top of page
< Back

How do you find spiritual support when you have no idea where to start?

Not with a method, but with a decision and some quiet. Jacqueline Le Saunier describes the turning point as choosing to follow what felt true for her, long before she knew what that would look like in practice.

The question sounds too vague to answer, which is why most guides skip it and start one step later, with a method already chosen. That skipped step is where most people actually are.

Start with a decision, not a method

Jacqueline Le Saunier describes the turning point in her own life as choosing to live by what she felt was true for her, before she had any idea how that would work in practice. She is explicit that the decision did not make her enlightened or consistent. What it did was set a direction, after which she kept asking, in ordinary situations: what am I actually feeling here, what is true for me here. She is honest that this needed years of work on self-worth alongside it.

Silence, in a lower-key form than you expect

The word meditation puts many people off, and Le Saunier deliberately widens it: walking the dog counts, lying on the bed and doing nothing counts. Doing nothing at all, without the intention of achieving anything by it, is the version most adults have unlearned. Her point is that a minute or two of it changes what you are able to hear, and that scheduling it as a practice often defeats it.

Sylvia Leifheit makes the same point from the other side. The first step is not information, it is quiet. Not because quiet supplies answers, but because everything else is loud enough to drown out the quieter signal.

Own the choice, including the easy one

Le Saunier argues for taking responsibility even when you choose the easier path. If you sense which direction would be right for you and consciously decide against it for now, because you lack the capacity or the timing is wrong, that is a real choice you have made. It is a very different position from telling yourself you had none. The first leaves the direction available to you later. The second hands it to someone else to be blamed for.

Key takeaways

  • You do not need to identify the right modality before you begin.
  • A decision to look is itself the first step, even without a plan.
  • Quiet without an agenda works better than quiet turned into a task.
  • Choosing the easier path consciously keeps the harder one open later.

Related reading: Try Two or Three Sessions to Find a Spiritual Mentor Who Fits and Spiritual Glossary: 61 Terms, Explained Honestly

bottom of page