Three Association Podcast

Together in the Mystery is offering free supervision support for spiritual directors and supervisors in the LA area and beyond who are holding space with anyone affected by the LA fires.

Join Maria and Vanessa as they have an engaging conversation with The Rev. Dr. John Mabry about interfaith supervision, including how to use and understand the term "interfaith." The Rev. Dr. John Mabry holds a PhD in Philosophy and Religion, with special concentrations in Hinduism and Taoism. A United Church of Christ pastor, he has also served as editor for such publications as Creation Spirituality magazine and Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. For 21 years, John has directed the interfaith spiritual direction certificate program at the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley, California, and has taught world religions, comparative theology, and spiritual guidance at various Bay Area universities. John is the author of more than forty books, including Spiritual Guidance Across Religions; Growing Into God: A Beginner's Guide to Christian Mysticism; Noticing the Divine: An Introduction to Interfaith Spiritual Guidance; Faithful Generations: Effective Ministry Across Generational Lines and Faith Styles: Ways People Believe, and many others. He lives with his wife and dogs in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in New York.

Join Maria, Tara & Vanessa as they review their own take aways from this Season of Three Association, as well as a discussion of the importance of the structural and environmental areas in supervision and spiritual direction.

Join Maria and Vanessa as they discuss spiritual direction and supervision in the Malaysian context with supervisor Swee Kit. What assumptions do Western thinkers make that just aren't relevant or part of the picture in the East? Swee Kit is passionate about her calling to help people grow and deepen their relationship with God. Her involvement in student ministry and the desire to understand the process of spiritual transformation led her to Talbot School of Theology, where she completed her MA in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care and received her training as a spiritual director in 2017. She enjoys creating safe and hospitable spaces for others to encounter God, whether at retreats or in spiritual direction. Swee Kit completed her Advance Certificate in Supervision at Fordham University and offers supervision to spiritual directors.

Jeremy Frye, a supervisor and spiritual director with Anam Cara Ministries and the editor of Three Association, joins Vanessa and Maria to talk about the unique challenges and gifts of journeying with pastors and ministry leaders both in spiritual direction and supervision.

r. Kathleen McManus, OP, a Sister of Saint Dominic of Blauvelt, New York, joins Maria Tattu Bowen, Vanessa Caruso, and Tara Owens to discuss deep incarnation and how this orientation to the world and the life of Christ transforms the ministry of supervision in profound and beautiful ways.

Architect and Founding Principal of Echo Architecture Ryan Lloyd joins the podcast to talk about something that can go unnoticed and uncontemplated when it comes to our spirituality and our practice of both spiritual direction and supervision: the environmental arena and, specifically, our built environment. Join this fascinating conversation with our podcast hosts and Ryan as we discuss how built space makes an impact on our lives with the Divine.

Maria Tattu Bowen and Tara Owens speak with Scott Quinn about the importance of navigating issues related to LGBTQIA+ directees and directors with compassion, contemplation, and love as spiritual direction supervisors.

Join us for this season's first engaging episode with Tara Owens, Maria Tattu Bowen, and Sharon Wada. Sharon has been passionate about spiritual formation ministry since her graduate days at Fuller Seminary. Her special interests include multi-ethnic issues and leadership development in church and non-profit ministries. In addition to teaching in the School of Spiritual Direction, Sharon gladly serves as co-director of Sustainable Faith along side Dave Nixon. We're thrilled to have such a gifted and articulate guest launching this season of supervision conversations.

Vanessa and Tara give you a sneak peek of the upcoming Season 4 of Three Association and information on Together in the Mystery's supervision training launching this Fall. Did you know that Together in the Mystery offers supervision training for spiritual directors? Deadlines approach for our 2024-2025 Foundations of Supervision cohorts offered online and in Dallas, Texas and Dublin, Ireland. Foundations offers practical teaching and robust engagement with colleagues, along with individual supervision and mentoring as you grow your own supervision ministry. Already trained in supervision or looking for a more comprehensive program suitable for those forming spiritual directors? Our online Advanced Certificate in Supervision may be right for you. Visit www.togetherinthemystery.org/supervision-training or view our Three Association show notes to learn more and apply.

As we conclude Season Three of Three Association, join Maria, Tara & Vanessa to discuss where we've been and where we're going in Season Four (launching March 2024.)

Ruth Sohn joins Maria, Vanessa, and Tara in conversation about the practice of group supervision. Ruth brings wisdom, kindness, history, and humor to her practice of supervision within a particularly Jewish context.

Maria and Vanessa are joined by Online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts, author, and supervisor Christine Valters Paintner to discuss the ways art and creativity can bring fresh awareness, freedom, and delight to the practices of supervision and spiritual direction.

In a deeply personal episode, Maria Tattu Bowen, Vanessa Caruso, and Tara Owens discuss the impact of illness (both chronic and acute) on the practice of spiritual direction and supervision. How do we discern how to hold our visible and invisible illnesses? How might they change or charge our practice in particular ways?

Three Association is honored to host spiritual director and supervisor Fiona Koefoed-Jespersen in a dialogue about what it's like as both a director and supervisor in holding the possibilities and potentials of a feminine image of God. Reflecting on questions that might emerge for both director and supervisor, Fiona offers wise reflections as to why supervision matters in this rich conversation.

Maria Tattu Bowen and Vanessa Caruso engage in conversation with spiritual director, retreat leader, spiritual direction mentor, and Cameroonian native Antoinette Enohmbi about the immigrant experience within the context of spiritual direction.

Hosts Vanessa Caruso and Tara Owens are joined by trauma therapist, spiritual director, and educator Tracy Busse to talk about trauma in spiritual direction and supervision, polyvagal theory, and how to practice in a trauma-informed way.

Guest and supervisor Kim Isaak joins the Three Association team to discuss a powerful contemplative self-supervision tool. Kim is a certified Inner Relationship Focusing Teacher and brings a wealth of wisdom on how this practice brings us closer to God and to ourselves, especially in the practice of supervision.

Tara and Maria join Frank Rogers to discuss internal family systems and how this tool of self-understanding and self-awareness can be a liberating and beautiful way to self-supervise. IFS and its basic premises are an incredibly helpful set of lenses to bring to the practice of supervision.

The Experience Circle is a powerful tool in supervision to help supervisees experience God in all arenas and dimensions. Together, co-hosts Maria, Vanessa, and Tara explore how the Experience Circle has changed their practice of supervision.

Co-hosts Maria Tattu Bowen, Vanessa Caruso, and Tara Owens discuss what makes the Together in the Mystery model of supervision unique and why it matters to spiritual direction and supervision practices so deeply.

Join Maria, Tara & our new co-host, Vanessa Caruso, for a short preview of Season 3. We'll share our upcoming topics and when to expect the launch of this rich next season.

Maria and Tara are joined by previous guest Vanessa Caruso to talk about the gifts of Season Two, the things we've learned, and to share a big announcement about Season Three.

What does it mean to be a highly sensitive person, and how might that be connected to spiritual direction? What do spiritual directors need to be aware of in themselves and in others when it comes to being an HSP? Maria and Tara are joined by Dan Schrock, DMin, for this enlivening and grounding conversation about sensitivity, spirituality, and the support of supervision. Dan Schrock is the co-director of the Doctor of Ministry in Leadership degree at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Camaldolese Benedictine oblate affiliated with the Monastery of the Risen Christ in San Luis Obispo, California. He offers spiritual direction and supervision, and teaches in the Advanced Certificate in Supervision, which is offered through Fordham University's Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education.

The tables are turned in this episode as one of our hosts, Tara, becomes the guest for a discussion of what it means to hold space for deconstruction in both the spiritual direction and supervision relationships. Joined in the host chair by Vanessa Caruso, Maria and Tara take time to unpack this important and present topic. Tara Owens, CSD, CSDS is the Executive Director of Anam Cara Ministries, and has been a spiritual director and supervisor for more than 15 years. She is the author of two books, Embracing the Body: Finding God In Our Flesh & Bone (IVP: 2015) and At Play In God's Creation: A Contemplative Coloring Book (Franciscan Media: 2017), teaches and trains spiritual directors through the Anam Cara Apprenticeship and lives in Colorado with her family.

Maria and Tara are joined by our guest Monica Romig Green for a conversation about how power works in the spiritual direction and supervision relationships. A lively discussion that has our hosts thinking about power from a fresh angle, this conversation is full of new awareness—and even some discomfort—about all the ways power shows up in these holy spaces. Together they explore how power is more than—and not what!—we think it is. Monica Romig Green is spiritual director, writer, speaker, and retreat leader. She has been giving spiritual direction since 2003, and is passionate about creativity and the arts, and teaches on improvisation, and creativity. She offers original interactive spiritual retreats called Play Without Ceasing (www.playwithoutceasing.com) which combine the concepts of theatrical improvisation and spiritual formation to help participants encounter Christ and His Body with renewed joy and wonder. A breast cancer survivor, she also served as staff and adjunct faculty at Biola University. As the facilitator for Biola's Center for Spiritual Renewal, she supervised 75 spiritual directors and oversaw all community-building events at Biola's Institute for Spiritual Formation. A native of Southern California, she currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where she is a candidate to ordination in the Anglican Church of Canada with her husband, Matthew, and rescue Chihuahua, Gomez.

In this episode, Maria and Tara are joined by therapist Sam Jolman for a cross-discipline discussion of what are called dual, complex, or multiple relationships in spiritual direction. What can we learn from the therapeutic understanding of multiple relationships? What imagination might we need for the spiritual direction space when it comes to dual roles? What questions might we bring to our own supervisors as we consider these relationships of holy listening? Sam is a professional therapist with over 15 years of experience in narrative-focused trauma care. He specializes in men's issues, couples counseling, and sexual abuse recovery. He writes regularly for his blog on topics of sexuality, spirituality, and mental health. He loves helping people heal and find freedom amidst the plots of their lives. He lives in Colorado with his wife and three young sons, the people that inspire his writing and ideas the most. Together, in their pop-up camper, they are exploring the best camping spots in Colorado. Sam goes to therapy, mountain bikes, and can be found trying to catch his breath on the floor of his local CrossFit gym. His forthcoming book, The Sex Talk You Never Got, is set to release with Thomas Nelson in the Spring '24. You can follow along and get his free ebook Story Formed at his website SamJolman.com

Confidentiality is deeply important in the spiritual direction and supervision space, but what do we need to consider when thinking about how to guard the holy ground of our directee's souls? What imagination might be necessary when we talk about confidentiality with ourselves and with others? What does that process look like, and how might it be engaged in creativity and hope? Join Maria and Tara as they talk with our guest Jeremy Frye about the ins, outs, and practicalities of confidentiality in the spiritual direction and supervision relationship. Jeremy Frye is a spiritual director, retreat leader, and Director of Sacred Community for Anam Cara Ministries. One of his deepest joys is companioning people on their journey toward living into and out of their belovedness. His vocational pilgrimage began with serving for 20 years in full-time pastoral ministry in the local church, which has given him a profound understanding of and compassion for those whose personal spirituality and professional contexts converge (sometimes easily and sometimes causing great distress). He is deeply acquainted with grief and loss as well as the good but difficult work of the disordering and reordering of one's faith. Jeremy has completed a certificate in Soul Care from the Soul Care Institute, through Fuller Seminary, a 2-year apprenticeship in spiritual direction through Anam Cara, and is currently enrolled in the Companioning Center's program for Supervision Training. Jeremy lives with his wife, two children, one dog, six chickens, and whoever else needs a place to rest their head at An Téarmann (Gaelic for the refuge), their little urban homestead in East Nashville, Tennessee. He is taking both local and at-a-distance directees and supervisees. He can be reached via email at:jeremy@anamcara.com.

What is self-supervision, and how do spiritual directors practice it? What role does it play in engaging in the process of supervision with an individual supervisor or group supervision? Spiritual director and supervisor Terry Christensen joins hosts Maria and Tara to discuss this essential step in the practice of spiritual direction. Terry Christenson has offered spiritual direction, retreats, and classes in contemplative practices since 2002. She was trained as a supervisor in 2008 as part of the original cohort of Together in the Mystery. She currently works with several schools of spiritual direction and supervisor formation as a supervisor/trainer and is a member of Spiritual Directors International. She makes her home in southwest Oregon.

Join hosts Maria and Tara as they discuss the issue of self-disclosure in a spiritual direction relationship with guest Greg Cochran. Together they explore how and when it might be appropriate for a spiritual director to share from their personal story in a spiritual direction session and what the pitfalls of sharing in this way might be. What should a director be on guard for? What might be the positive side of self-disclosure?

In Episode 2, Maria and Tara speak with Luz Marina Diaz on what it's like to end a spiritual direction relationship.

Season 2 launches with a conversation on beginning a spiritual direction relationship with podcast guest Scott Quinn.

In the Season One wrap-up, Maria and Tara give thanks, savor the gift of supervision, and ask for your feedback as we prepare for Season Two and beyond. Look for Season Two to drop in Fall 2022.

In the final episode of Season 1, Maria and Tara are joined by Lil Smith to discuss the difference between individual and group supervision. When is one appropriate more than the other? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both?

Join Maria and Tara as they welcome guest, supervisor, and Advanced Supervision Certificate (GRE), Fordham University student Vanessa Caruso to discuss what it means to develop a tool kit for spiritual direction or supervision. Data protection protocols, suicide prevention protocols, covenant, a professional will—why and how do these fold in to the contemplative stance of spiritual direction?

Spiritual director, supervisor, and author Susan S. Phillips talks with Maria and Tara about the importance of appropriate boundaries in spiritual direction and supervision. Susan S. Phillips (Ph.D.) is executive director of New College Berkeley, an affiliate of the Graduate Theological Union. Susan is a spiritual director who, in addition to meeting with people one-on-one, also speaks around the world and regularly leads retreats for colleges, churches, clergy, and laity. Susan Phillips is a sociologist and teaches regularly for New College Berkeley, Regent College (Canada), Fuller Theological Seminary, and the Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction program at San Francisco Theological Seminary. For more information, view www.threeasssociation.com

Joined in conversation with supervisor, spiritual director, and therapist Linda Flynn, Maria and Tara discuss the question of when to refer in spiritual direction. Together they explore what it means to understand the ethical and practical boundaries of spiritual direction, and what flags help us know when to refer. Please note that this informal conversation about referral is informational only, and should not be used in place of your own supervision, direction, or therapy. If you or your directees/supervisees are experiencing any of the symptoms discussed in this podcast, contact your spiritual director, supervisor, or therapist for appropriate and individualized support.

Join hosts Maria and Tara as they discuss the concept of developing a capacity cushion in our practice of spiritual direction, along with guest and MBA-Cyber Security (cand.) Bryan Owens. Bryan brings a fresh and inviting way of exploring our way of being with others and approaching care for our own souls.

Hosts Maria and Tara share about the tragic death of our co-host, Noel. This episode marks a change in format, as we honor Noel's legacy by moving forward, but don't fill his chair as host. Instead, as we continue we welcome guests to explore these topics with us, leaving the third chair "open" for the Spirit. Episode 4's topic is self-care for spiritual directors, with our guest, ​the Rev. Dr. Rebecca Bradburn Langer who is a trained, experienced spiritual director and supervisor.

In this episode, Noel, Maria, and Tara explore the way compassion and compassionate presence in supervision transform the experience from one of tension to one of openness and grace, where the supervisee is free to experience interior movement, invitations, and deeper awareness of Divine Love.

Join our hosts Maria, Tara, and Noel as we explore what to expect in supervision. We'll consider what a spiritual director brings to a supervision session and why contemplative reflection forms matter to the process.

The inaugural episode of the Three Association podcast, a supervision podcast with hosts Maria Bowen, Tara Owens, and Noel Cabigting.