Spiritual Direction with Jessica McKimmie
Peace Through Grief
There are moments in life when our path forward isn’t clear. We are dancing with existential questions or coming to grips with ideas or expectations of our life not matching what we we once thought. These moments are not asking us to “solve” or “fix” like many of us are used to doing. These moments require something else: acceptance, compassion, and listening. Listening inward and learning to listen to the connection with all things. Spiritual Direction is a gentle, sacred space to do exactly that.
As a Spiritual Director, I sit with you in attentive presence as you explore your relationship with the deeper currents of your life, from your specific life purpose, to our greater sources of connection which could be God, Spirit, Love, or something unnamed. This is not about giving advice, prescribing beliefs, or guiding you toward a specific outcome. Instead, it is about creating space for your own inner wisdom, beliefs, questions, longings, and experiences to be heard and honored.
Spiritual Direction can be especially meaningful if you are:
- Navigating life transitions, grief, or loss
- Questioning or redefining your faith or spiritual identity
- Seeking a deeper sense of meaning, connection, or purpose
- Longing for a quiet, reflective space in a busy or overwhelming world
- Feeling disconnected and wanting to gently find your way back into “interbeing”
In our time together, we move at your pace. We listen for what is stirring beneath the surface. We notice where there is movement, where there is resistance, and where there may be invitation to go deeper. There is no pressure to arrive anywhere—only an openness to what is already unfolding within you.
My work through Peace Through Grief has always been rooted in the belief that healing is not about “getting over” difficult parts of our lives, but about learning how to carry these parts with compassion, presence, and meaning. Spiritual Direction is a natural extension of this work. It’s a place where grief, faith, doubt, hope, and transformation are all welcome.
If you are feeling drawn to this kind of support, I would be honored to walk alongside you.
You don’t need to have the right words. You don’t need to be certain of what you believe. You only need a willingness to show up with the questions present for you today.
Spiritual Direction for Chaplaincy Students
Spiritual Direction is a formative practice that supports your ongoing spiritual and vocational integration as a chaplain. While your training equips you to care for others, Spiritual Direction creates a dedicated space for tending to your own interior life.
At its core, Spiritual Direction is a contemplative, relational process in which a trained director accompanies you in reflecting on your lived experience, paying attention to where you notice meaning, tension, consolation, desolation, and movement in your spiritual life.
For chaplaincy students, this often includes:
- Exploring how your personal story and spiritual history shape your presence with those you serve
- Noticing internal responses that arise in clinical or pastoral encounters
- Deepening your capacity for reflective listening and non-anxious presence
- Attending to calling, identity, and volition/vocation while holding awareness of Pathological Altruism
- Creating space to process grief, ambiguity, and spiritual fatigue that can emerge in care work
Spiritual Direction is not supervision, counseling, or evaluation. It is not about clinical outcomes or performance. Instead, it is a space of attentive listening—to your own experience and to the subtle ways meaning and Spirit may be moving within it.
For many in chaplaincy formation, Spiritual Direction becomes an essential grounding practice—helping you remain connected to your own center as you accompany others through some of life’s most tender and complex moments.
If you are a chaplaincy student seeking a space to reflect, integrate, and be accompanied in your formation, I would be honored to support you in that journey. ~ Jess
