Cultivating a community of care: Trained Spiritual Director Aaron Manes talks about spiritual pauses, staying in shape and finding balance
Soul tenders.
We might be licensed professional counselors (LPC), trained spiritual directors, coaches, and the like - individuals whose ministry focuses on holding space for the other.
Spend some time in these circles, and you’ll hear that it is truly a gift it is to do this type of work. Most consider it a calling, a vocation. At the beginning of one’s ministry, the excitement of discovering this niche of holding space for others and witnessing God at work in the lives of those we companion can be astonishing, breathtaking and exciting.
It is Holy ground.
Serving in this role produces an additional reality.
Hearing the innermost stirrings of others’ soul and faith journeys, their traumas, dreams, disappoints, hurts can be tiring. Fatigue and burnout can set in easily without the proper maintenance. Also, space holders need community, otherwise it can be a lonely place.
Retreat House Spirituality Center recently connected with Trained Spiritual Director Aaron Manes to talk about how he stays in shape - keeping his mind, body and soul in a place of balance so that he can offer support to others.
Retreat House: You’ve talked in the past about the importance of cultivating a community of care. As a spiritual director who tends to the souls of others, how do you tend to your own soul and why is it important to do so?
Manes: Curiosity and openness are the two postures that resonate for me here. Soul growth requires me wanting to grow, to be curious about what could be and then to be open about what comes of that. It never fails that the Holy Spirit speaks through my sessions, and I have to be paying attention to what message I am noticing and all the places that it is coming from.
“It never fails that something I have talked about in my own direction or therapy quickly shows right back up in the story of someone else. So I have learned that to intentionally hold space for someone else requires my own inner work.”
Retreat House: Who is on your care team? If so, mind shedding a little light on who that entails? Frequency? People? Places? Rhythms?
I do. I have the typical people you might think of:
a Spiritual Director and a Counselor/Therapist. I see them 1-2 times per month. I see both of them on Zoom.
I participate in peer spiritual direction supervision once a month with a few other spiritual directors on Zoom. We live all over the country.
I lead a group of people at church who I stay in a lot of spiritual conversation with.
Then, this is my newest group of people. For the past two years I have been studying and working on a somatic or embodied enneagram program with Marion Gilbert. This has been both in person and on zoom. Out of that I have been regularly meeting with two small groups who both do somatic work and process that work together. We meet once a week on zoom. Again, we live all over the place (including other continents).
Retreat House: As your friend, I know that you identify as an Enneagram 5. You've shared that your invitation is to move into your body. How does this wisdom/knowledge about yourself inform how you "stay in shape?"
Manes: If you are an Enneagram person you will know that as a 5 or “thinking type” that my head is my most engaged part of my type (or ego). One of the big things for 5’s is that we can easily be floating heads in the world. This means that I likely don’t include my body/intuition or my feelings into my daily experience. Oftentimes, what we aren’t including is exactly the place of invitation. I like trying experiments with my life, so a few years ago I started working out with a friend. Around the same time, I was doing enneagram work and my teacher pointed me to this somatic work. My doctor also told me that I needed to make some changes to my diet.
“See, the Spirit brings you all sorts of invitations if you are listening.”
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For my emotions to come online, I had to get my body online first. What I am aiming for is to have all three centers working at the same time in the present. That is a big goal but it is worth chasing. As I have engaged my body’s wisdom, I am way more in tuned with myself and with my present world. Even sore muscles become our teachers if we are open to being in the present.
Retreat House: You are big into spiritual practice. How does tending to your own mind, body and soul fit into your idea/intentions for spiritual practice?
Manes: In his book The Sacred Enneagram, Chris Heuertz introduces three spiritual practices for head, heart and body (or as you said: mind, body, soul).
For head people, we need silence. This is so difficult because our monkey brain runs wild in our world most of the time. Body people need stillness. As you can imagine, for people who “do” things in their body, slowing or stopping is very difficult. Emotional or feelings people need solitude. They need time for their emotions to settle so they can “feel” clearly. The reality is that I need to tend to these three centers of my body in their own spiritual way. All three centers are spiritual and they are the key to our own wholeness. I like to talk about a three-legged stool in terms of creating body, mind and soul balance. If we don’t include just one leg, then we are out of balance.
Retreat House: I remember you invited one of your directees to leave their phone at home and walk on a regular basis. This is definitely a spiritual practice! When companioning others on their spiritual journey, what other types of practices do you recommend? And, do you do tailor this to each person?
Manes: This truly is personalized, because people carry different energies and those energies need different connections. There are the classic practices but typically I am looking for something that will create pauses in their lives. Someone may need to remove something from their life. Someone may need to add something. Whatever they do, it needs to create a spiritual pause for them.
During my spiritual direction training, I was introduced us to “The Experience Circle” and this has actually been a really helpful resource when it comes to introducing spiritual practices.
The experience circle categorizes the way people typically talk about God into four paths: Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Nature and Systems and structures
Often people will tell you where they experience God the most if you just ask them. Many people respond to being in nature, other people might find God in the comfort of a sanctuary - it is important that they use resources where they already have connection to get started with spiritual practice. It is important to honor this in ourselves as soul caregivers as well as when working and offering invitations to others.
Retreat House: In your own words, what is spiritual direction to you? Any idea what the Holy is inviting you to cultivate right now in your own life?
Manes:
“Spiritual Direction for me is about creating spiritual agency for other people.”
I just love when someone who is skeptical for any reason slowly begins to trust in themselves and the Divine Spirit of God.
Manes says his faith journey right now is about working to connect with his past, community and story in order to find a deeper connection with the Divine. At Retreat House, we believe that exploring and sharing sacred stories give our lives meaning so that we might follow in the footsteps of others, live the stories and find community with the divine inspired past.
How do you cultivate a community of care? Do you have a story to share? We would love to hear from you. Also, if you have questions about finding a spiritual direction supervisor, spiritual director or counselor, send us a note!
Voices from the RH community:
Aaron Manes Aaron Manes (he/him) is a certified spiritual director, an enneagram teacher and a mission-driven leader. He currently serves as the Director of Online Ministry and Spiritual Engagement at Arapaho United Methodist Church in Richardson, TX, where he leads the Room 2 community for people who are deconstructing faith. He is also a student of Enneagram teacher Marion Gilbert and is part of the first certification cohort in the Somatic Enneagram in the US. Learn more about Aaron and contact him.
This article was written by Emily Turner Watson. Part of Emily’s ministry and desire is to facilitate spiritual and emotional healing through listening, loving presence, prayer, and writing. She is a trained spiritual director. Learn more.