SPIRITUAL COUNSELLING IN SCOTLAND
In essence, Spiritual Counselling, is being with another person in complete acceptance and non-judgement, listening deeply to what is being said as well as to what’s not being said. The invitation with Spiritual Counselling is to bring your whole undiluted self – your joy, your love, your peace, your compassion, your hurts, your pain, your anger, your despair, your confusion, your questioning - into the space and place we’ve pre-prepared for us to sit together.
We take our lead from you in terms of the support structure that we set up to ensure you feel safe and held by us – we can use silence and stillness, hands on healing, talking, guided meditation, visualisation, prayer, music, song, dance – whatever would feel fitting and supportive for you, and every person is different.
Your beliefs direct our session and its content on the outer, and our beliefs create a foundation for our session on the inner. Whilst we sit and talk we concentrate on being together with you in loving kindness and peace, holding the vision for you, that even if you don’t feel it in the moment, there is still a place of 'connection' within you that remains even if the trauma, stress or pain you're experiencing means that you feel entirely disconnected from it.
Together, we open ourselves up to a deeper level of wisdom and inspiration around your questions; we invoke intuition and inner guidance around confusion; we invite compassion, healing and forgiveness around pain, loss and sadness; we invite you to bring whatever you need to bring, and to receive whatever you need to receive, from our time together – peace, clarity, healing, grounding or something else.
We find more and more that when something seemingly goes wrong in life people need a safe place to let go – a relationship break up; the death of a loved one; a loss of security in some form, perhaps redundancy, perhaps bankruptcy – something that feels huge and life changing.
Very often the level of despair or pain opens us up to a new places within ourselves, and we might begin to see our lives with new and different perspectives, or to have thoughts or feelings which are a little strange or uncomfortable at first. We offer support and friendship for the times in life when you don’t know where to turn to. Whether you’re experiencing a challenge on the physical, emotional, mental or spiritual levels, we’re here to help.
We offer a service either from our homes or our place of work. We’re also happy to talk over the phone – contact us individually for more information (Individual Ministers have different charges associated with Spiritual Counselling – please contact the Minister you wish to work with for their guidelines and fee structure.)
The loss of a loved one feels different for every individual – everyone experiences a unique mix of shock, grief, anger, guilt, confusion and other emotions in their own way. Should you find that you need or want some additional support from someone who is not family or a friend, and to sit down with someone face to face to talk about your thoughts or feelings, we’re here to help.
Should distance or cost be prohibitive there are many wonderful telephone services offering free bereavement counselling, two of which are
Samaritans 08457 909090
Cruse Bereavement Care 0870 167 1677
As far as we’re aware, there is no overtly spiritual or religious element in what either Samaritans or Cruse offer.
Relationships give us perhaps our richest experiences of being human – both the joys and the challenges. Of course, relationships exist between us and all our fellow humans – parents/children, siblings, family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, strangers – for the sake of clarity, here we’re talking about that special someone, your significant other, your partner or spouse.
Modern living is a sometimes challenging mixture of responsibilities and pleasures, and finding a sense of balance between the different areas that make up our every day lives can cause us stress – work, hobbies, health, money, children, relationship and so on. We may find that we spend the majority of our time at work, with any free time centred around our children, or aging parents, or day to day practicalities – to the detriment of our partner. We might find that the only time we give to our romantic relationship is when we’re tired or under pressure which can lead to miscommunication and feeling as if we’ve lost that loving feeling.
Making a space and place to talk to one another, to making the relationship of primary importance again can be both relieving, healing and rejuvenating. If it helps to set you off again in the right direction, by having someone help you explore where you’re at and where you’d like to be, and in doing so remind you of what you love and appreciate about one another and why you choose to share your lives together, we’re here to help.
If you’ve already found, or you find in that process, that you’re headed in different directions, and that it’s time to consider or choose another way forward, we offer support to individuals and opposite sex and same sex couples - we can offer Spiritual Counselling and or healing ritual and ceremony.
Some couples who decide to go their separate ways opt to have a ceremony to mark the occasion – for those that had a blessing or ceremony to begin their marriage or togetherness they feel that a ceremony makes a fitting form of closure.
Sometimes only one person of a couple feels able or willing to have a ceremony or ritual. Either way we can help.
It can also be very helpful to have a ceremony when children are involved, so that each parent very consciously makes a commitment to the child, even if they won’t be living in the same house anymore. Sometimes the child feels as if they’ve done something wrong, so it’s helpful to mark the changes and reassure them.
Ceremony and ritual can help around any difficulty or occasion.
To find a spiritual counsellor in Scotland near you, please see the list of ministers / counsellors, who each have their own contact details.
