group.
Booking: https://www.trybooking.com/DKVWN
Workshop 4: Working with an Image, 6th August, 7-9pm (EST)
The “imagination opens us to an experience of the Ultimate coming through finite reality, to the depth at the heart of the matter. It is the imagination that knows the concrete in terms of its pervasive mystery… the imagination takes us through the finite to something more than finite; finally it takes us to God.” The Inner Rainbow, Kathleen Fischer.
This quote by Kathleen Fischer is a great description of the power of images and the gift of the imagination. Sue will introduce and guide us through the process of working with an image and discuss how it might be used in spiritual direction. There will be an opportunity to practice this process in small groups.
Booking: https://www.trybooking.com/DKVYI