Thank you for listening to the Allender Center podcast.

I'm Dr. Dan Allender.

And I'm Rachel Clinton-Centen.

We're fiercely committed to providing hope and healing to a fragmented world.

And restoration for the heart.

Thank you for joining us.

Let's get this conversation started.

Thank you for joining us. Let's get this conversation started. Good people with good bodies. As you know, we take healing from trauma and abuse very seriously here at the Allender Center. It's a core part of

our mission and really central to a lot of the work that we're doing. And we do our best,

especially on the podcast, to engage the multidimensional nature of healing, meaning there isn't

just one way to pursue healing and quite often, especially throughout our lifetime because we know

healing takes a lifetime, we need to engage multiple modalities in our healing journey that tend

to the wounds of our bodies, our minds, our relationships, and capacity for love. And that

includes our spirituality and our imagination. And one modality of care and healing that we haven't

engaged as much on the Allender Center podcast is the work of spiritual direction. I think it can be a

vital part of healing our spiritual imagination and attachment with God and self and others, but we'll get

to that. And as someone who has benefited greatly from spiritual

direction in my own healing journey, I am thrilled to welcome my friend and colleague Vanessa

Sadler to join us today. Welcome, Vanessa. Thank you so much for having me, Rachel. It's good to be

with you. Vanessa Sadler is a trauma-informed spiritual director, a contemplative creative,

retreat facilitator, and Peace Talks podcast host. She brings an embodied wisdom, a rooted

spirituality, a gracious truth-telling, and a gritty hope. In her work with others, she utilizes

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