“The first duty of love is to listen.” – Paul Tillich
Companioning individuals on their journey to discover the sacred stories of everyday life. Facilitation for families and individuals through loss and grief. Contemplative retreat facilitation Contact:
226-338-6707 [email protected] Available in-person and virtually via Zoom, Skype or WhatsApp |
Martina Steiger
Kitchener-Waterloo, ON
Ministry Description:
Spiritual Companioning is a process of deep listening available to individuals and groups of diverse faith backgrounds. In a safe, welcoming and supportive space, I provide contemplative conversation to discover and honour the sacred stories of everyday life. As each person’s spiritual journey is unique, I offer a variety of practices that best facilitate personal growth and transformation. Reflective writing and storytelling workshops with a spiritual lens help create meaning and reshape connections within and without. Honouring our own mortality, our grief and loss experienced through transitions in our lives–which often run as undercurrents–deeply informs my approach to spiritual companioning. Background: I have spent most of my life as an educator engaging with teens and young adults in high school and university as well as with adults of all ages. I have been providing life and story care and coaching along with spiritual care since 2004, when I became ordained as a minister and completed my training as a Spiritual Director. At the same time, I became a member of Spiritual Directors International and continue to receive Spiritual Direction myself. During my doctoral studies in theology, I explored spiritual traditions throughout the world, which led me to a heartfelt appreciation of the mystical traditions of various religions, in particular Christianity. Over the last two decades, I have completed education in stress and traumatic incident reduction as well as narrative methods that have deepened my capacity to listen and witness your stories. I can offer you two particular areas of expertise: I am deeply committed to companioning individuals on their journey through chronic illness, grief and loss, end-of-life, death and dying, and to caregivers of those individuals. My studies in Narrative Medicine, my own parents’ aging process into their nineties along with my experiences as a Spiritual Facilitator with the Hospice of Waterloo Region serve me well to provide a safe and sacred place for all. Awareness of how our fragile and precious mortality shapes our life resides at the core of my approach to Spiritual Companioning. I am also deeply committed to providing a safe space for young adults to explore their own identity in the context of meaning creation, identity, social justice and the environment. |