What is Spiritual Counselling?

A lot of people don't know what spiritual counseling is and generally misunderstand it for traditional counseling or life coaching. The spiritual approach to counseling recognizes that our thoughts create our life and in order to create the life that we really want, we need to look at the mind-body-spirit connection.

It is a way to attune ourselves for messages that we are sending to ourselves through our thoughts, emotions and the meaning that we make out of everything that we experience. Many of these thoughts come from our past experiences and are untrue at this point in our lives.

The potential for healing comes from the interconnection to our higher self. It helps us to know that deep inside we are full of love. This holistic form of therapy takes into account all aspects of a human being.

It has nothing to do with any specific organized religion, but can help you understand that there are numerous spiritual and philosophical ways that we can look at the ups and downs of life. More often than not, this can fill that deep need or void that you may have, for a more meaningful and profound life.

Why do you need spiritual counseling?

People who feel alone in their journey towards spirituality may often find themselves in confusion and despair. This is because they are so close to their goals, yet too far from achieving it. They may find it difficult to climb that 'one additional step' towards their destination.

Spiritual counselors assist them in understanding the true essence of inner peace. This way all the mental and emotional hurdles that individual faces become nonexistent.

What can spiritual counseling help you with?

Every day we face stressful situations in our life. Not everyone handles stress in the same way.  Stress can take a huge toll on a person's emotional or mental well-being. Hence, it's important for us to know to deal with stress in an effective manner so that it doesn't result in undue emotional or psychological pain.

Spiritual counseling can play a huge in helping someone manage stress. Research says that over 50 percent of individuals are not able to deal with psychological disorders on their own. It has been proven that when conventional counseling doesn't yield optimum results, spiritual counseling proves beneficial.

What is the difference between spiritual counseling and traditional counseling?

Traditional counseling involves addressing the mental and emotional issues that an individual faces. But the spiritual dimension is generally omitted. Most of the time, the psychological conflicts stay in the subconscious mind which we are not aware of. Spirituality helps the person get a better understanding of self and more control over his emotional well-being.

Spiritual counseling requires fewer sessions than traditional psychological counseling. In spiritual counseling, the emphasis is on holistic well-being - both emotional and spiritual and assisting the client in inner balance and integration of all the dimensions of Self. Moreover, spiritual counseling focuses on the client’s individual experiences and reality. Also, each client is seen as an individual and the sessions are nonprescriptive and individually tailored.

The spiritual counselor is thus active and creative, responding to the immediate issues brought by the client. Here, the assumption is that human beings are innately motivated towards achieving their highest potential of awareness and fulfillment; the counselor's role is to support this and trust the client’s process.

What does a spiritual counselor do and what to expect?

Spiritual counseling can help clients gain insight into the ways their core beliefs and values are reflected in their behavior. Also, clients may discover that they need to reexamine these values. Counselors must remain open and nonjudgmental, recognizing that there are multiple paths toward fulfilling spiritual needs.

It is not mandatory for the counselor to prescribe any particular pathway because primarily, the person of interest is the client. Therefore, spiritual counselors can make use of the spiritual and religious beliefs of their clients to help them explore and resolve their problems.

To effectively address spiritual concerns in assessment and treatment, counselors need to have competencies in working with values. Training programs must incorporate discussions on how to work with values as a part of the therapeutic process.

Benefits of spiritual counseling

Spiritual counseling has innumerable benefits and has helped people to understand themselves better. This type of counseling helps people to connect with their divine self and encourages them to seek answers within themselves rather than looking elsewhere.

Some other benefits include:

• Develops powerful intuition
• Relieves stress
• Alleviates anxiety
• Encourages positive outlook
• Reduces negative emotions
• Helps to openly face fears and phobias

Conclusion

Counseling for spiritual wellness includes attention to the spiritual component of each dimension of wellness. It also involves helping an individual move towards spiritual wellness. Moreover, an individual who is in a state of spiritual wellness can also be assisted in counseling to achieve further spiritual development.

Facing difficulties in life? Feeling alone and disconnected? Spiritual counseling might be what you need. Meet your preferred spiritual counseling expert here.